Luke 2:41-52 Commentary

We know where to find him. That’s the sense I keep coming back to with this lone story about Jesus as a teenager. Maybe it’s the stage of life I’m in. Maybe it’s world events and how some of us seem to have lost the plot on what it means to be a Christian. Maybe it’s because anxiety about where God is, frankly, feels like it’s running really high right now.

Even given the extraordinary circumstances of a missing child, this event is wrapped in the ordinary. Consider how much of this section is spent in the prologue as Luke sets the scene for why twelve-year-old Jesus is in the temple. Joseph and Mary are doing what they ought, coming yet again to Jerusalem to participate with countless others in the Passover festivities. The teachers are in the temple doing what they do: discussing and talking about matters of the Scriptures and religion among themselves. And, Jesus is around that age when the boys who showed the most promise would be invited to become disciples of a rabbi. Clearly, his wisdom and engagement would have caught these teachers’ attention.

It’s sort of like Jesus is hiding in plain sight, making use of the wisdom we’ve already been told he was growing in as a child (verse 40). Even the fact that Joseph and Mary momentarily lose track of Jesus is ordinary and relatable. My aunt loves to tell the story about the time I slipped away from her in the department store, only to be found sitting quietly and patiently in a kiddie pool while she ran around shouting my name and not letting anyone leave the store…

But it’s longer than a moment, isn’t it? Joseph and Mary look for Jesus for three days. I’m not sure why this year is the first time I noticed how long they looked. For three days, they did not know where to find Jesus. For three days all they knew was their loss. Sound familiar?

So of course Mary and Joseph are astonished and simultaneously still feeling the torture that comes with fearing the worst about your child’s well-being. How could Jesus have been in the temple all this time? (Imagine the questions that would have come on that walk back home: Where did he sleep? Who gave him food? Did no one ask where his parents were? Did he not see his travelling party leaving?…)

When they find him and ask him how he could have done that to them, though, Jesus’s first reply is to wonder why they didn’t think to look for him where he was most likely to be found. In other words, they ought to have known where to find him.

Luke explains to us that Mary and Joseph still didn’t understand what Jesus was saying to them, and I can’t say that I blame them. Trying to get your brain to comprehend things when anxiety is that high is just about impossible. I’ve gotten just a small taste of that as a new mom, occasionally waking up at night convinced that my infant is trapped under the blankets of my bed even though she’s sleeping in her crib in the other room. My first priority is to search the bed, and comprehend the truth later.

Of course, not understanding something has nothing to do with whether or not it’s actually true. And isn’t that a gift, too? We may not understand that we already know where to find Jesus, and we may be too anxious to be able to tell ourselves that, but it will be true all the same. And when we find him, we will be able to reflect back to what is and always has been true: we do know where to find him. At least, that’s part of what I think Luke means when he repeats with each of these little scenes in Jesus’s early life that “Mary treasured all these things in her heart.”

So where will we find him? Where is Jesus’s father’s house? No longer simply the temple or a church building. No, according to Paul, each of us is the new living temple where Christ reigns in our hearts through the presence of the Holy Spirit. But one thing remains the same—the Father’s house is meant to be a place of prayer (as Jesus reiterates as he cleanses the temple in Matthew 21.12-13).

So where do we find Jesus? We find him when we pray. Or as Paul encourages, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4.6-7)

Textual Points

When tween Jesus goes back to Nazareth with Mary and Joseph, Luke includes this interesting detail, saying Jesus “was obedient to them.” In the Greek, the clause is a periphrastic passive participle, making the literal translation: “was continuing to be submitting to them.” As you can see, the grammatical form underscores the continuous action of the verb.

Illustration Idea

Stories about child prodigies usually highlight the ways children were pursuing their interests at early ages. Pablo Picasso’s mother said that his first words were asking for a pencil. Bobby Fischer’s mom worried about the amount of time Bobby spent playing chess by himself. Mozart was composing music by age five. Of course, Jesus was more than just a prodigy but we see hints of what the teachers and Mary and Joseph witnessed as they listened and watched Jesus in temple.