Photo by Fr. Lawrence Lew, O.P. of a detail from a mosaic in the Rosary Basilica of Lourdes.
START WITH SCRIPTURE:
Luke 2:41-52
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OBSERVE:
Very little is written in the Gospels of the life of Jesus between his birth and the inauguration of his ministry as an adult. This brief passage is an oasis in that unknown territory.
There are spurious sources from some of the early Gnostic Gospels that describe his childhood in far-fetched terms, and a modern New Age work called The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus Christ that purports to prove that Jesus traveled to India and learned from the Hindu gurus there. These are baseless versions outside of the canon of Scripture. They were rejected from the canon for good reason.
We learn a few helpful details about this transitional period of Jesus’ childhood in this week’s Gospel reading. For example, we learn that his parents were observant Jews who went every year:
to Jerusalem for the Festival of the Passover.
We also learn that Jesus was twelve years old. We learn from the Mishna, which are books of Jewish tradition, that religious instruction for a twelve-year old boy in Jesus’ time became more intense as he prepared to enter manhood.
These two realities set the stage for the family drama that unfolds in Jerusalem.
Passover, in the Jewish tradition, is both a family and a religious festival. Families gather together, often inviting guests, to share a Seder meal that recalls the events of the Exodus through symbolic foods and liturgy. In Jesus’ day, this would also have included a trip to the temple to offer a sacrifice, and to bring back the sacrificial lamb for the Passover table.
We are reminded that years later, Jesus will again return to Jerusalem and share the Passover Seder meal with his disciples.
Some scholars estimate that the population in Jerusalem during such a popular festival might have swollen six times its normal size. The ancient Jewish historian Josephus estimated that the numbers in Jerusalem might have equaled 2,700,200.
So, it is easy to see how Jesus and his parents might have become separated from one another at some point during the festival.
It was also very likely that when families in first century Palestine traveled, the men traveled with men, and the women and children traveled with one another. So, would Jesus have traveled with the men, or as a twelve-year-old would he have traveled with the women and children? Here we find the confusion between Mary and Joseph:
Assuming that he was in the group of travelers, they went a day’s journey. Then they started to look for him among their relatives and friends.
The last place anyone had seen Jesus was in Jerusalem, so:
When they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem to search for him.
Notice how long they searched:
After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions.
This can hardly be a coincidence — Jesus is “lost” to them for three days before he is returned. After his crucifixion in Jerusalem some 21 years later, Jesus would be “lost” in the grave for three days before he is raised.
Jesus the twelve-year-old is obviously a prodigy:
And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers.
Not only is he listening to the teachers and asking questions, he is also teaching them!
Luke tells us that his parents were astonished. What astonished them? That Jesus is so precociously wise, or that he has been so mischievous, at least from their perspective?
Mary scolds her son:
“Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety.”
The answer Jesus offers suggests a self-consciousness of his unique relationship with God:
“Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” But they did not understand what he said to them.
Does he understand at this stage in his development that he is the Son of God? Does his tone reveal adolescent impertinence, or is he sincere in his surprise that his parents are surprised that he would be found in the temple discussing Torah and other spiritual matters?
In any event, he is quite at home in the temple, engaging the priests and teachers in profound dialogue.
The closing verses of this account assure us that Jesus was not a “rebellious teenager” by nature:
Then he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them.
Jesus was consistently obedient to the true nature of the revealed Law of God, and fulfilled it:
Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you (Exodus 20:12).
All of these events made a profound impression on Jesus’ mother Mary. As in the events of his birth, with the announcements by angels and visitations of shepherds, she is reflective about this unique child:
His mother treasured all these things in her heart.
Luke’s mention of Mary’s memories hardly seems superfluous. Surely, Luke is relying on her memories as a source for his own history:
I too decided, after investigating everything carefully from the very first, to write an orderly account (Luke 1:3).
Finally, Luke offers his conclusions about the growth and development of Jesus from childhood to adulthood:
And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor.
His development includes intellectual, physical, spiritual, and social maturation.
APPLY:
Mark Lowry, the Christian comedian, asked a wry question, something like this: “Can you imagine being the younger brother or sister of Jesus? You do something wrong, or bring back a sub-par report card, and your parents say ‘Why can’t you be more like Jesus? He’s so perfect!'”
In this account of Jesus as a twelve-year-old, we see an interesting balance of his divine and human nature. Christianity is clear that Jesus is fully God and fully human, and we see both aspects of his nature in our Scripture.
On the one hand, he makes it quite clear that his ultimate loyalty and his true home, is with his Father.
On the other hand, Jesus is human. His behavior does worry his parents. There is even a hint in this passage that Jesus moderates his behavior following this incident — indicating that he has the capacity for sensitivity to his family:
Then he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them.
To be clear, Jesus is without sin; but perhaps he does modify his behavior to accommodate the weakness and conventions of his family.
On the one hand, Jesus is difficult for us to “find” because he is with his Father in the temple. But on the other hand, in his human nature, we are able to identify with him. He identifies with us so that we may identify with him.
The essence of the Christmas story is that God has become human in order that we might become like God. As an Orthodox priest said recently in a worship service I attended: “We become by grace what he is by nature.”
RESPOND:
What happens after the baby is born? Then comes the real job of parenting.
When I read this account, I can remember the few times in my children’s lives when I couldn’t find them temporarily. There is no sense of panic comparable to that of not being able to find your child!
But what Jesus is saying to his parents is something that every parent needs to hear, at some point.
Jesus is differentiating himself from his parents, and defining his own identity.
That is also true of every kid with his/her parents. At some point in their lives, they need to “lose” themselves at the temple, so to speak, so that they can become who they are meant to be.
Lord, I am comforted and strengthened by the thought that as the divine Word became human, you experienced life as all of us have, from infancy to childhood to adulthood. Your divinity has touched our humanity. Because you have been where I am, I can now be where you are! Thanks and praise! Amen.
PHOTOS:
“The Holy Family in Jerusalem” by Fr. Lawrence Lew, O.P. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic license.
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