Today's Sermon - God's Wisdom based on Luke 2:41-52

God’s Wisdom (based on Luke 2:41-52)

This is the only story in the gospels about Jesus between his infancy and he emerges as a man to be baptized by John.  Some scholars have argued that this account of Jesus in the temple as a young teenager is not an actual account, but a legend created by the early church to fill in some of the gaps in their knowledge of Jesus' life.

We should be aware that in the second and third centuries many legends arose about the boy Jesus and were put into numerous apocryphal gospels—accounts of Jesus which the early church rejected as not having the authority of the four earliest gospels which we have in the New Testament.  Two things speak for the wisdom of the church in recognizing the authority of only Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.  They are content to leave almost 30 years of blank space in Jesus' life, because their interest was on the heart of the gospel not on peripheral matters.  The one story which Luke does include in 2:41–52 is so reserved that it is very unlike most of the legends that were circling of Jesus' childhood.  It does not portray him as doing any supernatural deed or speaking in an unduly authoritative way.  The story reaches its climax and main point not in a supernatural feat but in the sentence: "I must be about my Father's business (or in my Father's house)" (v. 49). Contrast this with some of the legends which grew up later on.

There’s an apocryphal text called the Infancy Gospel of Thomas which is said to have been written in the 2^nd Century.

“When this boy Jesus was five years old he was playing at the ford of a brook, and he gathered together into pools the water that flowed by, and made it at once clean, and commanded it by his word alone.  But the son of Annas the scribe was standing there with Joseph; and he took a branch of a willow and (with it) dispersed the water which Jesus had gathered together.  When Jesus saw what he had done, he was enraged and said to him: "You insolent, godless boy, what harm did the pools and the water do to you?  See, now you also shall wither like a tree and shall bear neither leaves nor root nor fruit."  And immediately that lad withered up completely; and Jesus departed and went into Joseph's house.  But the parents of him that was withered took him away, bewailing his youth, and brought him to Joseph and reproached him: "What a child you have who does such things."  After this again he went through the village, and a lad ran and knocked against his shoulder.  Jesus was exasperated and said to him: "You shall not go further on your way," and the child immediately fell down and died.  But some, who saw what took place, said: "From where does this child spring, since every word is an accomplished deed?"

Here is one more 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 color for himself, but you have come and spoiled everything."  And the Lord Jesus replied: "I will change for you the color 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.

After such stories, our gospel reading from Luke seems a bit drab—and that is precisely what speaks in favor of its authenticity.  It does not appear to be motivated by a desire to overplay Jesus' uniqueness.  The claim to uniqueness is much more subtle in Luke and that fits better with the way Jesus acted most of the time.

We know from the beginning of Luke that he puts a high premium on eyewitness confirmation.  We also know from an account later on written in Acts that while Paul was imprisoned for two years in Jerusalem and in Caesarea, his sidekick Luke, who wrote this gospel, was probably roaming around Jerusalem interviewing old-timers and collecting information.  After all, he considered himself to be an historian.  And finally Luke mentions that people kept experiences in their hearts, or in other words, they remembered them deeply for their experience.  In 1:66 he said that all who heard how John the Baptist was born "laid it up in their hearts, saying, 'What then will this child be?'" In 2:19 after the shepherds had come to Bethlehem, Luke says, "But Mary kept all these things, pondering them in her heart." And then here at the end of our text in 2:51 it says, "And his mother kept all these things in her heart."  I think the most important reason why he mentions this “storing up of memories” is to give Theophilus (the person to whom he was originally writing the gospel account and the story or the Acts of the Apostles) and us a clue as to how Luke, a Gentle foreigner, was able to write as much as he did about Jesus' childhood.

Therefore, in view of how few there are of the child Jesus, and how much more reserved this particular account is than the apocryphal legends, and how great Luke's concern is to trace things out carefully and confirm it with eyewitnesses, it seems to me that the claim that this story is only a legend is most likely wrong.

Now let's work through the story:

It opens with Jesus’ parents going up to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the Passover.  So we see that Jesus' parents were devoted to the law of Moses.  They loved it, studied it, obeyed it.  And because of that, we also soon see Jesus doing exactly the same thing – being devoted to the law.

The fact that this incident happened when Jesus was 12 is pretty significant in and of itself.  Because the 12th year was the last year of preparation for a young boy before he entered full participation in the religious life of the synagogue.  Up until that time his parents, especially his father, would be teaching him the commandments of the law, but at the end of the 12th year a child goes through a ceremony called a bar mitzva, whereby he formally takes on the yoke of the law and becomes a man, or a “son of the covenant”  Bar means son, and Mitzvahor means covenant or commandment.  Perhaps Jesus wanted to subtly demonstrate subtly that his insight into the commandment or covenant was more profound than for others and his relation to God was unique.

In verses 43, 44, Jesus’ parents realize, after journeying a whole day, that he is not with them.  The distance that we’re talking about is like driving from Pittsburgh to Harrisburg and realizing you left your child and having to drive back again.  Only it's worse: they were walking.  One thing in particular stands out for me in this story; there seems to be an implicit faith that Mary and Joseph have in their 12 year old son.  If he had been an irresponsible child, his parents would never have gone a whole day without knowing his whereabouts.  They seem to have trusted him and knew he had good judgment.  This suggests that Jesus' motive in staying behind was not carelessness or disrespect.  Evidently, he intentionally let them go in order to demonstrate something.

Verses 43–46: "They sought him among their kinsfolk and acquaintances; and when they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem seeking him.  After three days they found him in the temple." I’m assuming, although we don’t really know, that the three days means one day out of Jerusalem, one day back to Jerusalem, and a third day searching for him.

But, in any case, "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."  This sentence has always intrigued me as it allows me to fantasize about all the possible questions I have and understandings that I have that I’d love to sit and chat for hours with great learned scholars of our day, to have an audience of just me and them.  Well, rather than fantasize about such things, I think that the ultimately lesson from this unusual account is this; if the Son of God could seek out teachers, listen, ask questions, and give answers about the things of God, I think it is fair to say that this should be a pattern that we adopt as well as an important aspect of our own growth in knowledge and understanding to gain wisdom.  As we say a fond farewell to the end of 2018, may the new year of 2019 bring us more growth in our knowledge and understanding of scripture and the things of God.

I am indebted to Rev. John Piper's work on this passage.  He was chancellor at Bethlehem College and co-founder of the website Desiring God.