Luke 2:41-52

Luke 2:41-52 (NRSV)

⁴¹ Now every year his parents went to Jerusalem for the festival of the Passover. ⁴² And when he was twelve years old, they went up as usual for the festival. ⁴³ When the festival was ended and they started to return, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but his parents did not know it. ⁴⁴ 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. ⁴⁵ When they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem to search for him. ⁴⁶ After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. ⁴⁷ And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. ⁴⁸ When his parents saw him they were astonished; and his mother said to him, “Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety.” ⁴⁹ He said to them, “Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” ⁵⁰ But they did not understand what he said to them. ⁵¹ Then he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them. His mother treasured all these things in her heart.

⁵² And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor.

Luke 2:41-52 presents a pronouncement story of the Passover visit of Jesus to the Temple, with the key saying in verse 49, “He said to them, Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?" This pronouncement makes a clear distinction between the heavenly Father of Jesus on the one hand and the human father of Jesus on the other. The story is unique to Luke.[1] Interestingly, it is picked up as the concluding episode of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas (usually dated at around 125), with some expansion regarding the reaction of the temple teachers.[2]Jesus was 12, which would put him near adult age. When Jesus speaks of his heavenly Father, his parents do not understand.  Such a failure is surprising after the annunciation to Mary, after the message of the angel, and after the predictions of Simeon. Besides supplying a chronological transition between infancy and ministry, it supplies a transition between revelation about Jesus by others and revelation that Jesus himself will proclaim.  The operative insight in all this "backwards" movement is that the heavenly voice at the baptism did not adopt Jesus and make him the divine Son, but revealed publicly what he already was.  The family of Jesus represents a form of “temple piety” typical of first century Judaism.

Why does Luke have an interlude in which he portrays Jesus as a boy?  A Christology centered on Jesus’ conception and birth dominated the Lucan birth story. Luke's birth narrative celebrates and glorifies the extraordinary events that accompanied Jesus' nativity.  Jesus was, like any other Jewish infant, circumcised on his eighth day.  Luke has Jesus presented in the temple for the dedication service of a firstborn son, even as Mary herself goes through the standard purification rituals that all Jewish women had to experience.  The events recorded here celebrate many of the traditional aspects of Jesus' childhood, while also realizing that in this ordinary Jewish boy something unique and wonderful was present.  Barth emphasizes that the gospel writers have a primary interest in Jesus as savior, as declared in verse 11. Thus, even here, the interest is not to get us interested in the idea that he was the son of carpenter. What did he do outside of the significance of his word and deed? The gospels have no interest. True, he is asking the doctors of the law questions, but this does not mean that he is not Messiah. He is about the business of his Father, but his parents do not understand, even though we can understand it only in light of us mission. The incident suggests that Jesus will grow up into his office as savior.[3]

Verses 41-42 present the setting. ⁴¹ Now, every year his parents went to Jerusalem for the festival of the Passover. ⁴² Further, when he was twelve years old, they went up as usual for the festival.        This general emphasis on the Jerusalem Temple in the Luke infancy narrative should not cause us to overlook what is new, namely the first mention of going up from Nazareth or Galilee to Jerusalem.  This will be the direction taken by Jesus in the great journey of the public ministry, stretching from 9:51 to 19:28, and Luke fittingly anticipates it here.  Luke further underlines the parallel by the fact that this great journey (the only time during the ministry that Jesus goes to Jerusalem) will bring Jesus to the Temple at Passover time.  The story presupposes the reader already knows some details about the child Jesus. The parents of Jesus are involved.  They are figures described in OT terms and typical of the sensibilities of Judaism; they are a bridge to the era of Jesus but do not yet articulate his prophetic insights and proclamation.

Verses 43-45 present the loss of Jesus. ⁴³ When the festival ended and they started to return, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but his parents did not know it. ⁴⁴ 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. ⁴⁵ When they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem to search for him. What parent has not experienced "that sinking feeling" that Mary and Joseph felt -- the horror of realizing that your child is one place when in your mind he or she is somewhere altogether different?  Little wonder that Mary and Joseph assumed Jesus to be somewhere amid the caravan's chaos and did not miss his presence until everyone stopped and settled in for the night.  Did Jesus remain in Jerusalem by deliberate choice? Did his parents forget? Did the parents leave early? We do not know the answers, because Luke does not supply them. A one-day journey would be 20 miles.

