Amy C Walters

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

When Jesus was a boy, he stayed behind in Jerusalem after a family trip. His time at the temple can teach us some important principles on how to seek understanding.

In the last two posts, we’ve mentioned that Jesus was pursuing God’s purposes for him. Today, we’ll look at how he did it. 

When Jesus is 12 years old and gets left behind in Jerusalem, his parents search for him for three days before finally finding him at the temple. We’re told he’s “sitting with the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions.” 

So this 12 year old boy, of all the places that he could be, is at the temple. He has gone to the place where people who are seeking God, who desire to worship God, who want to meet with others who are also pursuing God, where they go.

He has gone to seek God together in community. Jesus recognizes that this process of learning the Father’s purposes doesn’t just happen on your own in solitary activity, but it is, in part, sought in community.

Jesus is also sitting among the teachers. He has found people who have studied, people who are older than him, who are wise. He has gone to people with experience and knowledge and expertise in what he is seeking to learn and understand.

Notice too that Jesus has been there for three days. He hasn’t just gone to the temple for 15 minutes to check in, and then left to do his own thing. Jesus has invested significant time to sit and learn. 

We also see that Jesus is asking questions. This shows that he’s engaged in what he’s hearing, that he’s not just soaking it in, but he’s thinking through it. He’s making connections. He’s seeking a deeper understanding of what he is hearing and that’s demonstrated through asking questions.

I think asking questions, good questions, is one of the most important life skills that we can have. It’s how we dig deeper into topics, how we make connections, how we go deeper in relationships with one another. 

It’s oftentimes, too, in the questions that are the scariest and the hardest to ask, that we grow much deeper in our faith. Sometimes there are questions that we’re reluctant to bring up, because maybe we don’t want to know the answer. And yet those questions are the very things that we need to get out there and pursue in order to grow in our faith.

So Jesus is there, engaging in what he’s learning by asking questions. He’s also answering the questions that they pose to him. So he’s a very active participant in this discussion.

As a Bible teacher, I love it when my class is answering the questions, asking their own questions back as they are processing things themselves. One of the most exciting things is when someone who is typically really quiet answers a question. So often those answers are the deepest.

But it takes courage to answer those questions, doesn’t it? Sometimes your answers might be wrong. But even the wrong answers can help lead us to the right ones.

Jesus is not afraid to answer these questions because he’s engaged in this whole process. And this leads Jesus to this understanding because we’re told that “everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding.” 

As he is investing time, as he is in community, as he is learning from experts, as he’s asking questions and answering and listening, Jesus grows in his understanding.

It’s interesting too that after Jesus answered Mary with a question of his own–“didn’t you know I had to be in my father’s house?”–tt says that his parents did not understand what he was saying to them. So we have this contrast between Jesus who’s recognized for his understanding and his parents who are missing what’s going on there.

We’ve all been in that place of missing what’s going on. And that can be frustrating and uncomfortable. But we shouldn’t be afraid of it. We need to lean into that and seek understanding. That’s our key truth for today.

What we learn from Jesus and what Mary and Joseph have to wrestle with is this process of seeking understanding. And that understanding comes from being in God’s Word, being in community, learning from experts, people who have studied and who have wisdom and who have experience. It comes from not being afraid to ask the questions, even the really difficult and scary ones. It comes from bravely sharing your answer, even if that idea is terrifying to you, because you don’t want to be wrong. But it is through these things that we seek understanding.

One of the reasons I started this podcast and blog was because I went through a really long period of my life where I was not having regular time alone in the Word with God, I was missing my devotional time. It happened right after I had my oldest child, and I was suddenly a new mom, and this child now was in charge of the schedule. My schedule was just overturned, and it made it really hard to have those consistent times in the Word.

And that stretched on for quite a while. I had a second child, and again, those challenges of being on a baby and a toddler schedule just made it so difficult.

Then I started to build a mental picture of what the “right” kind of devotional time looks like. Maybe you can relate.

It’s a picture of somebody sitting in a comfy chair, maybe in the wee hours of the morning, and they’ve got a Bible open, and maybe they have a workbook open that has all these questions, and they’re diligently filling out the answers, and they’re there for an hour and a half in quiet and solitude.

In my mind, that was the ideal devotional time. That’s the right way to do devotions, and nothing else was worthwhile.

This was a dangerous thought, because it kept me from investing what time and resources and energy I did have.

Then I read an article that compared studying God’s Word to eating. It talked about how we as moms may not always be able to sit down and get the perfect meal, a well-balanced meal that’s cooked and still hot when we’re able to eat it. Sometimes we have to grab that meal on the go. Sometimes we have to eat it wherever and whenever we can get it.

And we need to treat God’s Word that way sometimes, too. Not waiting for the perfect opportunity or setup to study his Word, but instead recognizing that it is nourishment for us, it is food, and we need it.

And in that process, I decided, number one, to get back into the Bible in a simple way that did work for me, and number two, to start this podcast, because I think this is the kind of thing that would have helped me as a young mom stay connected in Scripture.

And that’s my prayer for you, too, that this is a tool for you to stay connected, to stay in God’s Word, to seek understanding of our incredible God and the incredible plan that he’s got for our lives.