The Day they Lost Jesus | Luke 2:41-52
Read Luke 2:41-52
During this Christmas Series we have been looking at how Jesus is God. This week we are reminded that Jesus is a human: He is a guy! And in this piece of scripture Jesus is a boy. Our Lord and savior Jesus Christ is both God and Man at the same time—we tend to forget about Christ’s humanity and how it would have been to be God’s earthly parents.
The Point: Mary and Joseph raised Jesus up into a man. Jesus built a relationship with humanity, lived among humanity, He is both God and Man.
- Mary and Joseph were charged to raise Jesus. What a job! They raised Him as a proper Jewish Man.
Jesus is a Jewish man! Meaning that he grew up with Jewish parents who would have taught Him Jewish customs, traditions and feasts. We know that Jesus learned things (as well as knew God’s word since He is God’s word) based on Luke 2:52,
“And Jesus kept increasing in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.” -- Luke 2:52.
Notice here Jesus isn’t growing in KNOWLEDGE. Rather, He is growing in WISDOM and STATURE.
σοφία sophía, sof-ee'-ah; wisdom, broad and full of intelligence; used of the knowledge of very diverse matters. spec. the varied knowledge of things human and divine, acquired by acuteness and experience, and summed up in maxims and proverbs.
ἡλικία hēlikía, hay-lik-ee'-ah; from the same as; maturity, age, time of life
Jesus was growing up in age and was learning how to use his knowledge—he is knowledgeable already because He is God, He is the word as John recognizes in John 1:1-5
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.” – John 1:1-5
The crazy thought here is that Jesus is God but He is also a man! Meaning that He grew up from a baby, to a toddler, to a pre-treen, to a teenager, to a young adult and finally to an adult. Mary and Joseph took care of Him, they presented Him at the temple and dedicated Him to God (Luke 2:21-38). They did the first, male child sacrifice of two pigeons or two turtledoves to establish his proper inclusion into God’s chosen people, the Jewish nation of Israel. This would have been after Mary’s purification rite (which takes 33 days); Mary and Joseph have Simeon who presents Jesus to the temple meaning they are an ordinary Jewish couple with the means to offer sacrifice for their first born son—they were ordinary.
Simeon is the one who gets to perform this aspect of Jesus’ presentation in the temple and this is what Simeon says while holding the child Jesus. (Luke 2:29-32).
Not only did God come down into the world is Jesus Christ, Not only did Jesus become one of us to live with us, grow up with us, but God came down as Jesus, as one of His chosen people to save both the Israelites and ALL PEOPLES from their sins. Jesus grew up with Mary and Joseph, God wanted to build a tight, close relationship with His earthly parents. God wants to build a relationship with us. To know us, for us to know Him, for us to grow close together as God’s family. God truly does love humanity, God loves us.
- Mary and Joseph would have made mistakes along the way, they even lose Jesus.
Let’s talk about Grace for a minute.
The word grace in the NT is χάρις - khar'-ece grace, as a gift or blessing brought to man by Jesus Christ, (b) favor, (c) gratitude, thanks, (d) a favor, kindness.
Hebrew:
חֵן chen The Hebrew word "chen" primarily denotes grace or favor. It is often used to describe the unmerited favor or kindness that one receives from another, particularly from God.
The gospel message that comes from Jesus entering the world is a message full of grace. Jesus is God’s gift to humanity, to save us from our sins, to give us eternal hope, love, joy, peace and mercy. We are called to live knowing that we will be born again, we will enter heaven and Christians live their lives under this gift of grace called salvation.
God favours those who believe in Him, who walk with Him and who strive to obey Him. Once we become a Christian we will continue making mistakes, we will continue to sin even though we know better—our lives will not be perfect until we are in heaven.
Who here has made a mistake before? Parents! Who here is made a mistake with your families, spouse and children? I want you to know that Mary and Joseph made a huge mistake and its recorded in God’s word—they lost their son Jesus Christ!
“Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover. And when He became twelve, they went up there according to the custom of the Feast; and as they were returning, after spending the full number of days, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. But His parents were unaware of it, but supposed Him to be in the caravan, and went a day’s journey; and they began looking for Him among their relatives and acquaintances.” –Luke 2:41-44
When celebrating the Passover feast in Jerusalem, villages and towns would have travelled together in caravan’s—this caravan would have been Mary and Joseph’s neighbors and other Jewish people from the town of Nazareth—it could have been a large caravan which is easy to see how Mary and Joseph would have left Jesus behind. Caravan’s also travelled at different times or even a mile or two apart from one another—again it would have been easy to leave Jesus behind.
Passover: this is one of the central and important Jewish feasts/festivals. It remembers the Jewish exodus out of Egypt after 400 years of slavery under Egyptian rule. “passach” means “to pass over” and it remembers the 10th plague of the angle passing over the Israelites door when killing the first born sons of the Egyptians.
“It would not be difficult to lose track of a young boy with such a large group of travelers – we shouldn’t accuse Joseph and Mary of child neglect. But Mary must have felt badly enough, losing the Messiah.” –Enduring Word Commentary
- Mary and Joseph get to witness this moment in the temple as one of those moments showing Christ’s Divinity and Humanity at the same time.
Luke 2:45-52.
This interaction is fascinating. Jesus gets corrected by His earthly mother, “’Son, why have You treated us this way? Behold, your father and I have been anxiously looking for you.’ and He told them, ‘why is it that you were looking for Me? Did you not know that I had to be in My Father’s house?’ But they did not understand the statement which He had made to them.” (Luke 2:45-50)
Jesus is also allowing Himself to be subjected to the rule of Mary and Joseph in His life—He is honoring His parents, obeying His parents (He’s obeying the ten commandments here) as He is building His relationship with His earthly parents. “And He (Jesus) went down with them and came to Nazareth and He continued in subjection to them; and His mother treasured all these things in her heart.” – Luke 2:51
“For the Passover season it was the custom for the Sanhedrin to meet in public in the Temple court to discuss, in the presence of all who would listen, religious and theological questions.”
--William Barclay
“When we realize the impressive intellectual insight and analysis of Jewish Rabbis, this is impressive. This is something like a middle-school child discussing physics with a rocket scientist. Jesus did have a unique advantage, having a special relationship with the writer of God’s Word.” –Enduring Word Commentary
“The Rabbinical instruction did not consist merely in teaching and interrogating the disciples, but these latter themselves also asked questions and received answers. See Lightfoot, p. 742 ff.; Wetstein in loc. The questioning here is that of the pure and holy desire for knowledge, not that of a guest mingling in the conversation (in opposition to de Wette).” – Meyer’s NT Commentary
Jesus was emanating knowledge and wisdom at a young age—this is why the Rabbi’s were allowing Him to discuss theology in the temple. They were amazed at who He was and how He knew all that He knew. Jesus also was wise.
“But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption, so that, just as it is written, ‘Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.’” – 1 Corinthians 1:30-31
“Jesus was not born a superman. He developed as He grew. He passed through a natural but perfect spiritual and physical development. At every stage He was perfect for that stage.”
--Norval Geldenhuys
As Christians it is easy to only think of Christ doing extraordinary things—supernatural miracles and HUGE actions like dying on a cross and resurrecting Himself back to life three days later. Yes, Jesus did these amazing things BUT Jesus also lived a very ordinary life. He lived in the VERY small town of Nazareth and learned the Jewish traditions obeying His earthly parents Mary and Joseph.
Jesus lived an ordinary life, faithful so that the Christian can live an ordinary, faithful life.
“A Christian does not always do extraordinary things. He does ordinary things in extraordinary ways.” – Stephen D. Morrison
Are we living our lives out in a faithful way? Do we have grace for ourselves and the community around us? Do we understand that we are called to live ordinary lives in extraordinary ways—this means living a life devoted to Christ, to serving others, loving others, and being content with what we have in our life. Remember, Mary and Joseph are only now famous because they were faithful to Jesus—they obeyed God’s commands and lived content, faithful lives to each other and their community in Nazareth.
The Point: Mary and Joseph raised Jesus up into a man. Jesus built a relationship with humanity, lived among humanity, He is both God and Man.