Verses 46-48 present the finding of Jesus amid teachers. ⁴⁶ After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. ⁴⁷ All who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. ⁴⁸ When his parents saw him, they were astonished; and his mother said to him, “Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety.” Boyhood stories tend to stress by anticipation the wisdom and the life work of the subject.  The drama lies in the circumstances in which they find him and in what he says when they find him. He makes a Christological claim.  The building of the narrative is such that the latter is more important than the former. “After three days” reminds us of the resurrection motif. According to Raymond Brown, we find the boy Jesus listening to the teachers of the Law and asking them questions.  Luke means this to foreshadow the interests of the man Jesus, who will often be engaged in debates over the Law.  However, here there appears none of the hostility to the teachers of the Law that will mark Jesus' attitude in the ministry toward the scribes and lawyers, for once again "Temple piety" pervades.  The astonishment that greets Jesus' understanding and his answers anticipates the amazement that will greet Jesus' teaching when he begins his ministry and the amazement of the scribes at his answers. Apocryphal “hidden life” stores will expand on this motif. This would make sense if, as many scholars have supposed, this was once an independent narrative of how the parents came to learn of the identity and vocation of Jesus as the Son of God.  Of course, in the present position of the story, Luke gives such a revelation several times before, and so the amazement is at the way (and at the early age) in which Jesus begins to express an already known identity and vocation.[4]

Verse 49 contains the pronouncement of Jesus. ⁴⁹ He said to them, “Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house (ἐν τοῖς τοῦ Πατρός or involved in the affairs of my Father)?” Raymond Brown explains the significance of this scene quite well. The tone of his question is more one of grief that his parents have known him so poorly.  The sharp accusatory tone Mary assumes toward Jesus evokes a strong response from him as well.  Instead of a simple, "Why?" Jesus' answer, "Why is that?" He articulates his genuine mystification and amazement at her display of desperate relief and bottled-up anger.  The climax of the story and the core of this biographical apothegm come at the end of Jesus' second question, "Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?" He is merely saying that his presence in the Temple and his listening to the teachers is indicative of where his vocation lies, namely, in the service of God who is his Father, not at the disposal of his natural family.  It demonstrates that at the age of twelve, Jesus clearly felt the call of his heavenly Father.  If we take "in my Father's house" as primarily a Christological statement identifying Jesus as God's Son, the "I must" is perfectly intelligible.  To a mother who came speaking of "your father and I" Jesus has proclaimed the priority of another Father's demands, and his earthly parents do not understand him.  The appreciation of Jesus' divine sonship was a post-resurrection awareness; in the attempts of the evangelists to show that Jesus was already God's Son during his ministry, even though those around him did not always recognize him as such, misunderstanding by the audience becomes a standard narrative feature.[5] We should not read this scene as anything other than ordinary.  Some people have mistakenly portrayed Jesus as some first century "whiz kid" who had set himself up as a teacher to the teachers in the temple.  For Jesus to be asking and answering questions is not odd or out of the ordinary.  Luke continues to show remarkable restraint in describing Jesus' experience in the temple.  Luke could have chosen other miraculous tales about the child Jesus to weave into his narrative.  Luke chooses only this straightforward, unspectacular glimpse into Jesus' childhood.  Luke appears to be firmly establishing the moment when Jesus himself claimed his dedication to the Lord's service as God had promised during the ceremony recorded in v. 22-24.  

Verse 50 is the conclusion of the story.⁵⁰ But they did not understand what he said to them. To avoid the implication of a lack of understanding on Mary's part, especially after she had received a revelatory annunciation from an angel, some scholars have resorted to complicated hypotheses.  They are wishful eisegesis, not worthy of serious discussion. 

Verse 51-52 present the conclusion by Luke. First, Jesus was obedient.  ⁵¹ Then he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them. Jesus accepts his role as a good obedient Jewish son.  Although Joseph and Mary do not celebrate this moment in Jesus' life -- they do not understand what he has said -- he nonetheless obediently follows them back to Nazareth. It explains why, even though Jesus was already consciously God's Son, this did not become apparent in his behavior until many years later at the baptism.  It also explains why the Galilean villagers never suspected that he was more than Joseph's son.  However, the stress on obedience also serves the motif of piety that runs through the whole story. 

