Luke 2:41-52 I love how this perspective for Joseph gives new life to this story. It’s always been a kind of humdrum in my mind. Jesus went to the temple and hung out. And he was such a nerd that he stayed there for days. And…he didn’t tell his parents so they were scared and incensed when they found him. The end. (Just goes to show you I’m not always a deep thinker.
But as I read this narrative from the perspective of Joseph something came alive in me. Their story grew bigger in my mind. Joseph’s sort of a meek character in the Bible. He’s humble enough to stay with Mary and
obedient enough to follow the leading of the angels, but after that, we don’t hear much. He’s never among the disciples, he’s not at the cross, or in the upper room after the resurrection. His story sort of disappears in the larger narrative. But he had a huge role. Raising the Son of God is no small task.
As I thought about the larger context of the scriptures, this is the only story of Jesus as a boy. It’s the only thing we know about his development. And I had to ask, why is this story the one that made it? Why did it stand out enough to be included in the scriptures? And why were the others so inconsequential that those stories were never written down? The conclusion I came to was that this became a defining moment for Jesus’ family. I’m not sure it was such a big deal for Jesus. He seems pretty nonplussed by the whole thing. He wasn’t anxious. He wasn’t afraid. He wasn’t out looking for his parents. He was confident and comfortable right at the temple and a little indignant when his parents asked him where he had been and didn’t he realize they were scared. But it was a big deal for Mary and Joseph. It wasn’t the trip to Jerusalem…since the scripture tells us they did that every year. It wasn’t the Passover feast…that too was tradition and no details are shared.
It seems to be the sense of having Jesus with them (and their whole community as they walked the road back to Nazareth) and then realizing he wasn’t there. Then finding him completely in his element…talking and asking questions and sharing ideas in the temple with the religious leaders where everyone was in awe of him….but they were completely out of their element. Which is kind of what parenting is on the grand scale, right? Having them with us, right where we know what to expect (for the most part) and then suddenly we’ve lost them! Sometimes literally….how many of us have lost our kid at the grocery store? Or at a mall? Or an amusement park? Or at church this morning? (ok, so that was just me….)
And sometimes we lose them figuratively….the sense of them being less and less attached to us and more and more like their own individuated person. Mary and Joseph weren’t just the holy families, they were the real-life family, much like us…which sometimes includes losing your kid, and being scared to death until you find them, and then angry at them for wandering off.
There they are at that moment, “Gah!!! How could you do this to us?!” And then the cagey adolescent reply, “Didn’t you know I’d be in my Father’s house?” Uh NO!!! Otherwise, we wouldn’t have spent the last 3 days looking for you EVERYWHERE in Jerusalem!!! And the scripture doesn’t say it, but I can almost imagine Jesus retorting, “Well, this is where I’ve been.” Simple. Matter of fact. With that, “duh!!!” undertone.
I think this was the moment of shift…where Jesus started to morph from being a boy who was theirs to a rabbi who was God’s.
I think it’s interesting that multiple times in this scripture we hear Jesus referred to as a boy and as a child. That’s not really surprising when talking about a 12-year-old. But I don’t think it’s insignificant. Twelve is the typical age of a Bar Mitzvah—the coming of age celebration as a boy becomes a man within the community. He shifts from kid things of play to grown-up things of work and responsibilities. Now, this time in the temple wasn’t a Bar Mitzvah…but it seems like a dawning of a new age…an awakening of sorts. One of those times when you look at your child and you see the adult they are to become. Jesus had been just a boy, just a child, just a kid who played and learned and snuggled and needed them, to now a young man who could do things on his own. He could find his way around the city—for three days, eating and sleeping and returning to the temple. He could teach the scriptures, not just recite them; he could hold his own around the other rabbis. Things were never going to be the same. I think these moments marked Jesus as a young man. He could no longer be considered a little boy. He was much more than that. Who he would become, the specifics of what he would do, those weren’t revealed here. But these days in Jerusalem simply pushed on the transformation that happens as Jesus moved from child to adult.
And then I go back to why we even have this story. Think about it. Jesus lived for 33 years. And we have a lot of stories, but even still we don’t have anywhere close to all the stories that could have been told. The gospels aren’t complete coverage of A-Z—they’re the big ones, the ones that meant the most, that had the most import, that were told over and over again. And that includes this story of Jesus in Jerusalem at the temple. I don’t think there’s a big doctrinal lesson, or moral take away. I think it’s another picture of the incarnation. That as a person, fully human and fully divine, Jesus even had to go through the clunky stages of adolescence--that somewhat rough transition from child to adult. He claimed his independence and his parents struggled to let go. He lived out the lessons he had learned as a child, and his parents likely fretted over what they had done right and wrong and if it would be enough to sustain him as his own adult person. Jesus was like us. Fully human. And he was a tween/teen who pushed the boundaries and learned to express things for himself. And Mary and Joseph were normal parents who managed to lose their kid, and panic as they feared the worst—what if he fell off a cliff, or is lying in a ditch, or was kidnapped, or died?!?! And even they had to learn what it meant to raise the Son of God…not just from angels and prayers, but from their son. “Didn’t you know I’d be in my Father’s house?” Jesus was gaining confidence in his own self—his wisdom and knowledge of who he was becoming even as his parents struggled to catch up. Sound familiar?
One of the gifts of this scripture is the way it grounds the holy family. Before we place them on too high a pedestal, we have to remember they were human, and they struggled and developed and learned together what it would mean for Jesus to be the Messiah. And maybe, it helps us have a little more grace for ourselves as we struggle and develop and learn together what it means for us to live into God’s calling for our own lives. Maybe we’re not raising the Son of God, Emmanuel, but we are raising, or have raised God’s children who are of infinite worth and who will one day be stuck to us and the next somehow lost from us. And like Mary and Joseph, we’ll fumble along together learning and transforming through each stage and chapter life offers.