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Sunday 18 August 2013

Luke 2:41-52 - Jesus at the Temple

We now have a jump of about 12 years to the time when Jesus was taken to the temple. Notice that Luke follows a more systematic coverage of Jesus' life. Jewish males were required to attend three festivals and their families normally accompanied them. The three festivals were Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles (Exodus 23:14-17; Deut 16:16). 
Unbeknown to His parents, Jesus stayed behind in the temple, and it was a day before His parents realised Jesus was not with them. This may seem strange to us, but they would travel much more as big groups, and were not so obsessed with the nuclear family as we are today. In the end it took them three days to find Jesus. When they did find Him He was sitting among the rabbis and teachers of the Law. Jesus was listening to them and asking questions, and they were amazed at the depth of His understanding. Don't you wish we knew what sorts of questions He had actually asked?
His family were understandably upset because of the pain Jesus' disappearance had caused them.
Jesus said it was perfectly normal for Him to be in His Father's house. Note that it is clear that Jesus knew exactly who He was. Some people talk about Jesus gradually becoming aware of who He was or what His mission was. There is precious little Biblical evidence for this. The Biblical evidence at every point is that Jesus knew exactly who He was and what He was here for.
Jesus went with His parents and lived in obedience, growing in favour with God and with man. Note that Jesus did not become proud.

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