Pastor Brad Reaves
Grace Community Church
Winchester, VA
Watch This Message at: https://youtu.be/-KtxiQAOodk
Have you ever heard or even met a child prodigy? We all believe our children will be baby geniuses. In the 18th century, Jean Louis Cardiac was known as the wonder child. Jean could recite the alphabet when he was three months old. At the age of four, he not only read Latin but translated it into English and French. He read Greek and Hebrew and was proficient in such subjects as arithmetic, history, geography, and genealogies by six. He died in Paris when he was seven.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, maybe the most prodigious of all child prodigies. Mozart was born in Salzburg, Austria. At four he began music lessons with his violinist father. At five he composed minuets. He wrote his first symphony at eight and at eleven, forced to compose in solitary confinement for the suspicious archbishop of Salzburg, he passed the test and was offered the salary job of city concertmaster at eleven. At twelve he wrote two operas and a mass.
Joel Kupperman was born in 1936. He was able to solve complex math problems by memory in just seconds. His IQ was in excess of 200, it was not measurable. At five he had the highest general mental development of any child tested ever by the Chicago public schools and eventually, he received his Ph.D. at Cambridge.
Michael Gross astounded his mother by reading aloud to her without any previous instruction. His IQ is so high it can't be measured. On his first day in kindergarten, he saw a classmate coloring an apple blue. He remarked with interest, "That's the kind of approach Picasso would use." At ten he moved directly from fifth grade to Michigan State University. He became the youngest college freshman in nearly a century, graduated with a Ph.D. finally from Yale before he was twenty. (Illustration Credit: John MacArthur)
These were amazing children, but all of these children fade into foolishness compared with one twelve-year-old boy named Jesus, the child who was God. Luke goes out of his way to make sure we understand Jesus was not just an ordinary boy who happened to become an enlightened religious sage. He knew from the moment he was born who he was and what he was to do. He knew he was God. The Old Testament prophets knew he was God. The Angels announced his birth knew, as did Zechariah and Elizabeth, and Joseph and Mary.
I. The Childhood of Jesus
So, we have very little in Scripture about who Jesus was as a child. In fact, Luke’s account that we are reading is the only source of information. So what was happening? Well, we have some clues they’re important. When we last left Jesus, he was 40 days old. Joseph and Mary had taken him to the Temple for dedication. They offered 2 Turtle Doves as an offering of purification as required by law, for someone too poor to afford a lamb. They meet Simeon and Anna it says:
39 And when they had performed everything according to the Law of the Lord, they returned into Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth. 40 And the child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom. And the favor of God was upon him. (Luke 2:39–40 ESV)
Now there’s quite a bit that happens here that Luke chooses to omit. First, we know Jesus is visited by the Magi, we find that in Matthew 2. This hasn’t happened yet because they are offering Turtle Doves instead of a Lamb. With the wealth they were given by the Maggi, they could’ve afforded a lamb. After the Maggi leaves, Joseph takes Mary and Jesus to flee to Egypt because he is warned in a dream of the danger that is coming. That, of course, is the slaughtering of innocents where King Herod orders that every Jewish boy under the age of 2 be killed because he’s heard that the King of the Jews has been born. So Joseph and Mary stayed in Bethlehem from the birth of Jesus for as long as 2 years before fleeing to Egypt and then eventually returning to Jesus’ hometown of Nazareth until we find him again at twelve.
After the event we’re about to read in verse 41, Luke concludes chapter 2 with the words,
52 And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man. (Luke 2:52)
This covers Jesus’ childhood for 18 years until his public ministry when Jesus is 30 years old. So Luke provides us with some glimpses into his childhood that we know after they fled to Egypt he lived in Nazareth. At 12 years old we know he went to the Temple and then he continued to live in Nazareth until he turned 30 and started his public ministry. John calls him Jesus of Nazareth and Nathaniel questions “if anything good can come from Nazareth.” (John 1:46).
I think Luke includes some physical assessment here for a reason. What we know is that Jesus grows physically as a child, he is strong, and his body is preparing for the work he will do as the propitiator of our sins. He himself would be without sin, he was God, but he was also fully man. He was not an aberration or anything less than human. Mentally and Spiritually, he is Divine. He is great in wisdom. (Luke 2:40)
Incidentally, Luke makes a subtle shift between verses 40 and 52 going from calling Jesus a child to calling Jesus by his name. This pilgrimage Jesus takes with his parents may be why:
II. The Passover Pilgrimage
Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover. (Luke 2:41)
By the age of 12, he is growing into adulthood according to Jewish tradition. Thirteen would be when he is considered mature enough to under the Law and the implications of the Law as it relates to God and so it seems that this was the point when he would first make the trip with his parent to Jerusalem for the first time.
It is evident that Joseph and Mary were quite devout in their faith. No doubt that the birth of Jesus and all the events surrounding his birth would have a tremendous influence on how they relate to God and worship God. So, Luke tells us that every year Joseph and Mary made the trip from Nazareth to Jerusalem to take part in the Passover Feast.
