Lessons in Understanding and Growth

Luke 2:40–52 ESV

And the child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom. And the favor of God was upon him. Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover. And when he was twelve years old, they went up according to custom. And when the feast was ended, as they were returning, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. His parents did not know it, but supposing him to be in the group they went a day’s journey, but then they began to search for him among their relatives and acquaintances, and when they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem, searching for him. After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. And when his parents saw him, they were astonished. And his mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us so? Behold, your father and I have been searching for you in great distress.” And he said to them, “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” And they did not understand the saying that he spoke to them. And he went down with them and came to Nazareth and was submissive to them. And his mother treasured up all these things in her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man.

Scripture: Luke 2:40-52

Sermon Title: Lessons in Understanding and Growth

This is the only post-infancy, pre-ministry event that has been shared from Jesus’ life. Likely passed along to Luke by Mary or someone else who she had shared it with, showing from a young age that Jesus had incredible understanding. As we go through the message, there will be three persons we will look at—the temple kid, the anxious mother, and the obedient Son.

Brothers and sisters, when I worked in camp ministry during college, I had a couple opportunities to work our backcountry trips. We would take youth groups out for the purpose of spending time with God in his creation while backpacking and doing wilderness activities, including rock climbing and rappelling. 

One particular trip that sticks in my mind is when two other staff and myself were leading a group in that activity. We were out on a couple of rock walls, separated by about a hundred yards around a cliff. It had been a beautiful and safe day of climbing. But all of a sudden, late in the afternoon, a storm came out of nowhere. We were about a mile from the ranger station, so as the raindrops began to fall, we sent our group back to camp with their leaders. As we ripped down our ropes and equipment as fast as we could, those raindrops quickly turned into a torrential downpour with intense lightning. When each of us were packed up, we were to head back, running down trails that now seemed like small creeks.  

When I finally got to where the group was waiting, one of my staff partners was there, and he poked fun at me because I had taken the long way. He knew a much shorter route that he had taken without telling me. At that point, the storm had passed for the most part, and we joked around as we waited for our other partner who had been rappelling the campers on a different wall above us. But as the minutes ticked by and she had not returned, our kidding around turned to panic. We took off back down the two paths we had taken to go look for her. Thankfully, within a minute or two, I heard shouts that she was back. Packing up her equipment had just taken a little bit longer.  Our worst fears were able to subside, but thinking back now years later, I do not wish on anyone the experience of going through losing someone they care about.  

Our passage this afternoon puts us in the midst of a similar experience for a couple of parents. Mary and Joseph were traveling in a group to Nazareth; going home after the Passover celebration. On that first day, they would have traveled several miles either north of Jerusalem or to the east heading down into the Jordan River valley if they were avoiding Samaria.  All the while young Jesus was not around. 

With family and friends for travel companions, it would not have been a big deal. He was probably hanging out in the back with cousins and friends.  But as the day turned to night and travel would have slowed to rest, there was still no sign of Jesus. Maybe a little bit of panic crept into his parents’ minds, but surely he was just sleeping over in a friend’s tent. He would be back in the morning. But when the sun came up, Jesus had not returned.  Now the parents’ worst nightmare did enter in. Traveling in those days was not as secure as it is today, causing them to wonder if robbers or kidnappers gotten him?!  They would have gone back and forth through everyone, “Have you seen Jesus?”  No one had seen him though, and all that was left for Mary and Joseph to do was to retrace their steps. So they made the day-long trip back to Jerusalem, and searched high and low through the city. Where they had stayed, where they had visited.

Finally, they checked the temple. There he was! Jesus sitting among the teachers and scholars. But he was not curled up in a ball of fear wondering if he would ever see his parents again; no, he was listening and asking questions. His intelligence and how he communicated astonished all who were there, causing them to wonder, “Who is this kid?”

           The first person we have before us today is the temple kid. In verse 47 we read, “Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers.” We can only wonder how this situation came about, what kind of questions he was asking, and what conversations this would have led to afterwards. What did those teachers and others who were in attendance think about him? Did they think of Jesus as a star recruit to be the next big rabbi?  

In thinking about what his understanding was like, let’s consider the upbringing of a typical Jewish boy, which Jesus had the very least. As a young child, he would have been nurtured by his mother and likely taught by her in his home. As a child, he would have been expected to be involved in the prayers and rituals of his family. Around 5 or 6 he would have begun to read the Bible, an activity considered particularly straining, but to help kids there were shorter scrolls for them to read with brief verses and passages to ease learning and memorization. 

Like his peers, Jesus would have known the Old Testament, at that time the only Testament, but we may assume he knew it far better than most his age. At the age of 10, the boy Jesus would have started to learn the Mishnah, the Jewish commentary. In our passage, he was 12 years old, the customary age to first come for Passover, and he would have started formal education. He was allowed to be in this circle in the temple, where others would have assumed he was especially pious. This boy was here to pick up some extra teaching. 

Yet what he asked and answered showed knowledge beyond his years.  Another way to describe his impression on Sanhedrin scholars who were the temple teachers is that he dazzled their minds; we might even say he blew them away. The temple kid, this young boy named Jesus from Nazareth, was speaking with an amazing amount of intelligence. 

In the temple kid, the young human Jesus, we get a look at the character of God in all of his perfect and amazing wisdom. In Jesus, we see that God is not just a deity who commands as a dictator or who only cares about facts, but God who has carefully planned all things. Jesus did not harshly criticize, but rather he would have been asking questions causing those gathered to think and discern God’s will. He was not asking questions because he did not know the answers; no, rather he desired for them to think about what they claimed for their beliefs and practices. 

