Luke 2:42-52

Luke 2:42-52 Every year his parents went to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Passover. When he was twelve years old, they went up to the Feast, according to the custom. After the Feast was over, while his parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it. Thinking he was in their company, they traveled on for a day. Then they began looking for him among their relatives and friends. When they did not find him, they went back to Jerusalem to look for him. After three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers. When his parents saw him, they were astonished. His mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.” “Why were you searching for me?” he asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” But they did not understand what he was saying to them. Then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. But his mother treasured all these things in her heart. And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.

Even at a young age, Jesus sought his FATHER'S house. He was more comfortable in his Father's house than anywhere else. His questions and responses confounded the teachers in the temple, for He revealed a spiritual depth far beyond his age. Evidently, his mother and father were not cognizant of his desire to be in the temple since it sounds as if it took them some time to find him. This passage along with others seems to nullify the idea of Mary's divinity. She treasured all these things in her heart, but she did not understand why Jesus was not with them on the way back to their home: “Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.” Had she been divine, she would have trusted in his actions; she would not have been anxious about her son's absence. But she reacted as any natural mother would react when she found her son missing.

Jesus would later fulfill the Passover theme by dying on the cross during Passover. In God's eyes, He would be the last lamb sacrificed for the sins of the people and for their deliverance from the bondage of the wicked one. Of course, in the Old Testament, the wicked one was Pharaoh who enslaved the Jews in the alien land of Egypt. In the New Testament, Christ fulfilled God's promise to Abraham by blessing the whole world through Abraham's seed, not seeds. Jesus became the sacrificial lamb that delivers "whosoever will" from the bondage of the devil and the land of the dead. We Christians are the inheritors of the last Passover lamb's mollifying work. God's anger towards sin has now been appeased by the death of his only begotten Son. Now we have him as our high priest who sits before Father God, making INTERCESSION ON OUR BEHALF. But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death — that is, the devil — and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. For surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham’s descendants. For this reason he had to be made like his brothers in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. (Hebrews 2:9; 15-18)

Jesus did not hesitate to speak his mission and purpose clearly to his parents. Jesus, the child, said, “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” The King James Version says, "How is it that ye sought me? Wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business? As boy of 12, he knew to obey a higher calling, even though obedience to his earthly parents would have been important to him. Jesus was already being prepared as the sacrificial lamb, the perfect, sinless sacrifice. His life, his death becomes our life, our death. And praise God, his resurrection becomes our resurrection. Right now, today, we have renewed life in us. Jesus said, "You must be born again." (John 3:7) Otherwise, you must have a new life, a heavenly nature, in you. We are those who have a new life, resurrection life, flowing through us because the Son knew the Father and did his perfect will on Earth as it is in Heaven. Let us live that way for the glory of the Lord.