Jesus at Twelve

Christmas 2

1/2/09

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Luke 2:39-52

Most of us are curious and would really like to know a bit more about Jesus' childhood than we do. I'm sure that most parents would probably like to know what it would be like to raise a perfect and sinless child. Imagine a kid whose twos weren't at all terrible, no back talk, no refusing to go to bed, no fights with his brothers and sisters. It must have been pure joy to bring Jesus into adulthood.

What sort of things did Jesus do as he was growing up? Did he play with stuff? Did he climb on stuff? Jump off of stuff? Did he dig in the dirt and throw rocks? We adults have a tendency to think that such things are frivolous pastimes, but play is actually a careful study of the physical properties of the world in which we live. Gravity, friction, inertia, all are learned by experience and children have the bruises, cuts and scrapes to prove it. These same lessons had to be learned by Jesus. For though he was in very nature God, and therefore the creator of all the physical properties of the world, by becoming one of us, he put all that aside and intentionally put himself in the position where he would have to learn them as we do. For the text says that “he GREW in wisdom and stature” (Luke 2:52). Which means there was a time when he was not wise and was not big. And since Hebrews 2:17 says “he was made to be like us in EVERY way” He would have to learn things as we learn them.

Did he play with neighbor kids? Sure, why not? Just as he would have to learn the properties of nature, he would also have to learn to properties of human nature and society. and social things. As an adult, people liked him, invited him to their weddings and over for dinner and the like; people always wanted to be around him. He knew how to get around among people. So of course he played with neighbor kids.

A kid once asked me a question of what it would be like to play baseball with Jesus. Would he use his godly powers to pitch a no hitter every time he took to the mound? No. That would be against everything he was about. He became like us in every way. He would never use his divine powers for himself. The Devil would try to get him to do that during the 40 days in the desert when he was hungry and Jesus refused. He would have to get bread like we do. And if they did have baseball, he would have to get a home run like we do, the hard way. “He was made to be like us in EVERY way” “He GREW in wisdom and stature”

In today’s Gospel we get a little glimpse of Jesus at the age of twelve. Jesus and his parents went to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover Mary and Joseph traveled the ninety miles to Jerusalem in a caravan of friends and relatives from Nazareth. So it isn't surprising that no one noticed that a twelve year old was missing when the group headed north back to Nazareth. Everyone assumed Jesus was with someone else, perhaps his cousins. It wasn't until they had traveled a full day that they realized Jesus was not among them.

Parents who have suffered the trauma of a missing child know the frantic feeling that Mary and Joseph must have had. Multiply that feeling by at least one hundred when you consider the implications. They had lost the Messiah, the Son of God!

The worried parents turned around and hurried back to Jerusalem. They searched up and down the streets and alleyways; calling out his name, asking people if they had seen him. For two frantic days they looked, and on the third day they found Jesus safe and sound in the temple courtyard, sitting quietly with the teachers of the temple, listening attentively and asking the kinds of questions one didn't expect out of a twelve year old kid.

The first thing Mary does after finding Jesus in the temple is read him the riot act for being missing. How could you do this to us? Your father and I have been looking all over for you? It's a typical panicked mother's reaction. "Why did you look all over for me? Don't you know that I have to be in my father’s house?” answered Jesus, quite innocently. You see, he thought they got it, but they didn’t.

Jesus was obedient first of all to His Father. His work was to do the will of Him who sent Him. He had to be about His Father's business. That business involved teaching the people the Word of God, and so we are not surprised to learn that even before he reached the age when he would have been acknowledged by the rabbis, Jesus was with the teachers in the temple, amazing them with the depth of his insights and understanding. The student was teaching the teachers. A child was instructing his elders. Did they have any idea that they were being taught by God Himself in the unlikely form of a twelve year old boy?

For a moment Mary forgot who Jesus' Father actually was. And forgetting , she looked for Him in all the wrong places. Had she recalled the words of the angel and the shepherds and Simeon and Anna, she might have looked first in His Father's house. If that happens so easily with the mother of our Lord , how much more easily does it happen to us? When we panic, when our life is in disarray, when our children are sick or missing or running amuck, when our work turning up nothing but weeds, we forget who Jesus is, and where we might find him.

Luke says that when they all returned to Nazareth, Jesus was OBEDIENT to his parents. This was part of his work of keeping the Law perfectly for us. Though He is the Lord of heaven and earth, the Creator of all things, he does not consider it too low to be obedient to his parents.. When they asked him to wash the dishes, he washed the dishes. When Joseph asked him to sweep the carpenter's shop, he did that. When they asked him to take out the garbage, help with dinner, or whatever else, he did those things joyfully, lovingly, purposely.

And get this, he did it even though he knew that his parents weren’t perfect. A lot of times, we believe that since our parents or other authority figures are imperfect or flawed in some way that they do not deserve to be obeyed. That’s the number one reason for rebellion among kids. They figure out that their parents aren’t perfect and then assume that they no longer deserve their obedience. But there is a higher principle at work here. When God tells us to obey those he places above us, it is not contingent upon whether they measure up to our standards of what kind of people they should be, it is because of the position that God has given them. As Paul says in Romans, they are God’s representatives for our good.

By His perfect obedience, Jesus sanctified all obedience to earthly authority as holy work. When we think that our obedience to our parents, our leaders in government our bosses and so forth is beneath our dignity, we have God in the form of a twelve year old boy to remind us that God is pleased when children honor their parents. We also become painfully aware of how far we have fallen short of the 4th commandment's standards, how we do not honor and obey God's representatives as we ought, how we chafe when we have an authority over us. We must confess that we are disobedient and rebellious children.

It is precisely here that Jesus' perfect obedience provides a comfort for us. He became obedient where we are disobedient. When we think of how Jesus saves us, we most often think of how he paid the price for our sins by dying on the cross and that is most definitely a part of it. But the other part was the way he lived for us. He’s like the older brother who gives us the credit for the good that he did. By faith in him, his perfection becomes our perfection in the sight of God. And so we are covered. Many of us regret some of the things we did in our early years, some of the things we have done to our parents or our friends; but those sins are covered by the one who was made to be like us in every way. He was made to be like us so that our lives would be covered. Jesus at Twelve: Already he was saving us. AMEN