Amy C Walters

Boy Jesus at the Temple – Luke 2:41-52

One of the only stories we get of Jesus as a boy is when he stays behind at the temple in Jerusalem and his parents anxiously search for him. We may relate to Mary and Joseph’s fear and frustration. But it can reveal to us that we tend to make God in our own image.

Most of Jesus’ childhood is a mystery to us. Very little of what it looked like is recorded in Scripture. But Luke does include this brief story of Jesus as a boy at the temple. 

We’re told that every year, Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Passover. This was a requirement that everyone go to Jerusalem and celebrate Passover together. So we see Jesus’ parents and Jesus being obedient to the law.

Luke also tells us that we’ve fast forwarded many years from the previous verses to Jesus as a 12 year old boy. This is on the edge of manhood for a Jewish boy. Thirteen is the age where they are inducted into Judaism and become responsible for themselves and for upholding the law. So this is a critical time in Jesus’ life as he is on the edge of manhood yet still a boy, still under his parents’ authority.

So they go up to Jerusalem according to the custom, and then while Jesus’ parents are returning home, Jesus stays behind in Jerusalem, and his parents are unaware of it. Luke goes on to tell us that “thinking that Jesus was in their group, Mary and Joseph travel on for a day.” Then they look for Jesus among their relatives and friends, and when they don’t find him, they return to Jerusalem to look for Jesus.

How scary of a situation is this? Mary and Joseph have traveled a full day outside of the city, and then they look for him, and he is not there. So they have to travel back to Jerusalem to continue the search. 

We’re told that after three days, they finally find him. Now, we don’t know if those three days include the day of travel to and from Jerusalem or if it’s three days searching in Jerusalem. Either way, it’s a significant amount of time to not know where your child is. 

How would that feel? It would be terrifying. Anyone who has ever lost a child, even for a short amount of time, can sympathize with this.

I once lost my son, my youngest, at a baseball park. We were there for my daughter’s softball practice, and there were multiple fields at this location. My son was just a little guy, five or six. He went to play on the playground, and then couldn’t remember which baseball field we were at, and he went back to the wrong one. I started looking for him, and could not find him. After the longest, scariest 15 minutes I had ever experienced, I finally found him. I felt like the worst mom ever to have lost my child. So I can maybe start to imagine what this must have felt like for Mary and Joseph for three days, not knowing where Jesus was.

Thinking about Jerusalem, this big, busy city that had just been super crowded days before for Passover, what kind of danger was Jesus in? Mary and Joseph are probably imagining all kinds of terrible things that could be happening to Jesus.

And then they find him. He’s at the temple. And he seems totally unconcerned.

Mary asks him, “Son, why did you treat us this way? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.” 

And Jesus responds, “Why were you searching for me? Didn’t you know I had to be in my father’s house?” 

Now, to be totally honest, with this story, I relate to Mary and Joseph! I sympathize with them, I feel like they were mistreated in this. How could Jesus do this to them? That’s my gut reaction.

And yet I know that Jesus was sinless. We’re told elsewhere in scripture that “he knew no sin” (2 Cor. 5:21). Jesus always did what was right. So how does that fit with what we see in this story, with what we feel like is disobedience or callousness?

First, when Mary and Joseph are setting off to head home, they make an assumption. Luke writes, “thinking that Jesus was in their group, they traveled on for a day.” They assume that Jesus was with them. We don’t see anywhere that there’s a direct conversation with Jesus and a commandment, “Hey, come with us. It’s time to go.” So this is not an issue of disobedience.

But is Jesus callous? Is he being rude by just not caring about their feelings and just doing what he wanted to do?

One of the questions that I always ask as I’m starting to study a story is, where do we see God in this story? And when I first asked that question of this story, I thought, “I don’t really see him much here”! 

Oh, wait, we see Jesus. Jesus is God. Jesus shows us what God is doing in this story. I made the mistake of forgetting, yes, he is a 12-year-old boy, but he is also God. Jesus is revealing to us God’s purposes in this story. 

Another good question to ask is, what is God doing or allowing in people’s lives? It does seem that Jesus is allowing Mary and Joseph to experience this for purpose. He is doing something on purpose, and he is allowing them to go through this, to learn something from it.

Jesus even tells us his purpose in it when Mary and Joseph find him at the temple, learning from the teachers, and they ask him, “How could you treat us like this? We’ve been anxiously searching for you.” 

Jesus says, “Why were you searching for me? Didn’t you know I had to be at my father’s house?”

Jesus is pursuing the Father, that’s the purpose that he came for. And he is going to pursue that purpose above everything else. Jesus is going to pursue the Father and what the Father wants from him above everything else. And sometimes that’s going to mean misunderstanding and pain for the people that he loves.

This story happens in close context with the story of Jesus being presented at the temple, and Simeon taking Jesus into his arms and saying, “My eyes have seen your salvation, revelation for the Gentiles, and glory for your people Israel.” And while that story is written in close context to this one, for Mary and Joseph, there’s been a gap of 12 years. And it seems like in those 12 years they may have forgotten some of these things. They may have forgotten Simeon’s words about Jesus being God’s salvation. 

They may have forgotten Simeon’s words that he would also be a sign that would be spoken against and that Mary’s own soul would be pierced too.

You see, we all have a tendency to forget. That is part of our fallen, human condition–forgetting the things we have learned about God. And often in the midst of that forgetting, then we start to put our own ideas on who God is and what he should do. We tend to make God in our own image. We want him to want the things that we want. We want him to agree with us. We want him to be like us. That is part of our sinful nature.

Instead of recognizing that we are made in God’s image, we try to make God in our own image. And that’s what Mary and Joseph are doing here. They’re forgetting that Jesus didn’t come to be the perfect child in their eyes. He didn’t come to be the perfect child and son that they wanted. He came to do the will of the Father, the heavenly Father.

And sometimes, the will of that Father was going to mean temporary pain, discomfort, frustration, and fear. But Jesus did that knowing that ultimately it was for their good. Ultimately, it means eternity in heaven with him where there is no more pain or fear or suffering or stress or anxiety. There’s perfect peace.

Jesus had the Father’s purpose in mind, but Mary and Joseph had their own purposes in mind. And when we come up against that, that’s where we experience a lot of tension and wrestling with God.

That’s why our truth for today is that we tend to make God in our own image.

We start to forget the things that we have learned about him, and we fill in those gaps with the things that we want, with our own comfort, with a God who serves us and does the things that please us, and we forget that he has a higher purpose. And sometimes that purpose means temporary pain here on earth, but it’s for his eternal glory and our eternal joy.

The Bible even tells us in Isaiah 55, with God speaking and saying, “My ways are not your ways, my thoughts are not your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8-9). His thoughts are as high as the heavens are above the earth.

We are not always going to agree with what God does and how he does it. We will sometimes be like Mary and say, “Jesus, why did you put us through that?” And he’s going to remind us of his higher purpose of serving the Father.