His mother treasured all these things in her heart. The statement about Mary in this last part of v. 51 softens the portrait of Mary.  She may have been amazed at what Jesus did.  She may not have understood what he said of himself. She may even have reproached him.  However, she is responsive to the mystery that surrounds him.  Her lack of understanding is not permanent.  By stressing her lack of understanding in v. 50, Luke is faithful to history; Luke makes it clear that no one understood the Christology of Jesus as God's Son until after the resurrection.  By stressing Mary's retention of the things that happened, puzzling to understand their meaning.  Luke is giving us a perceptive theological insight into history: there was continuity from the infant Jesus to the boy Jesus to the Jesus of the ministry to the risen Jesus. Further, when Christian disciples like Mary believed in Jesus as God's Son after the resurrection; they were finding adequate expression for intuitions that had begun long before. ⁵² Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor. Jesus is growing, the New Testament portraying Jesus “very man,” that is, struggling to obey, seeking, and finding. Here, it refers to growth in wisdom. We receive indication that Jesus had a very human, inner life, but Luke gives us little upon which to reflect.     

            Barth thinks this story begins in the style of the patriarchs. The parents of Jesus go up every year to the Passover festival at Jerusalem. They go when he is twelve. They still guide him and he renders obedience to them. This story interrupts that relationship. Its basis is a much higher relationship that challenges the earthly relationship. The child causes them agitation by disappearing from their sight. Without their knowledge and against their will, he has remained in the temple. Now, he directs his questions to strange teachers, rather than his parents. What has become of honor to the parents? The mother is clearly offended. Is it possible to honor parents against their will? It appears the answer is affirmative. His parents are the representatives of God to him, but they should not have been surprised at where he was. This was how he honored them. When the text says that Jesus returned to Nazareth to them and was subject to them, we are not to read that he has moved from disobedience to obedience, but that he has remained obedient throughout. He did honor his parents by what he did. We still obey human authority, of course, but we do so recognizing that God transcends all authority. Mary ponders these things, while not yet grasping their significance.[6]

Luke wants us to ask, “Who is this boy?” This story tells us how special this 12-year-old boy was. It hints at a sense of calling early in the life of Jesus, foreshadowing moments in his adult life. The call of God was already active in his life.  Even at that, though, Jesus was still growing and still in need of parenting. 

In Anne Rice’s novel Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt, she frames this scene with an interesting twist. In response to Jesus’ rhetorical question about his purpose, Mary tells him:

 “And now, you come home with us to Nazareth. Not back to the temple. Oh, I know how much you want to stay at the temple. I know. But, no. The Lord in heaven did not send you to the house of a teacher in the temple or a priest in the temple or a scribe or a rich Pharisee. He sent you to Joseph bar Jacob, the carpenter, and his betrothed, Mary of the tribe of David in Nazareth. And you come home to Nazareth with us.” 

 

What I find comforting is that, even with a keen sense of calling, learning went on with Jesus, as he grew not only physically, but in wisdom and in favor with God and people.  He learned and changed through the years, just as we have. So, Jesus went home, was obedient to his parents, honored them according to the Law, and “increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor” (Luke 2:52). 

            We can become so interested in finding our space and our identity. Maybe the reason we struggle with such matters is that what we really need is to find ourselves in God’s space and in the calling God has for our lives. People who discover such a calling early life have a gift they may never fully appreciate. People who go through much of their lives with little awareness of the purpose God has for them in this time and this place may never know what they are missing. God has us here for something greater than providing for material life, engaging in idle talk, and engaging in trivial activity. When we are in the sphere of the love of our heavenly Father, we can grow in the wisdom we need for living the best life. 

I invite you to notice that Mary and Joseph also learned.  It can be hard for adults to open themselves to their children and learn from them.  The parents of Jesus slowly learn what it means to have Jesus in their home.  They learn and change, right along with Jesus.

I want to suggest the importance of asking questions if we are going to change. I came across a book by Charles Handy, The Age of Unreason (p. 55-62).  He describes what he calls a wheel of learning.  One begins with a question and goes on to developing theories for dealing with the question.  The questioning process tests theories, the process concluding with a time of reflection and evaluation.  One must stay on that wheel if one continues to change and learn. He stressed that learning takes place in its truest form when the question we have comes from within us.  Then, the question becomes our question, and not the question of someone else.  Those who have just been through final exams know what that can mean.  The teacher can say, "Learn this," write it on the board, and if you can repeat it back on the exam, you have "learned," it.  Of course, we quickly forget those kinds of questions.  However, the questions that come from within stay with us stay with us.

