For Part 1 of this three-part imaginative recounting of young Jesus in the Temple (“An Insuperable Assignment”), click HERE, and for Part 2 (“The Search”), click HERE.
How little Joseph and Mary understood their firstborn; how clearly they should have. After the manner of his birth, could anything about him or done by him surprise them? They had lived with an unbelievable secret they shared with no one, not even the other children. That secret, which should have readied them for the spectacular, only bewildered them when Jesus expressed it. They struggled to tie the miracle of his birth to the guileless superiority that marked him as it instructed them.
With all they knew about him, where in Jerusalem did they think he would be? The first place they should have looked was the last they did, and that by desperation. If he worried them by being absent without permission, they astounded him by not knowing why! The twelve years that progressively enlightened him chained them inside their humanity. That they knew his identity as the Son of God is unquestioned. But the years together in Nazareth dulled their understanding as they matured his. As their visit to Jerusalem merely fulfilled their responsibility, it awakened him to his.
The grind of earthly existence, of working, sickness, rearing a family, etc., has a way of diminishing spiritual radiance and excitement. We cannot blame Joseph and Mary if, in a dozen years, some of the original wonder of Christ’s conception and birth had been eclipsed by daily travail.
In another sense, how could they understand him? Only with difficulty can knowledge illuminate without the benefit of experience. How could they comprehend Mystery, when Mystery revealed much but explained nothing?
“We cannot blame Joseph and Mary if, in a dozen years, some of the original wonder of Christ’s conception and birth had been eclipsed by daily travail.”
How could Joseph and Mary know, devoted to Moses as they were, that in their charge stood the man-child, the God-man, who would at once fulfill and surpass Moses and the Law and extend grace Moses didn’t know existed?
How could they ever comprehend that their son’s past life had been a spiritual granary feeding his present existence on which he feasted to complete fullness of purpose and identity? That he could fathom the mystery locked in ancient scriptures and, in time before time, secrets hidden in him before the creation? That the magnificent man-made structure, called Herod’s Temple, based on plans drawn by heaven’s own Architect, contained all that Jesus needed to know, and the slain lamb uncovered his role in it? That God had torn his will apart, given one part to the temple and the other to Jesus, and brought them together at that supreme moment, at that place, in that age, to unite them; and, in uniting, explain himself to himself? That all his previous and future years rendezvoused in one magnificent instant?
How could they know that his youth hid “all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:3) that his maturity revealed; that the child Jesus anticipated the Man Jesus; that the boy foreshadowed all that the man would become; that the man was already living in the boy; that in this boy God had hidden himself so lost humans could behold without being incinerated by HIS glory? Indeed, how could they know that this perfect child had Deity living magisterially within him? Their son lived on a scale they couldn’t imagine or measure.
“Their son lived on a scale they couldn’t imagine or measure.”
He brought within himself the identity that outdistanced all humanity, an identity hidden in profundity. He wasn’t a man in whom God lived, but God who became man. He wasn’t a man with God in him, but the God who took manhood on himself. He wouldn’t be a mortal struggling to enthrone virtue in a heart where vice competed. He lived as Deity who subsumed all parts of human nature to his ineffable presence. He wasn’t a man with an intoxicating consciousness of and hunger for God, but Almighty God with a perfect humanity.
He had a beginning in Bethlehem, and Mary shared her story with him. Before that beginning he had a relationship his parents couldn’t know or explain, a Godhood that energized his human nature, warmed his spiritual commitment, and illumined the intelligence behind his teaching. His wasn’t a goodness that many people proved could be, but perfection, the all-enveloping embrace of goodness that infinitely surpasses it; a perfection of intention that excelled Adam’s perfection of innocence. For where Adam lost perfection at the first temptation, Jesus kept his, despite every temptation; indeed developed it.
His parents hadn’t calculated the impact Jerusalem would make on him. That he would naturally linger where he felt most at home, close to his Father’s earthly dwelling place. That he would see in the massive stone structure, with its spacious courts and huge doors, something of himself that he hadn’t previously clearly known but, having discovered, would instantaneously comprehend and embrace. In Jerusalem Jesus mastered the pieces floating in his cranium those 144 previous months. In Jerusalem, where God’s temple stood, Jesus instinctively and, with remarkable intuition, identified the structure with himself and with God. A bubbling had effervesced that would eventually become a fountain of billowing spiritual grace.
“He wasn’t a man in whom God lived, but God who became man.”
That’s why he stayed. Nowhere in Nazareth could he find such stimulating, scintillating teachers capable of posing interesting questions about the law, of entertaining thought-provoking questions from students. He stayed because it monopolized his interest. He had already exceeded his family’s relationship. Another now irresistibly seized and held him, the mysterious union of spiritual beings, the Immortal in the flesh with the Immortal invisible.