What Jesus did here and later in life throughout his ministry was to make people think deeply about their faith. He did not come simply for facts or spitting out copied answers, but he wants his followers to be learners. Part of our calling as Christians is to sit in the presence of God and seek his wisdom. We do that by being students of the Word with others and in personal study. When we devote ourselves to the nourishment of God, we find that God’s perfect wisdom has of speaking not only into what we might call spiritual things, but every area of our lives.

Continuing in the passage, we are not told the exact details of how the family reunited. Maybe Jesus saw them and knew he should go over. Maybe Mary stomped right up to him, yanked him away by his ear or arm to scold him. But in their astonishment, Mary and Joseph too were likely stopped in their tracks. In awe, they may have stood at the edge of the crowd waiting for the lesson to end. Finally having a chance to talk, Mary’s pleading with her son can be summed up by the question, “Why!?”

           The second person we encounter this afternoon is an anxious mother. Mary pleaded in verse 48, “Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.” Mary was unable to grasp what was happening, why he would do this to them. The gospel accounts of Jesus’ early years describe how she had been prepared for this human and divine child. Visiting angels told her that she a virgin would have a son, and she was a willing servant!  She had the baby, and yet who or what this child was wasn’t an easy thing to comprehend. Mary loved her little boy, but she may not have seen him as the promised Savior.  

Whether or not she grabbed him by the ear or arm, we can see Mary hugging Jesus with tears of joy and relief trickling down her face, “We’ve found you, don’t ever do that again!  We’ve been looking all over for you; why did you do this to us?” The anxious mother put her wants, desires, her motherly instincts ahead of heavenly rights, ahead of God. She now had seen her son’s wisdom, but was not ready to let him go. When verse 51 tells us that she treasured these things, it is saying that she placed them in her memory because she could not understand what Jesus was all about. As he grew up this anxious mother would learn that her son was much more the kin of his heavenly Father than of her and Joseph.

           Brothers and sisters, the anxious mother gives us a look at our condition. We are often prone to question, to worry, to doubt—to anxiety. There are times when we might claim that we have lost God, and have to go in search of him. We look at our lives, and find that we have put our trust in our families, our jobs; we clutter our lives with all sorts of good activities and other things, but there is always something missing. Like Mary and Joseph backtracked to Jerusalem, we backtrack to the place and time in our lives when we last remember being content. In that process, we usually come to realize that the best points in our life were when we were closest to God. Seeing God’s work, we may get really excited, give him thanks, but yet sin can cause us to blame him for leaving us, for putting in circumstances that we do not like.  

Maybe we do, maybe we don’t express it out loud, but we come to God in those hard times, asking, “How could you have let us fall? How could you have left me behind? Where have you been?” But does God ever leave us behind, or do we forget he is there every step of the way in life? Is it God who is absent, or do we search for easier substitutes to satisfy when in pain? The anxious mother helps us see where in our anxiety we tend to place blame in our lives.   

Jesus responded to his mother in what appears a very calm manner, almost as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. If he was a teenager today, I wonder if he might have said, “Chill out, mom, it wasn’t a big deal.” Apparently the scolding ended, the reunited family headed home. So far, we have looked at lessons in understanding: how Jesus understood himself as the God-man, and how we relate to his wisdom.  Then how the anxious mother helps us understand our own condition. Now we come, by way of Jesus’ actions, to a lesson on growth.

Our third and final person this afternoon is the obedient Son. Calling him the Son, it is fitting to remember him as the Son of God. Listen again to his questions in verse 49 and what follows, “Why were you searching for me? Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?”…Then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them…And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.” 

When we read this passage, it appears that Jesus was disobedient, that he sinned. Some scholars say well because he was not yet 13, he had not reached an age where he was conscious enough to know right from wrong, thus he did not sin. But what our passage gives us is a look at what it meant for Jesus as a human to follow his heavenly Father’s instructions over his earthly parents’ rules. Whether we are children or adults, it is good to remember that Jesus was obedient to his parents exemplifying that we should listen and obey our parents too; but yet God calls us to something different, then we need to follow his commands over what our parents may say. 

Once the temple scene had wrapped up, Jesus went home and was an obedient son. He grew up doing the will of his heavenly Father, and he grew in favor with men.  At this point in his life at least, it seems that he was liked and respected by people. His character was trustworthy and knowledgeable.  However, it would take a long time to see Jesus for who he came to be. It was many years later when Mary and others could comprehend him as the long-awaited Messiah and Savior. 

It can take us time too, to comprehend, grow, and truly believe that God’s plan of redemption is true. This is the mission of God throughout all time—calling his people to himself. Our text says that Jesus grew in favor; we might wonder about that—how can God grow. Well in wisdom, in his understanding of earthly things, he learned and developed with his peers. He grew in stature, in age, in the blessing of life from his Father.  But how did he grow in favor with God? 

What that likely means is that he grew in understanding and committing himself to what he was called to do on this earth. It took growth for Jesus to go to the cross and be sacrificed. That growth is evident when he was in the Garden of Gethsemane. Praying, he asked his heavenly Father to take this cup from him, “but not my will, but yours’ be done.” It took the growing as a whole person to come to that point, his time, and fulfill the duty he was called to. 

Brothers and sisters, in order for us to grow in our lives of faith, we have to be in our Father’s house, with other sons and daughters of God, and we have to be steadfast in relationship with him. We have to be committed to worshipping him, to building one another up, and to being in his Word. In order for us to grow, we must learn to truly trust and submit to God. Finally, to grow in true favor before God as Christ did, means that we seek to bring glory to him in all that we do and say. Amen.