Where did
Joseph and Mary find Jesus?
In the temple in Jerusalem.
Why did it take them “three days” to find
Jesus in the temple?
Returning to Jerusalem two days after the feast of
Passover ended, Joseph
and Mary would have found the city’s population, which tripled or
quadrupled during the feast, returning to its normal size. Since
“three days” (Luke 2:46) is sufficient
for combing through all of
Jerusalem’s streets, the temple may have been the last place they
thought to check.
Why?
If your twelve year old child is lost in a city, would you expect him
to be sitting in a seminary debating its faculty?
How could Jesus give “answers” (Luke 2:47)
to “the teachers” (Luke 2:46) by “listening to them and questioning them” (Luke 2:46)?
Jesus often used questions to answer questions. For example, Matthew
12:9-12 reads: Then He departed from there and went
into their synagogue. And behold, there was a man who had a shriveled
hand. And they asked Him, saying, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?”
- so that they might accuse Him. Then He said to them, “What man is
there among you
who has a sheep, and if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will not lay
hold of it and lift it out? How much more valuable then is a man than a
sheep? ...”
What error does Mary’s statement contain?
Jesus’ father is not Joseph, and if they had left Jesus behind in the
temple, He hadn’t “done” (Luke 2:48) anything
to them.
Does Jesus correct her?
“I must be in My Father’s matters”
(Luke 2:49). Also, the fact that they looked for Jesus everywhere first
else wasn’t His fault either.
Did Mary understand Jesus’ response?
Not at the time: “they did not understand what He said to them”
(Luke 2:50).
So did she reject His words?
No, she “kept all these sayings in her heart”
(Luke 2:52) until they made sense to her later.
What should we do with Jesus’
words that we don’t understand today?