Duty to that Being summoned his continued stay, and to that summons he consciously, deliberately, and voluntarily surrendered. While the call of daily life prompted the parents to return home, something entirely different detained him in Jerusalem. The responsibility of other children called them back; awareness of God prolonged his stay. Parental responsibility sent them to Nazareth; filial obedience kept him in Jerusalem. Everyday tasks prompted their return home; eternal perspectives extended his stay in the city.
That’s why he didn’t act the tourist while alone there; no mere curiosity kept him there. He hadn’t come to see the sights, but in response to God’s call and to discover his purpose, to welcome God’s will and begin its exposition in his life. That’s why he didn’t merely wander through Jerusalem, gazing and gawking, seeing everything, making mental note of buildings and gardens, flora, and shops. He subordinated even learning and discussion to his conviction that Jerusalem contained his Father’s house, the symbol of his Father’s greater work; and that he, as the Father’s Son, would perfect and complete all that the temple foreshadowed.
“Parental responsibility sent them to Nazareth; filial obedience kept him in Jerusalem.”
How appropriate that, at his first appearance in public, on the threshold of his acceptance as a man, Jesus would give himself to God, offering no excuses in delay, asking no time to ponder its consequences. No. This is what God called him to; this is why he had been born; this is what he would do, and he would begin IMMEDIATELY, even if it meant disconcerting, disappointing, or grieving his parents.
Jesus’ gracious reply proved that he felt himself no child, as Mary declared, but in every sense the Son of his Father in Heaven, in whose house he stood. “My Father’s house,” the first recorded words of Jesus, acknowledged his intimate, ancient, particular, and distinct relationship with God. “Father” a new name for God, necessitating the most intimate relationship between Jesus and God. Gabriel had called God the Highest; Simeon had called him Despot. Jesus called him Father. He would retain that intimacy until, paying the price for our sins, screamed, not, “My Father,” a relationship lost in that penalty for sins, but, “My God,” recognizing God’s wrath on the sins of the world.
When his parents returned to Nazareth, he accompanied them; and there, in Nazareth, even though separated from the scholars of Jerusalem, he continued to grow mentally, spiritually, physically and socially, his siblings and contemporaries providing what Jerusalem couldn’t. While acknowledging his spiritual independence of everyone, God kept his Son in a nuclear family because it offered him balanced growth, to make his seismic impact also positive. John the Baptist grew in isolation, without social skills; Jesus in family and people relationships, amassing inimitable personal skills.
“There, in Nazareth, even though separated from the scholars of Jerusalem, he continued to grow mentally, spiritually, physically and socially, his siblings and contemporaries providing what Jerusalem couldn’t.”
That teaches parents that they can offer their children nothing more important than a God-centered home crammed with love, values, and encouragement that only a family atmosphere provides and models for a child. Of all the institutions in the world, God made the family the incubator of spiritual, moral, intellectual, and social values. It prepares children to live, not just exist; to thrive, not just survive; to overcome, not just compete.
He would stay in Nazareth until age thirty, when he made his public appearance. He wouldn’t even go, at age fifteen, to the rabbinical academies open to those with his giftedness. God wanted his Son in Joseph’s home, limited as it was educationally, socially, intellectually—every way but spiritually. It was more important for him to be under the tutelage of a spiritual family, headed by a righteous man and a virtuous woman, than to be in Jerusalem tutored by the most brilliant Jewish minds available in that age.
Joseph and Mary, both faithful to their spiritual life yet limited by their humanity, often failed to understand their firstborn. Spiritually mature as they were, they were lisping toddlers compared to him. But he who loved his heavenly Father so unreservedly wouldn’t love earthly guardians little, the parents who taught his first lessons, gave him a trade, and, most importantly, modeled God.
Though a change had overtaken the family, Jesus continued to show affectionate regard for his parents. Though independent of them, he nonetheless submitted to them. While aware of his purpose, he was also aware of timing. While he knew who he was, and what he had come to do, he also knew that his time hadn’t yet come. Until it did, he could not more profitably spend his life than in a nuclear family under God.
“It was more important for him to be under the tutelage of a spiritual family, headed by a righteous man and a virtuous woman, than to be in Jerusalem tutored by the most brilliant Jewish minds available in that age.”
Christian parents hold the gospel treasure in their jars of clay. Like Joseph and Mary, they find themselves unequal to the task. Like the beggar Robert Louis Stevenson often encountered on his walks, who loved without understanding the poets he read, we all have a child’s understanding of God, however mature our mental or spiritual growth. In that sense we’re all spiritual beggars, knowing more than we understand, believing more than we can explain, claiming privileges we don’t live.
Personal experience always includes the inexplicable! We call GRACE God’s acceptance of our effort to serve despite imperfections in discharging it. Whatever our personal shortcomings or failures, however, faithfulness to the Christ will prompt our children to value the treasure despite any frailty in the jars.
Adapted from Virgil Hurley, Face to Face with Jesus.
