Questions

Every year Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the Passover festival. When Jesus was twelve years old, they attended the festival as usual. After the celebration was over, they started home to Nazareth, but Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. His parents didn’t miss him at first, because they assumed he was among the other travelers. But when he didn’t show up that evening, they started looking for him among their relatives and friends.

When they couldn’t find him, they went back to Jerusalem to search for him there. Three days later they finally discovered him in the Temple, sitting among the religious teachers, listening to them and asking questions. All who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers.

His parents didn’t know what to think. “Son,” his mother said to him, “why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been frantic, searching for you everywhere.”

“But why did you need to search?” he asked. “Didn’t you know that I must be in my Father’s house?” But they didn’t understand what he meant.

Then he returned to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. And his mother stored all these things in her heart.

Jesus grew in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and all the people. (Luke 2:41-52)

Being a parent to Jesus could not have been easy. Although he never misbehaved, he did behave in ways that were surprising and unexpected.

Religiously, boys became men during their bar-mitzvah, the coming of age ceremony during which a thirteen year old gave a set of rote questions and answers. When Jesus stayed behind at the temple, he was only twelve. So Jesus surprised the teachers in the temple with his questions and answers that went beyond those rote requirements.

His parents spent a frantic three days trying to locate him once they realized he wasn’t with them anymore. They blamed him for their fear. Jesus’ response was to ask them why they’d been looking for him at all, since they knew he had to be in his “father’s house.”

Jesus was reminding them that he was not just an ordinary child: he was the Messiah, sent to Earth for a specific purpose. So how could he ever be at risk? Mary and Joseph had no reason to ever worry, unlike normal parents.

Mary “stored these things in her heart.” That is, she thought about what Jesus had told her and tried to make sense of it all.

As Paul would later write, if God is for us, who can be against us?

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