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Luke 2:41–51
“[Jesus] said to them, ‘Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?’ ” (v. 49).
Last week, we noted that the four Gospels tell us almost nothing about the childhood of Jesus, so we do not know very much about what happened in the life of our Lord between His birth and the start of His public ministry. Luke, however, does tell us about one significant event during our Lord’s youth: His meeting with the teachers of Israel in the Jerusalem temple.
Today’s passage records this well-known episode. It begins with a trip to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover when Jesus was twelve years old. Luke tells us that it was the family’s custom to keep this feast annually (Luke 2:41–42), a fact that provides more evidence of the piety of Mary and Joseph and their providing the Messiah with a godly home. God told the Israelites that all males in the old covenant community had to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem three times a year to keep the Feast of Passover and Unleavened Bread, the Feast of Weeks or Pentecost, and the Feast of Booths (Deut. 16:16). Jesus and His earthly parents obeyed this law, for they were faithful to God.
After the feast, Mary and Joseph started for home, but Jesus was not with them. This would not have been out of the ordinary, for the ancient Jews traveled to Jerusalem for the feasts in large caravans made up of groups of family and friends. Mary and Joseph reasoned that Jesus was with others and did not notice until about a day into the journey home that He had not in fact left Jerusalem. So they returned to Jerusalem to find Him (Luke 2:43–45).
They located Jesus at the temple, where He was sitting with the teachers of the law, learning and answering questions. The picture is not really one of Jesus’ teaching others at this point but of Jesus as a diligent student of the law of God, eager to know it better and already able to give answers to the teachers far beyond what a young man of His age should have known (vv. 46–47). Any good parents would have been worried that they had misplaced their child, so Mary and Joseph understandably expressed some annoyance that Jesus’ absence had caused them distress. But Jesus did not apologize, for He had done nothing wrong, remarking that they should have known He would be in His Father’s house, learning about His Father’s business (vv. 48–51).
At this young age, Jesus was already conscious of a unique relationship to God as His own Father in a way that He is not Father to others. As the only begotten Son of God (John 1:14), He would focus on His mission from the Father above all else, thus bringing us salvation.
Coram Deo Living before the face of God
Jesus knew that He had to love God His Father first and above all else (Deut. 5:7; 6:4–5), and He is the only human being who never failed to focus on our Creator the way that we are called to focus on Him. As Christians, we have been given new hearts to love the Lord God above all else, and though we fall short, we will more and more seek Him first as we remember the call to love God before we love anyone or anything else.
for further study
- Exodus 20:3
- Deuteronomy 30:6
- Matthew 22:34–40
- 1 John 5:21
the bible in a year
- Exodus 23–25
- Matthew 20:17–34