Jesus Learns His Destiny

Larry C. Brincefield

larkayb@earthlink.net

1/8/03

Title: Events In the Life of Christ: Jesus Learns His Destiny

Text: Luke 2:41-52

Introduction

Well, here we are at the 1st Wednesday Night service of the New Year...

As I began to think and plan about what to do on these Wednesday Evenings...

I felt that we should study something that relates back to our new vision....Christ 1st

So, we will begin a study of different events from the Life of Jesus Christ.

and, as we look at these events,

it is my hope and prayer that we will get to know Jesus Christ a little better.

and that He will become a little more real...

We’ve recently spent time looking at the birth of Christ (at Christmas)...

so we have a good foundation upon which to build.

If you were going to be the director of a movie about the life of Jesus Christ...

what scenes would you include?

which scenes would you leave out?

perhaps because they weren’t exciting enough?

or perhaps because they distracted the viewer from the main plot?

In the 4 Gospels, we have 4 "movies" about the life of Christ.

all 4 "movies" are similar....

but each "movie" is a little different...

unique in its own way.

3 of the Gospel writers wrote about Jesus’ birth.

Matthew, Mark, & Luke

Which makes quite an exciting beginning to the story.

All 4 of them wrote about Jesus’ death and resurrection.

Matthew, Mark, Luke & John.

which is obviously the main point of the story.

But only 1 of the Gospel writers (Luke) included the story about the time Jesus’ parents left Jesus back in Jerusalem and finding Him 3 days later in the Temple.

Let’s read about it in our text: Luke 2:41-52

If the 4 Gospel writers were movie directors...

we’d be inclined to think that perhaps the other 3 writers didn’t feel that the story was important enough to include in the narrative.

or maybe we would think that perhaps they simply hadn’t done the proper research and didn’t know about it.

Of course, these men weren’t movie directors...

they were writers....

and they didn’t write on their own....

they wrote under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

So, there must be a reason that this story is in our Bible.

commentators & preachers have some things to say about it.

Some people focus on Jesus’ parents and how they lost Jesus...

the lesson being that we shouldn’t be careless with Jesus.

Some people look at this event as an educational process for Jesus...

His opportunity to learn more about Scripture

Some people focus on Jesus teaching the teachers as if He were some kind of prodigy (which He was).

And while all these are valid points and certainly worth looking at....

But I feel that there is 1 particular reason that this scene is included

This is where Jesus FIRST begins to understand His relationship to God, His Father.

This passage of Scripture is where Jesus FIRST BEGINS TO UNDERSTAND HIS DESTINY

But in spite of this, Jesus also realizes the importance accepting "lowly" duties.

There are several reasons I believe this....

Body

1. First of all, this is true because of what is NOT in the Gospel record.

After Jesus’ birth, there are no other stories about Jesus as a child other than this story.

There are other writings that contain provocative stories about Jesus as a child...but none that are in our Bible.

One story talks about Jesus healing a bird with a broken wing.

Another story talks about Jesus running around and playing with some children when he passed by the workshop of a dyer called Salem.

The story goes that Jesus went into the dyer’s workshop and took all the cloths and put them into a pot full of dark blue dye.

When Salem came and saw that the cloths were ruined,

he began to cry out loud and asked Jesus, "What have you done to me, son of Mary? You have ruined my reputation in the eyes of all the people of the city; for everyone orders a suitable color for himself, but you have come and spoiled everything."

And Jesus replied: "I will change for you the color of any cloth which you wish to be changed"

and he immediately began to take the cloths out of the pot,

and each one of them was dyed just like Salem wished

There are even stories where Jesus got angry at another child and caused him to wither and die.

And while these are interesting stories....

they simply aren’t true,

otherwise they would be in our Bible,

because these stories of early miracles of Jesus would have great theological value.

Another story you don’t find in our Bible....

why didn’t Jesus raise Joseph, His step father, from the dead?