One of the biggest questions surrounding this passage is “Why do we have only one story from the childhood, youth and young adult years of Jesus’ life?”
- Is it an issue of focus? – God wants the focus to be on the three adult ministry years?
- Was his childhood intentionally secret?
- Was the rest of His childhood and youth somewhat normal?
The direct answer isn’t given – but that in itself may be the answer. With all of the time that the disciples spent with Jesus, there most likely were many conversations that took them to topics like his youth and childhood. “Hey, Jesus, did you ever hit the winning shot in the ball game?” Or, “What was your favorite thing to build in the carpenter shop?” So there probably were things that could be said, but yet God had the New Testament authors record only this one childhood event and in only one Gospel.
Here are a few interesting observations we do have about this one story. First, the three preceding stories in Luke are all from the temple so this fits right in the sequence.
Second, Jesus most likely took other trips to the temple between age one and thirty. It does seem though that this may have been the only one that had this significant of an encounter. The next chapter in Luke picks up with John the Baptist paving the way for the launch of Jesus public ministry. When Jesus shows up to be baptized, he doesn’t come with a following. This seems in show that had he been some childhood phenom, constantly was showing His stuff in the temple, one would suspect that He would have not needed the John intro.
Third, I think we get another hint as to why only one story from His youth when he performs the miracle of turning the water into wine at Cana. He made the statement “My time has not yet come.” Now rewind to Luke 2. You get the feeling that Jesus could have used that temple experience as the launch of His ministry. Back at that time, age 12 was not perceived of being as young as it is today. It was the edge of perceived adulthood. So Jesus could have used that time to declare who He was, but he choose not to launch.
Fourth, what He actually did do was what the last verse of the chapter says, “He returned to Nazareth and continued in submission to His parents.
I think that this single mention of this one story points to the fact that Jesus’ childhood and youth really established His humanity. He’s living clearly in two worlds. The heavenly world and the earthly world. At the end of three days of His parents’ searching He declares He was about His Father’s business (and by the way, don’t miss the significance of three days – another foreshadow of what is to come…). But then He simply returns home in submission to His earthly parents. We get this picture that we have this supernatural human being who is destined for greatness, but makes it clear that his ministry launch must be at the right time.
Although one of the shortest stories we’ve done in Men’s Life, it was powerful.
So what’s a main takeaway? For me, it is a reminder of looking at things from God’s perspective. His timing is perfect and although hard at times to be patient, waiting for God’s timing is best. There may be times that we will not realize the significance of some event until many years later.