The Boy Jesus At The Temple

But here he isn’t teaching, he’s learning, asking questions, soaking up all the knowledge he can get hold of. So much so that he’s totally oblivious of the absence of his parents or the fact that three days have gone by and he hasn’t seen or heard from them.

When his parents finally find him, they’re understandably upset. You can probably add your own intonation to the words that Luke reports to us: "Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety." They may well have said more than that, but Luke’s account is sufficient to get across the feeling of the moment. Like any parents in such a situation their anxiety no doubt gave way to a certain degree of anger as soon as they realised their son was safe.

But Jesus isn’t at all fazed by their rebuke. He can’t understand what all the fuss is about. "49He said to them, ’Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?’" His father’s house? Wasn’t that in Nazareth? Well, no. In fact his father isn’t Joseph at all is it? Here we’re reminded again, this time in the words of Jesus himself, that this is no ordinary child. This is the Son of God. And his words bring this home in a remarkable way.

The ordinary Jewish person would have been happy to call God their father, but it was only ever in the sense of God as the source of their existence as a nation. It was always a remote concept. God is so far above us that there was no way any Jew would have thought of God as personally their father.

But here’s Jesus, for the first time, though not the last, referring to God as his father in a way that implies a close personal relationship. Here’s a hint of what he’ll later teach his disciples. For example, when he teaches them to pray "Our Father in Heaven," or when he teaches them to refer to God as "Abba", that is, "Dad".

So Luke begins his gospel with the message that Jesus has come to bring about a new understanding of the relationship we have with God our father. John does a similar thing at the beginning of his gospel, where he says: "But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God" (John 1:12 NRSV)

But not only do Jesus’ words reveal a new way of thinking about our relationship with God, they also tell us something about what Jesus sees his role as. You see when he says "Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?", the translators have added the word house to explain what he meant. But he may equally have meant something like what’s in the footnote: "Did you not know that I must be about my Father’s business?" which is how some other versions translate it. You see, Jesus is sitting in the Temple asking and answering questions because this is the work that God has given him to do. Jesus m.o. is to be where his Father is, doing what his Father does. Again, this is similar to what John reports Jesus as saying: (John 5:19) "Jesus said to them, "Very truly, I tell you, the Son can do nothing on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise."