Luke 2:41-52
41 Every year Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the Festival of the Passover. 42 When he was twelve years old, they went up to the festival, according to the custom. 43 After the festival was over, while his parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it. 44 Thinking he was in their company, they traveled on for a day. Then they began looking for him among their relatives and friends. 45 When they did not find him, they went back to Jerusalem to look for him. 46 After three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. 47 Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers. 48 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.”
49 “Why were you searching for me?” he asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” 50 But they did not understand what he was saying to them.
51 Then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. But his mother treasured all these things in her heart. 52 And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.
A Lesson in Discipleship: the Boy Jesus and Mary’s Memory Box
Today is a little bit strange. We’re kind of in no-man’s land. We’ve wrapped up our summer sermon series. We haven’t started our first Fall sermon series yet. We’re introducing elements of our new hymnal today and leapfrogging 14 Sundays all the way to the first Sunday after Christmas. We are all over the map, liturgically speaking.
But, truthfully, we’re right where we need to be. Two Sundays ago, we began a 4 week focus on discipleship – 4 weeks on how to be a follower of Jesus by being in worship and in the Word. And here in our Gospel Lesson is none other than Jesus himself being in worship and in the Word. What better way to learn how to be a disciple of Jesus than by following his example?
But before we focus on Jesus, I want to talk about his mother for a second. Her name isn’t even mentioned in this story. She’s always either one of “his parents” or “his mother.” Luke is making a subtle point that Mary is not the main character in this story. But she is still instructive and worth our attention today.
First, we find out that Mary made it a habit to go to Jerusalem for the Passover. That was a journey of several days from Nazareth. That’s quite a commitment. Not only that, but it was only commanded that the men of each family must attend the Passover in person. Mary didn’t have to go; she could have stayed home with a clean conscience, but she didn’t. She made it a habit to go to God’s house more than was even expected of the best, most godly women in Israel.
Then we find out that as a family, Mary, Joseph, and Jesus stayed until the festival was over. Because it was such a long journey and the festival was a full week long, many pilgrims would stay for one or two days and then head back home. Not Mary and Joseph. They stayed until the festival was over – being more faithful than your average Jew.
Then there’s the whole episode of the missing Jesus. Now, let me be clear here: Mary and Joseph were not being negligent parents. What they were doing was perfectly natural and ordinary in their culture. When pilgrims made such a long journey, they would often travel with family and friends. The women and young children would travel in the front; the men and the older boys would travel in the rear. Jesus, being 12 years old, would have been right on the line. Mary could have well assumed that Jesus was with Joseph, and Joseph could have well assumed that he was with Mary. Both were perfectly plausible. And with a son as reliable and trustworthy as Jesus, you wouldn’t expect to have to put him on a leash to make sure he was with you.
They weren’t being negligent, but they were being ignorant. Their assumption that Jesus would just automatically leave Jerusalem and travel back to Nazareth overlooked the important work that Jesus had to do. I’m sure it was tempting throughout his childhood, but it seems here that they had forgotten that Jesus wasn’t your ordinary boy. 12 years must have faded their memory of the messages that the angel Gabriel relayed to them when Jesus was born.
But here, in the temple courts of Jerusalem, 3 days after the Passover, Mary had a new memory to store away. Luke almost quotes himself word for word from earlier in this same chapter. On the night that Jesus was born, Luke wrote: “Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.” Here, 12 years later, Luke writes, “But his mother treasured all these things in her heart.”
Mary didn’t have a footlocker tucked away in a basement bedroom full of Beanie Babies. She had a heart full of treasured memories of her baby boy. This would be one more – the memory of Jesus sitting among the teachers in the temple courts, listening to them and asking them questions. Luke tells us that Mary and Joseph did not understand why Jesus had to be in his Father’s house, but, even though she didn’t understand, Mary treasured that memory – she put it in a see-through plastic box and pulled it out every blue moon and pondered it.