This sort of learning, the one from experience and life, is the one that matters if we are to change (62).

 

            The church has an interest in change and learning.  At its best, the church raises questions about values, even if it troubles us. I want to raise two questions with you today that I hope this season brings to our minds.

• Why do I trust the authority of Jesus?

• What are the most obvious ways Jesus’ teachings have changed me in the last year?

• If not for Jesus’ authority over me, how would my choices look different this week?

• In what areas of my life am I not giving Jesus the authority he already has?

 

This leads us to questions of our own:

 

• What do Sunday sermons feel like to us: more information to acquire? Something we patiently wait through before kickoff that afternoon?

• Which is a more truthful expression for us: “I know about God” or “I know God”?

• Do we feel comfortable exploring questions about God? 

• Are we in touch with our doubts and disbelief? 

• Do we chase answers for questions we don’t have answers to? 

• Do our questions show the depth and hunger of our reflection about God?

• How has God made me wiser today than I was five years ago?

• How have I matured over the last five years?

• How has my reputation with nonbelievers changed?

• Is my reputation with my coworkers better, worse or the same?

• How would my family say I’ve grown over the last five years?

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[1] (Birth of the Messiah, 1977, 479) Raymond Brown says that the story likely had an independent existence and was added last in the narrative as Luke originally conceived it.

[2] That extracanonical gospel includes related stories about how Jesus’ knowledge far exceeded that of teachers in his hometown of Nazareth at the even younger ages of 5 (Infancy Thomas 6-7; see 2:1) and 8 (Infancy Thomas 14-15; see 11:1). In those stories, the emphasis on Jesus’ authority is even more heightened than here in Luke. Even though Jesus was only 5, the teacher exclaimed of him, “He is something great: a God, an angel, or what I should say I do not know.” When, three years later, another teacher chastises the child for his impudence, Jesus strikes him ill with a curse until a third teacher extols his wisdom, at which point Jesus heals the former teacher.

The Infancy Gospel of Thomas also includes a number of other stories about miracles of both blessing and curse that Jesus performed during his childhood. In doing so, it follows a well-established pattern among biographies of that period and culture. Such stories were widely told not only about famous and eminent figures of the past, such as Plato and Pythagoras, but also about historical and fictional humans who came to be understood as divinized beings, including Alexander the Great, Caesar Augustus and Herakles (better known by the Latin form of his name, Hercules). What is most striking in comparing Luke’s gospel with these works — as well as with the other canonical gospels — isn’t that he includes a story about Jesus’ precocious adolescence but rather the remarkable restraint he exercises in doing so.

One should note other non-canonical gospels present other stories of the childhood of Jesus. Such "hidden life" stories show that he was God's Son even as a boy by having him work miracles just as he does in the ministry, and by having him speak in the high Christological language of the ministry.  

When the boy Jesus was 5 years old, he was playing in a narrow part of a rushing stream. 

He was gathering the flowing waters into ponds, and immediately they were made clean, and he ordered these things with a single word. 

And after he made clay, he molded 12 sparrows from it. And it was the Sabbath when he did these things. But there were also many other children playing with him.

Then, a certain Jew saw what Jesus was doing while playing on the Sabbath. Immediately, he departed and reported to Jesus’ father, Joseph, “Look, your child is in the stream and he took clay and formed 12 birds and profaned the Sabbath.”

And Joseph went to the area and when he saw him, he shouted, “Why are you doing these things that are not permitted on the Sabbath?”

Jesus, however, clapped his hands and shouted to the sparrows, “Depart, fly, and remember me now that you are alive.” And the sparrows departed, shrieking.

When the Jews saw this, they were amazed. After they had gone away, they described to their leaders what they had seen Jesus do.

—“Infancy Gospel of Thomas,” Andrew Bernhard, trans. gospels.net/translations/infancythomastranslation.html. Retrieved June 23, 2006.

 

[3] Barth (Church Dogmatics III.2 [44.1], 57)

[4] Raymond Brown (Birth of the Messiah, 1977, 487-9)

[5] Raymond Brown Birth of the Messiah, 1977, 489-93)

[6] Barth (Church Dogmatics III.4 [54.2], 249-50)