Monday
Monday
The Boy in the Temple
Why were you searching for me? … Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?
Luke 2:49
The only incident we know about in Jesus’s boyhood is the highly significant story of how he got lost in the temple. The law required Israelite adults to go up to Jerusalem for the three main festivals—Passover, Harvest, and Ingathering (Exod. 23:14–17), although this duty was reduced to Passover only if the distance was too great to manage all three. Joseph and Mary went up annually at Passover, and on this occasion at least Jesus accompanied them. He was now twelve years old, and the following year at thirteen he would become bar mitzvah (“a son of the commandment”), assuming the spiritual responsibilities of an adult in the Jewish community.
How he got lost is not fully explained. It may have been that, because the men and women pilgrims were separated, Joseph and Mary each thought he was with the other. At all events, after three days they found him in the temple precincts, “sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions” (Luke 2:46). His hearers were “amazed” (v. 47) at his understanding, and his parents were “astonished” (v. 48)—verbs that are used elsewhere of the awe that people felt in Jesus’s presence.
Especially striking, however, is what Jesus said, the first recorded words spoken by the Messiah. Notice two details of his speech.
Firstly, he called God his Father and the temple his Father’s house. He thus corrected his mother, who had said to him, “Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you” (v. 48). Already Jesus was conscious of a special relationship with God as his Father.
Secondly, Jesus expressed a sense of compulsion: “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” (v. 49). Why must he be absorbed in this priority concern? No answer is given. But surely he must already have been aware of his mission as revealed in Scripture, and the Scriptures must be fulfilled.
For further reading: Luke 2:41–51