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, terribly worried.” 49 He said to them, “Why were you searching for me? Didn't you know that I had to be in my Father’s house?” 50 But they didn't understand what he said to them. 51 Then he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them. His mother kept all these things in her heart. 52 And Jesus increased in wisdom and in age, and in favor with God and others. (Luke 2:41-52)
The point of Luke's including this episode in his gospel is expressed in Jesus' final words to his parents in verse 49. After years of annual visits to the temple for the Passover celebration (v. 41) Jesus had come to regard it not just as a national shrine, but as "my Father's house," where he truly belonged. It is ironic that the failure of his people to recognize in him God's promised Savior and Messiah forced him to prophecy the destruction of that temple (Lk 21:5-6), and for him to be accused in his trial before Caiaphas of wishing to destroy God's house (Mk 14:57-59)! The one event in his life where he could be supposed to be hostile to it was when he overturned the tables of the money-changers in the temple in an acted-out prophetic oracle, showing how God would judge the hypocrisy of those who treated it like "a hiding place for robbers" (Mark 11:16 = Matt 21:13 = Lk 19:46) and "a house of trade" (John 2:16). In this prophetic indictment of these abusers of the temple he returned to this childhood term for it, "my Father's house" (John 2:16).
The occasion for the event Luke here narrates was a Passover celebration when Jesus was twelve years old. This was the age at which a boy became a bar mitzvah, a "son of the Torah/commandment," and joined the community of male adult worshipers and students of the Torah. It was for this reason that Jesus sought out the teachers of the Torah in the temple courts, and why he both listened to them and asked them questions (v. 46). Although everyone present was impressed by his understanding and the kind of questions he asked (v. 47), the fact was that he took his new responsibility to learn God's word very seriously.
A number of things surprise us in this section. Although the extended family and friends of Jesus' parents traveled to and from Jerusalem in a group (vv 41-46a), and it was possible for a child to be in the company of these relatives and friends on the trip, one would have expected Mary and Joseph to have made sure Jesus was with them before the party left Jerusalem for home. The fault for leaving him behind was therefore theirs, not his. Apparently, it was only at nightfall of the first day on the road home, when they assembled their children and found Jesus to be missing. The following morning (the second day) they set out back to Jerusalem, and began their search for Jesus on the third day. It was on this third day that they found him in the temple (v. 46), showing that this was not the last place that they looked for him.
A second thing that is surprising is that for two nights (the first and the second after his parents headed for home) Jesus would have had to find overnight shelter in Jerusalem as a child alone. Where did he go? It is possible that his parents and their party had stayed with distant relatives in Jerusalem, and that after they departed Jesus simply returned to the home of these relatives and told them he had missed his parents and needed shelter there until they returned for him. This is only conjecture, but one has to think about such matters in order to reconstruct what had happened.
While his parents were gone, Jesus did not remain idle, sitting in the home of whoever gave him shelter, much less huddled up crying in fear that he was "lost." Nor did he try to set out on foot to pursue the traveling party of his parents, which would have been dangerous. On the contrary, he continued his studies with the famous teachers of the Torah, knowing that that is where his parents eventually would find him (v. 46).
When they found him, he was doing what every son's parents would have been pleased to see: he was learning Torah. Others were admiring him, but Mary was embarrassed and sought to chastise him with the question: "Son, why have you treated us this way? Your father and I have been searching for you, greatly worried!" But Jesus' respectfully replied, "Why were the two of you searching for me (elsewhere)? Didn't you know that I would have to be in my Father's House?" Was there just a slight hint here that, when his earthly parents "forgot about" him, Jesus knew that his real Father in Heaven never did, and that he belonged in his heavenly Father's House, learning from him through the teachers of the Torah.
In contrast to Jesus, who understood everything: the Torah and his parents, they—his parents—did not understand him or these words of his reply (v. 50). Without being too harsh or unfair to Mary and Joseph, it is clear that—like his disciples in general—they did not understand him, and only after his resurrection and the coming of the Holy Spirit did any of them truly comprehend what had been transpiring among them while he was alive.
It is interesting to reflect on how this incident early in the life of Jesus foreshadowed his later acts and attitudes. Although most of his three-year public ministry took place in Galilee to the north, and that Judea in the south seemed to be the base of operations of his bitterest critics and enemies, Jesus always showed the greatest respect in his teachings for the temple. When he healed lepers, he always sent them to the priests in the temple to be certified as ritually clean and to offer the sacrifice for their healing prescribed in the Torah (Matthew 8:3-4). And although some members of the expert Torah scholars (the "scribes") were among his public adversaries (Matt 9:3; 12:38; 15:1-2; 16:21), he did not try to discount the value of a proper understanding of the Torah as a guide for life. Furthermore, his methods of interpreting the Torah shown in his debates with his critics were essentially the same as those used by the Torah scholars of his time, although he taught with much more authority (Matt 7:28-29). Jesus was in every way a devout and respectful Jew. At twelve years of age, Luke shows him to be a true bar mitzvah "son of the commandment."
Luke's close to the section (v 51) shows the great compassion and love of Jesus, even as a child. Although his own parents failed to keep track of him, and left him behind in Jerusalem, and although when they found him they accused him of irresponsible and uncaring behavior, and although they failed to understand his reply to them, still Jesus honored them as his parents, returning with them to Nazareth to being an obedient son for them. There are times in the lives of every one of us when we are misunderstood and falsely accused. Like Jesus, we must be willing to reply lovingly and truthfully, to forgive the insults and to be properly obedient and respectful. Jesus gave us all a model of such behavior here.
In verse 52 Luke summarizes the final period of Jesus' boyhood and the beginning of his manhood with the words, "And Jesus increased in wisdom and age, and in favor with God and others." In doing this, Luke essentially frames the entire episode with this thought. For in verse 40 which immediately precedes it he has used almost the very same words: "The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him." Though in his divine nature Jesus was the omniscient son of God, yet as a human child he grew. But many of us as children grew only physically, not also "in wisdom" and "in favor with God and others." It was in this difference that Jesus showed how conscientiously he took the mission that his real Father had given him. And so should we all.
