GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
LUKE 2:41
The Boy Jesus in the Temple
41 Every year his parents went to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Passover.
In this passage (Luke 2:41-52), we leave the baby Jesus and briefly encounter him as a boy of twelve—at just about the age in which Jews enter their bar-mitzvah (“son of the commandment”). Christian churches that maintain Christian teaching instruct boys and girls in the Catechism at this age, in order prepare them to be admitted to the Lord’s Supper. Here in verse 41, we have a description of what the family did every year: they went to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Passover. From the time of their return from Egypt (when Jesus was perhaps three or four) until he began to preach when he was thirty—and even afterward—this was the family’s regular pattern.
Bible readers often lament that we do not know more about this period in Jesus’ life. But the lack of information should imply something to us: it was relatively uneventful. He woke up every morning during those 26 or so years. Mary gave him breakfast. He did his household chores. He went to Hebrew school with the other boys of Nazareth, taught either by a local priest, or a rabbi or by a teacher in the synagogue (he will return to that synagogue in Luke 4:16-30). He apprenticed under Joseph as a carpenter (Matthew 13:55) and was later called a carpenter (Mark 6:3). Every Sabbath he went with his family to the synagogue to worship, his “regular custom” (Luke 4:16).
As we have already seen, he performed no miracles yet (John 2:11). He had not yet begun to preach or to gather followers. From the viewpoint of a reader, this was a tedious and boring part of the Lord’s life. Yet it was also picturesque; the stuff of satisfying artwork and elegant poetry, but not prose. It was a time for Jesus the young man to learn “to understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God” (Proverbs 2:5), “to understand what is right and just and faith—every good path” (Prov. 2:9), to find wisdom and gain understanding (Prov. 3:13).
Luke’s sentence about the yearly trip up to Jerusalem tells us a great deal. It wasn’t just that they got to take a trip every year; a family vacation—although it served that kind of a purpose. No, it was the religious life of this family in a nutshell. They were faithful Jews, who did what the Law of Moses commanded. The Law said that the Israelites were required to attend the three annual feasts (Exodus 23:14-17). “Three times a year all your men must appear before the LORD your God at the place he will choose: at the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Feast of Weeks and the Feast of Tabernacles” (Deuteronomy 16:16). They are better known to us as Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles (ending with the Day of Atonement). Our verse (Luke 2:41) says that the whole family went to Passover every year, although women were not required to go. Perhaps only Joseph and the boys traveled to the other festivals. It seems that many Jews after the return from the exile did not make three pilgrimages per year, but tried to get to one of them. Jesus attended the Feast of Tabernacles during his years of teaching (John 7:2) and of course, it was a Passover meal which gives us the longest single discourse by the Lord (John 13:1-18:1, a total of 156 verses—longer than Paul’s letter to the Ephesians). These things, in obedience to the Law but also out of love for his heavenly Father, were his regular custom.
What do we learn from all this? Certainly, we learn that Jesus grew up in a believing household which emphasized regular worship and instruction in God’s word. But we also learn that Jesus submitted to the Law of Moses—which Luke very rightly calls “the Law of the Lord.” He kept the requirements God demands of us, all and he kept them without fault; without a single mistake or misstep. His obedience is handed to us through faith. He took our place under the Law, as our substitute. “Surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham’s descendants. For this reason, he had to be made like his brothers in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people” (Hebrews 2:16-17). Since no human could ever satisfy the demands of the Law (“Be holy,” Leviticus 19:2), Christ took this duty and obligation on himself. “But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons” (Galatians 4:4-5). He was already in the process of saving us, even now, as a boy—truly God, and truly human.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Archives by Wisconsin Lutheran Chapel: http://www.wlchapel.org/worship/daily-devotion/
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota