After all, Mary mothered Jesus, raised him. It makes sense to me that these signs would be necessary. That they were calls for her to grow in the faith that all that was spoken of her son will be fulfilled. Both the shepherds’ words and Jesus in the Temple were signs for her that what Gabriel told her about this child growing up in front of her very eyes is actually true. I think of a woman of faith.Īnd I wonder if that’s how these moments, where Luke says that Mary “treasured all these things in her heart,” functioned for her in the midst of not understanding. I think of the heart that belongs to the woman who Elizabeth said would be “blessed” because she believes that God will fulfill what has been promised to her. 51) It’s a direct call back to Luke 2.19, when, after giving birth to Jesus and the shepherds come to worship him, Mary “treasured” their words and “pondered them in her heart.” And when I think of Mary and that heart of hers, I think of its willingness to say “Yes” to the promises of God delivered to her by the angel Gabriel. Mary and Joseph did not really understand this, but “his mother treasured all these things in her heart.” (v. Growing in the wisdom of God is the desire of his heart. But unlike we sinful humans, Jesus is so deeply connected to his heavenly Father that as a tween, he simply expected his parents to know that in the Temple, talking about the things of God, would be the obvious place to find him on a family trip. Born as a helpless babe, Jesus grows up being human and divine, in a family, in a religion, with a life. This is what makes it a good passage for the Christmas season: Jesus is growing in wisdom, growing in favour (divine and human), growing as the incarnate Messiah in very ordinary circumstances. In fact, I appreciate John Nolland’s view that this passage is making a Christological point about Jesus. Though, as the textual point below elaborates upon, Joseph is a back seat figure in this ordeal, the undertone of the whole account is that his family loves and cares deeply for him, and that Jesus cares about them as well-Luke even goes so far as to point out that Jesus leaves with his parents (again only referred to as “them”) and “was obedient to them.” (v. I don’t think this story is here to set up a distinction between Jesus’ earthly family and his heavenly one. We humans truly are capable of multiple emotions at once! Though Mary and Joseph are also astonished at Jesus’ ability to interact so well with the Temple teachers, their hearts are still wrenched from worry. When they do find him three days later in the temple, Mary describes the ordeal as torturous (English translations watering it down slightly to the more palatable “anxiety”). In what seems like an unimaginable sequence of events to most parents, no one noticed that Jesus wasn’t with them when they joined the masses of people leaving Jerusalem at the close of the festival… 40), stays behind in Jerusalem as a tween to continue to talk with the teachers in the Temple. The Jesus-child whose toddler growth was described as becoming strong, filled with wisdom, and with the favour of God upon him (v. In Jewish culture, twelve was the beginning of that all-important transition to adulthood, so it’s as though Luke’s given us these vignettes into Jesus’ growing up years as he transitions us into the main account of the gospel, Jesus’ adult ministry. A number of these trips have come and gone as we move from Jesus as toddler to Jesus as a twelve-year-old. We get a sense of a family doing what they do each year-just like our cherished family traditions becoming second nature. Year after year (a more literal translation of the opening of verse 41) Jesus’ family went to Jerusalem for the Passover. There’s a bit of that feeling in the story as well. We are still in the Christmas season on this Sunday, and for many of us, this is a low-key Sunday, a “coming down” from all of the hype that has been the season.
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