Jesus as a tweenager [1]. This is part of a series of Sunday talks called ‘Astonished by Jesus’ which looks at some of the occasions when the Bible tells us that people were astonished by him.
Reading: Luke 2:41-52
We are a people who worship Jesus Christ.
Never forget that, just let that truth take root in your soul!
There are places in the world where saying that would get you arrested, or even killed
There are places where owing allegiance to anything other than the state, or anyone other than the dictator it tantamount to treason.
We don’t just admire him, or follow him, or swear allegiance to him. We worship Jesus. We worship him as the eternal, uncreated, omnipotent, all-wise, Creator and Sustainer and Redeemer of the universe. He is God, one with the Father and the Spirit. And we worship God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit—one God, in three divine Persons. We worship Jesus.
Jesus as a tweenager
Today however, we’re going to see Jesus in a very different light from being the Lord of glory, we are going to take a long hard look at Jesus the tweenager – something between childhood and teenager
We know Jesus was 12 because that was the age at which any devout Jewish parent would take their boy to the synagogue, or better still the temple for his bar-mistvah, his coming of age.
From this point on the boy is a ‘son-of-the-law’ and carries responsibility before God for his own actions.
Up to this point he was regarded as a child and therefore under the spiritual covering of his parents, but the bar-mitsvah is the turning point, the arrival of manhood.
Apart from his birth, this is the only account we have of Jesus before he bursts on the scene at the age of 30 with his baptism and miracles.
There are other accounts of Jesus life as a child that are not in the Bible – e.g. in the apocryphal gospels.
Why were they not in the Bible? Largely because we have good reason to doubt their origin or authenticity and when you read them they’re just not as believable as the four gospels we have in the scriptures.
Here is one example from the Arabic Infancy Gospel:
One day, when Jesus was running about and playing with some children, he passed by the workshop of a dyer called Salem. They had in the workshop many cloths which he had to dye. The Lord Jesus went into the dyer’s workshop, took all these cloths, and put them into a cauldron full of indigo. When Salem came and saw that the cloths were spoiled, he began to cry aloud and asked the Lord Jesus, saying: “What have you done to me, son of Mary? You have ruined my reputation in the eyes of all the people of the city; for everyone orders a suitable colour for himself, but you have come and spoiled everything.” And the Lord Jesus replied: “I will change for you the colour of any cloth which you wish to be changed”; and he immediately began to take the cloths out of the cauldron, each of them dyed as the dyer wished, until he had taken them all out. When the Jews saw this miracle and wonder, they praised God.
When I compare this account with our reading today, Luke’s account seems a bit unexciting. It seems very ordinary – and that is precisely what speaks in favour of its authenticity. It does not appear to be motivated by a desire to exaggerate Jesus’ uniqueness as a 12 year old. – it’s just a straightforward record of what happened.
In fact it appears, at first reading, as if Jesus was a bit of a handful as a lad!
Here is a principle which runs through this series:
God is glorified when we allow ourselves to be amazed by him. <ppt>
God’s ‘glory’ is often misunderstood. We conjure up the idea of a sort of halo or aura surrounding Jesus Christ (how many times have we seen this is older art and stained glass windows!?)
In reality ‘glorify’ is a much more down-to-earth idea
to glorify something or someone is to speak of them in such a way as to provoke wonder or awe. It’s to astonish people!
- When I bought my first digital camera it came with a memory card of 128MB – (very small by today’s standards)
- I remember telling my dad about it “Dad, see this thing the size of your thumbnail – I can get the Bible 55 times inside there” He was astonished! And I was glorifying the technology! (now it’s 55,000 times! (on a 128GB SDXC card))
- I hear a man say to me “my wife is the best things that ever happened to me!” – he’s glorifying his wife
- I heard someone say of our church “It’s amazing – I actually want to go to church!” They’re glorifying the church.
So doing a series about occasions when people were astonished by Jesus is to do a series on occasions when God was being glorified through his Son.
Therefore we don’t need to exaggerate or embellish the story, we just need to tell it like it is and let the Holy Spirit do the rest!
So What happened?
Jesus had his bar-mitsvah along with other 12 year old boys and the family set off home
- Except that it took Mary and Joseph a day to realise that he wasn’t in the party
- That’s like driving from here to Edinburgh before you realise your child is still back in Eastbourne!
While at first hearing this might sound like careless parenting (by our standards) they travelled in extended family groups and it shows us that already Jesus was a very responsible child whom his parents could trust to join the party back home.
Amazement <ppt>
So what was it that caused amazement?
Verses 46, 47: “They found him in the temple sitting among the teachers listening to them and asking them questions; and all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers.” <ppt>
Just imagine the scene in your mind’s eye
Jesus is sitting with the religious leaders, the rabbis and the experts of his day asking questions.
But wait a minute – If he is the Lord of all, how come he needs to ask questions?
- This is one of those occasions where we see how much of God’s omniscience (his all-knowing-ness) that Jesus left behind when he came to this earth.
- At this point in his life he still had to ask questions of this teachers to develop his own understanding.
In fact in v52 we’re told that once he got back home he ‘grew in wisdom’ – and there is a mystery here. How was it that the God or the universe in human form still needed to grow in wisdom? Didn’t he have it all anyway?
So we catch a glimpse here of how much God limited himself when he came to earth in the body of Jesus Christ!
In the small groups (next week because there is a church meeting this Tuesday) I want you to do the same. I’ve given you some questions to ask of this passage that I hope will open it up. Not all the answers are going to be the same (that’s how we grow in our understanding) but we will be processing God’s word using the same framework. Please take it and use it
What was it that amazed the people in the temple?
Firstly his understanding.
Far beyond what one would normally expect of a 12 year-old
In Proverbs we read this:
Get wisdom. Get understanding.
Don’t forget my words. Don’t turn away from them.
6 Stay close to wisdom, and she will keep you safe.
Love her, and she will watch over you.
7 Wisdom is best. So get wisdom.
No matter what it costs, get understanding.
… and this young lad had it! No wonder people were amazed
Secondly his answers.
Clearly he was being asked questions and we know this was a rabbinic form of education. But whereas the average student would show understanding and memory, Jesus had something else. There was clearly a level of insight that astounded the experts
There is something enormously significant here about the way Jesus learned. Can you see how 4 things happened?
1) he sought out teachers and sat talking with them;
2) he listened attentively;
3) he posed questions when he didn’t understand or when he was making a point; and
4) he gave answers.
So if Jesus needed to do this shouldn’t we do the same?
I talk to people thinking about going into some sort of Christian ministry and I’m sometimes asked ‘do I really need to train for this?’ Do I need to go through all that slog and pay all that money – surely if I’m passionate about it, I’ve got the heart for it, surely if I feel called by God and I read the Bible isn’t that enough?
Answer No!
Training your mind, tapping into the wisdom of wise teachers and other church leaders – then reading church history and soaking your mind in the scriptures is absolutely vital if you’re going to sustain a ministry for the long haul!
Richard Baxter, the 17th century English pastor who wrote the great classic The Reformed Pastor, said (p. 68):
Take heed to yourselves that you want not the qualifications necessary to your work. He must not be himself a babe in knowledge, that will teach men all those mysterious things which must be known in order to salvation. O what qualifications are necessary for a man who hath such a charge upon him as we have! How many difficulties in divinity to be solved! And these too about the fundamental principles of religion! How many obscure texts of scripture to be expounded!
I feel tremendously challenged by the example of Jesus and the admonition of Baxter to strive for increased wisdom and understanding of Scripture. And I urge you all to do the same.
And finally
Does this show us that Jesus was truly the Son of God or was he just a precocious kid?
The answer comes out in verse 48
Actually there are two types of amazement with Jesus here. The temple experts were amazed at his – but so too were his parents
And when they (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 looking for you anxiously (literally: in pain).” And he said to them: “Why is it that you sought me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house (or about his business).”
Mary says “your father” – referring to Joseph, but Jesus says “my Father” referring to God.
In the Greek language there are two ways to ask a question – either with the expectation the answer is ‘yes’ or with the expectation the answer is ‘no’
At this point Jesus uses the form which expects the answer ‘yes’ so he’s effectively saying “surely you realised I must be doing my father’s business? – yes of course you did’
BUT
And they did not understand the saying which he spoke to them.
Never underestimate the spiritual capacity of children.
While Rosi and I were away we saw some footage of children praying and heard how remarkable things had taken place because they had prayed.
We need to pray for our children, their teachers
Jesus was both fully human (so he can identify with us) and fully God (so we are amazed by him)
- Let yourself be amazed by God!
- See him for who he really is!
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Pray
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