In Trouble – Luke 2: 41 - 52
Intro: I would venture to say nearly every parent has had an experience similar to Mary and Joseph in this scripture passage. One such story is of a mother who took her 8 year old child Christmas shopping. Before they left the car, the mother told the child to pay attention to the specific location of the car in the parking lot. She instructed the child that should they get separated the child was to come back to the car and wait for her return. The crowd was particularly heavy and the child somehow lost sight of her mother. The girl zipped up her coat, pulled on her mittens and went back to the car. She sat on the trunk of the car for what seemed like hours. Finally, her mother approached looking as though fire was spewing from her nostrils. She bellowed at her child, “You’re in trouble young lady. I’ve been frantically searching for you for 30 minutes! What were you thinking? --- The child was bewildered because she had just followed her mother’s instructions.
I VSS. 44 “Thinking he was in their company, they traveled on for a day. Then they began looking for him among their relatives and friends.”
A Joseph and Mary were not bad parents. They were traveling in a large group of friends and family as was the custom at that time.
B VS. 41 tells us that this was not the first time Jesus had been to Jerusalem. They went every year. It was required of every Jew to make this pilgrimage at least once in their life.
C In VS. 42, we see that Jesus was 12 years old. Every Jewish boy became a man at age 13. So Jesus would have been considered to be quite mature.
II It took Mary and Joseph 3 days to find Jesus. Can you imagine how anxious they must have been? VS. 48a “When his parents saw him, they were astonished.”
A The word “astonished” sounds to me like an understatement. If it were me, I would have been furious.”
B If we look at the Gk., the word translated her as “astonished” is e??st?µ? / existemi – other translations: at wits end / astounded / beside oneself.
C A more accurate translation might be something like: beside oneself with astonishment! OR FLABBERGASTED! They couldn’t believe their eyes and were filled with many emotions. Perhaps you have been flabbergasted sometimes at what the Lord has done in your life of the life of others.
III VS. 49 “Why were you searching for me” he asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” “IN MY FATHER’S HOUSE can also be translated as about my Father’s business.
A Has anybody every told you to “mind your own business”? Usually, we would interpret that in a negative way meaning “don’t get involved in something that doesn’t concern you!”
B Let’s look at that in a different light. Jesus is talking about “His Father’s business.” We aren’t to do anybody else’s business … but … like Jesus, we are to be about “God’s business.”
C VS. 52 “And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.” . . . James 1: 22 puts it another way, “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.”
Concl: The cartoon character Garfield is known to drop “pearls of wisdom” on those who read the comic strip. One such “pearl” is this: “We get heavier as we get older because there’s a lot more information in our heads. So we are just really intelligent and our heads can’t hold any more, so it has started filling up the rest of us.”
That should not be our excuse for not learning about God or knowing what is expected of us as children of God. Jesus grew in favor with God by doing God’s work. We can stay out of trouble by doing the same.