For those of you who may not be familiar, the Passover was the final plague that God struck Egypt and Pharoah with to release the Israelites from slavery. The Jewish people were warned to take a lamb without blemish or deformity and slaughter the animal. The blood drained from that lamb was to be painted over the doorpost of their home and the family was to eat a certain meal with the lamb. That night, the angel of death passed over Egypt and all the first-born sons were kills, with the exception of the houses marked with the blood of the lamb. That house was passed over by the angel
After that, the Jews were released from captivity and fled across the Red Sea and every year after that they commemorate Passover with the slaughtering of a lamb with the blood splattered on the altar and the meal. (Exodus 23:17, Exodus 34:22, Deut 16:16). When the Temple was built all the people would return for the feast there. The historian Josephus tells us that during these feasts over 250,000 lambs were slaughtered and the blood would literally be flowing from the temple down into the Kidron Valley.
When a boy was coming of age to be a man (age 13) they would make the first pilgrimage to the Temple to witness this feast. Here would be why Luke mentions specifically that Jesus, now 12 years old and preparing to turn 13 would now come along with his parents to witness this 8-day feast.
Can you imagine what was going through his mind as he watching the slaughter of these lambs? He was fully aware of exactly who He was and why He had been sent into the world. He watched the sacrificial lamb be slaughtered for His family to take and eat, and must have fully known that pictured His own death as the Lamb of God, who alone would take away the sins of the world. He knew that He was to save that which was lost. He knew He was a grain of wheat that would fall into the ground and die. He knew that it was written that the Son of Man had to be lifted up to draw all men to Himself. He knew that He had to die and three days later rise again. The vividness of that captivated His mind, in ways that are beyond our imagination to understand.
Now, this brings me to my concluding thoughts on the event:
III. The Loss and Discovery
43 And when the feast was ended, as they were returning, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. His parents did not know it, 44 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, 45 and when they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem, searching for him. 46 After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. 47 And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. (Luke 2:43–47 ESV)
Have you ever lost your child? It is a parent’s worst nightmare. I worked in many cases of lost children. Some were abductions, some were runaways, one time we look for a little boy for hours only later to find him quietly sleeping in the clothes dryer. For Joseph and Mary, it was some time before they realized Jesus was not with them. They would be traveling in a caravan with friends and relatives to make the 80-mile journey back to Nazareth from Jerusalem and so they assumed he was with someone in the caravan. At some point, they discovered that not to be the case and went back to the Temple. Finding someone in the Temple is just as daunting of a task as the city, but they go back and they find Jesus there.
So there He was in the Temple courts. But His posture is not of a teacher, it's of a student and it says that. "He was sitting in the midst of the teachers, both listening to them and asking them questions." He was the listener. He was the one hearing them.
He has been growing, as verse 40 tells us. He's reached the point where his brain can understand the mind of God. But there is no conceit here. There's no pride here. He is a respectful boy. He is a questioner. His questions are so penetrating and so insightful and so powerful that they generate astonishment on the part of the great teachers who surround Him. He's not asking for answers, but He's listening to how they understand the truth of God. He has a hunger for discussing the truth of God. That’s how his parents find him.
Mary, now exacerbated, relieved, angry, and exhausted asks him the question every mother would ask. I think she shows great restraint:
48 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.” 49 And he said to them, “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” 50 And they did not understand the saying that he spoke to them. (Luke 2:48–50 ESV)
It's a normal motherly rebuke and she cranks it up a bit by saying, "Behold," which is an exclamation, "Your father and I have been anxiously looking for You." Do you realize how much anxiety You have caused us? Jesus hasn't been defying or disobeying them. This whole account was necessary because it was necessary to establish His identity. There needed to come a time where there was an inevitable break between Jesus and His earthly family.
'Why is it that you were looking for Me? Did you not know that I had to be in My Father's house?" That's the crux of this whole text. The only words recorded of Jesus in thirty years and they tell us who He was and why He came. My true Father is El Elyon and my home is not in Nazareth. It must’ve been hard for Mary to hear those words and be reminded.
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. (Luke 2:51 ESV)
And so, Jesus going from boy to man goes home to Nazareth and submitted to his parents. We often have a hard time with submission. Jesus didn’t. As children, we don’t want to submit to our parents. Wives don’t want to submit to husbands. Church members don’t want to submit to our pastors and elders. We don’t like to submit to our bosses or other leaders. In fact, we are often tempted to do just the opposite, but God calls us to be submissive to people in authority. Jesus did. He submitted as a boy to his parents and ultimately to His Heavenly Father’s will for our salvation, even to the point of obeying his parents.
There are heresies who want to paint Jesus as something less than fully God and fully man. That is unbiblical and destructive. A lie from Satan and those who practice such teaching are in danger. Our submission is necessary for our salvation because it starts with God. Submitting our will to his and our sinful nature to the substitutionary sacrifice of Jesus. Here we find our liberty and joy. The question is, why are you looking for him all over the place? He is right where he is supposed to be waiting for you.
Until you come to this understanding, nothing is going to make sense. Until you realize that Jesus is in every part of Scripture, this book is not going to make sense. Until you begin to see that God’s plan of redemption and the return of his son is imminently here, nothing happening in this world today is going to make sense. Until you find yourself submitting your life to the will of God and Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross as the ultimate Passover Lamb, you will be without hope.
