Bible Study Notes: St Luke's Gospel
Session 11: Chapter 2, 41-52
Every year Jesus' parents traveled to Jerusalem for the
Feast of Passover. When he was twelve years old, they went up as they
always did for the Feast. When it was over and they left for home, the
child Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but his parents didn't know it.
Thinking he was somewhere in the company of pilgrims, they journeyed for
a whole day and then began looking for him among relatives and neighbors.
When they didn't find him, they went back to Jerusalem looking for him.
The next day they found him in the Temple seated among the teachers, listening
to them and asking questions. The teachers were all quite taken with him,
impressed with the sharpness of his answers. But his parents were not
impressed; they were upset and hurt.
His mother said, "Young man, why have you done this to us? Your father
and I have been half out of our minds looking for you."
He said, "Why were you looking for me? Didn't you know that I had
to be here, dealing with the things of my Father?" But they had no
idea what he was talking about.
So he went back to Nazareth with them, and lived obediently with them.
His mother held these things dearly, deep within herself. And Jesus matured,
growing up in both body and spirit, blessed by both God and people.
© The
Message
Our story has moved on by about twelve years. But the setting is the same as in the previous story. It is no mistake, surely, that the only to occasions in his childhood other than the birth story itself, takes place in Jerusalem.
St Luke of course, reports his journeying to Jerusalem on a different occasion in chapter 9 and there are parallels between this journey and the later one and the final one. In this one Jesus is lost and three days later is found again. Luke is setting a scene.
On this occasion it is for the Passover, this is what his parents did every year, Luke tells us. In chapter 9 he’ll set out again, also for the Passover, and then he’ll be at the Passover for His death and resurrection.
Each year, Joseph and Mary made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the Passover. When Jesus was 12 years old, the age at which e officially reached manhood, he went up with his parents, as was their custom.
So presumably St Luke wants us to see this journey not just as a 12-year-old going up for his Bar-Mitzvah but also as a narrative statement concerning the journey of his entire life.
At the end of the feast, the woman’s group left first because they travelled more slowly. The men’s group left a little later and caught up with the women at the evening encampment.
Jesus, however, had lingered at the temple, having become part of the lively exchange on religious topics between a gathering of Rabbis.
One can imagine the scenario. Joseph and Mary, each, thinking their son was with the other, did not miss him until they met up in the evening.
They search for him, in vain. In spite of the hour they return to Jerusalem and presumably head straight for the Temple. For it is there that they discover him deeply engaged with the religious leaders. He is not only listening to them, but asking them questions and debates their answers.
They are astounded at his understanding and that he could give such profound answers to questions directly addressed to him.
Given that all his parents have been through with Jesus we are surely not surprised that they were upset and hurt, no doubt with that pain that relief can sometimes bring. They roundly turn on him and in a sharp exchange Mary lets Jesus know ho they both feel.
Jesus responds by setting the scene for his future ministry and by reminding them that he was no ordinary child, one can imagine that as Jesus tells them that he must be dealing with the things of his Father, their minds would have gone back to the amazing scenes that surrounded his birth. He also explains the divine necessity that calls for his absence as he repeats in 24:25-27.
Then Jesus begins his work of healing the pain of misunderstanding, not by further discussion on his seeming bad behaviour but by obediently returning with them from Jerusalem.
This is the last we hear from him until 18 years later when he began his public ministry. Mary did not forget the experience. She meditated on it over the years in her heart.
During the 30 years of his growth and development, those quiet years in Nazareth, Mary was in daily contact with the incarnate Son of God, doesn’t that sound just too strange?
© Fr Michael Fuller: March 2008