This Kid.

Have you ever ran away from home?

I remember as a kid at the ready age of 11 I ran away from home.

It was a huge success! Is what I would have love to tell my father as I walked in the front door 15 minutes after I said I was running away.

The importance of the timing .

See there was a importance of when I ran away from home. At the age of 11 I definetly was not ready to start my life on my own. I could not get a job, I doubt I could get any landlord to rent to a 11 yearold. My grocceries would have been candy and pizza pops.

I was unable to support myself, I was weak and unperpared to be on my own.

It shows how human I am, how incappable I was becuase of my age, it also shows my priorities. I needed food, water, shelter, these all came before even my arugment with my parents over something trivial.

If you are like me and can think of a time where you “ran away from home” you can see that it was a difficult task.

See we are just coming over the season of Christmas where we are talking about how Jesus came and was foreshadowed by prophecy. But there is one more story that dwells in this time period where Jesus comes as this helpless being. A Baby.

See most animals come out of the womb ready, Cows can stand momments after they are born. Where humans still need care until they developmentally hit the age of 12 where they can cook Kraft dinner. Even more that is just basic, most humans need until the end of highschool til they think of moving out.

However we read about Jesus in this stage, he has not started ministry, he is still under his parents teaching.

When we look at Luke 2 we start to see Jesus in this piviotal stage of him being before ministry but after that time of his birth where we first understand his kingship and his life as Fully man and Fully God. Reading in Luke 2:41 -52

Luke 2:41–52 NIV

Every year Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the Festival of the Passover. When he was twelve years old, they went up to the festival, according to the custom. After the festival was over, while his parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it. Thinking he was in their company, they traveled on for a day. Then they began looking for him among their relatives and friends. When they did not find him, they went back to Jerusalem to look for him. After three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers. 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.” “Why were you searching for me?” he asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” But they did not understand what he was saying to them. Then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. But his mother treasured all these things in her heart. And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.

First lets talk about the timing of this narrative, there is a few thinks that need to be at the front of our minds.

Jesus was there for the Passover Festival and this was important for his family, as Joseph, his father, had this requirement to worship at the temple 3 times a year and this was one of them.

Jesus was around the age of 12 years old, which is a very important peice in understanding this story. At 13 we see that Jesus is able to become a ‘son of the commandment” which is just a fully fledged member of the synagogue in which he would assume all the responsiblities that a man would. But at the age that Jesus is, this is kinda understood that he is preparing to become this ‘Son of the commandment’

Jesus remained in this temple for a funny amount of days. 3 days. When we look at it, it is kinda of funny becuase the same amount of days that Jesus stays in the grave is 3.

So knowing some of these back ground numbers and how the timing works here we can look at this narrative as a whole and see that there is something divine. It is not a coinsidence that Jesus followed through with this act of staying at the temple to worship God becuase its a interesting addtition to the gospel of Luke.

When we look at this encounter Jesus gives us three different ways to look at this encounter as a time where Jesus is identifying himself as The Son of God. It is quite interesting that Jesus who is not even of age is establishing himself as a commited memeber of God’s people. Jesus even saying in Luke 2:49 ““Why were you searching for me?” he asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?””. We can understand that this narrative was no random, but rather God ordained.

The importance of Jesus being in the temple.

Even as we look at Jesus in the temple of God we look at that dialouge where his father and mother are looking for him. The mother and father , Joseph and Mary are worried about Jesus, they misplaced him, which you may wonder this question?

“How did they get home and then realize where is Jesus”

that was the culture, they traveled in groups and there was two groups in this larger group. There was the families which was usually mothers and their children and then there was the manly men.

The manly men where the sterotypical brutes of the group, here is where the trade skill men would go and walk with boys who are becoming men, this would be the boys who have turned 13 and started to be men.

See Joseph and Mary would have assumed that Jesus was with either of these crews. If Mary and Joseph were with the families group then they would assume Jesus was with the men as Jesus was just entering into that stage of his life.

The appliaction of Jesus’ connection with God.