Ironically, instinctively, without realizing it, Mary was imitating her son. She was being a faithful disciple of the 12-year-old Saviour. She was taking in information, just like Jesus was, and she was mulling it over. She was growing too – maybe not in stature, but certainly in wisdom and in favour with God.
That’s what Jesus was doing. That’s why the main character of this story, the only one who’s mentioned by name, stayed in Jerusalem. In his own words, he “had to be in [his] Father’s house.”
Jesus was the perfect child. He always obeyed the 3rd Commandment; he always “remembered the Sabbath Day by keeping it holy.” He was always in church when he was supposed to be.
The thing that blows our minds thinking about this is that Jesus is God! Why does he need to be in church worshiping himself? As God, Jesus is “omniscient” – he is “all-knowing.” How can he possibly “grow in wisdom” if he already knows everything?
Paul answers that second question for us in Philippians 2:
Jesus… being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.[1]
In other words, when Jesus became a man – when Mary gave birth to Jesus – he gave up the full use of his almighty power and wisdom. He didn’t use his almighty power to his own advantage; he set it aside for a while.
And so, as a child he had to grow. He had to learn how to talk and walk, how to add and subtract and find the hypotenuse of a right triangle (he was a carpenter, after all). He even had to learn God’s Word. And he did! With all his heart. At every opportunity. Not just being there because he was supposed to be there. He was active. He listened and asked questions. He wanted to know more and actively, persistently pursued his own spiritual growth.
If the Son of God can dedicate himself to a lifetime of spiritual growth, don’t you think you can too? Don’t you think there’s room for you to grow too? Of course, there’s room for you to grow! But do you? Do you zealously pursue your own spiritual growth with the same hunger that Jesus did? Or do you find it easier to be the compliant child who just comes to church because his parents expect him to? Do you find it easier to be the passive participant who’s there listening, but who lets God’s Word come in one ear and fly right out the other?
We’ve all been there. We all neglected our spiritual growth sometimes. We could all be better about overcoming the obstacles and getting rid of the excuses that keep us from God’s Word. None of us is as good as Jesus was. But that’s why Jesus had to be there.
Jesus wasn’t doing this for his own sake. He was doing it for you. Long before he was 12-years-old, Jesus was doing everything you are supposed to do. Sometimes it’s easy to forget the first 30 years of Jesus’ life because this is literally the only story we hear about Jesus after he was born and before he was baptized 30 years later. But every minute of every day, Jesus was doing work. He was actively obeying every Commandment – not just the 3rd – for you. So that finally, when Jesus died on a cross at the age of 33, he could die pure and blamelessly, the perfect sacrifice for sin, the perfect substitute for sinners, like you and me.
That’s why Jesus had to be there. That’s what Mary and Joseph didn’t understand then. But that’s what makes Mary’s memory box so important. She didn’t understand it when she saw it, but she squirreled this memory away so that some day in the future she could take it back out and put her palm to her forehead and say, “Of course! It all makes sense now!”
That’s the life of being a disciple. You don’t need to understand it all right now. You don’t need a master’s degree in theology to be a disciple of Jesus. All you need to do is be like the 12-year-old Jesus and listen attentively and maybe ask a question or two. All you need to do is be like Mary and treasure up the things you learn from God’s Word in your heart so that as you grow, you can come to know and appreciate more and more the unfailing love your God has for you.
I want to brag. Can I brag to you about one of our teenagers? Jaidan came up to me a couple weeks ago and said, “Pastor, I finally get it! It makes so much sense now!” It was something we had talked about in confirmation class, which, for her, was 2-3 years ago. But because she kept a corner of heart set aside for God’s Word – and because she kept coming to hear God’s Word – what she didn’t get then, she totally understands now.
You don’t have to be perfect to be a disciple. Jesus was perfect for you. You don’t have to understand everything immediately. You just have to be willing to listen and learn, and to hear again and again of the love your heavenly Father has for you in Jesus. He was the perfect child, a faithful student, an obedient son, but more than anything the atoning sacrifice for your sin and your Saviour. May you grow, just as Jesus did, in wisdom and in favour with God. Amen.
[1] Philippians 2:5-7