Luke 2:47
And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers.
His Astonished Parents
When Jesus’ parents left Jerusalem after the Passover feast, they didn’t realize that He was gone until after about a day’s journey. Maybe this shows just how unassuming Jesus was or that He was such a perfect child that His parents didn’t even have to give Him a thought most of the time. Either way, His parents came back to look for Him, and after three days of frantically searching, they found Him in the temple. They were obviously very upset, asking how He could have treated them so badly (Luke 2:48). Can you imagine the panic of these parents? Jesus replied as if they should have known that He would have been in the temple. Jesus wasn’t being sarcastic to His parents but making at least two points: first that His Father was God the Father and secondly that He was where His parents should have expected Him to be. Possibly, He was telling them that this was where He naturally fit in. He is God, and as God, He belongs in the temple.
The Perfect Child
Don’t think that Jesus wasn’t submissive to His parents because He was. It is written that after His parents came back for Him, He went back to Nazareth with them “and was submissive to them,” and Jesus’ mother kept all these things in the back of her mind (Luke 2:50). This account of Jesus teaching in the temple was amazing in the sense that here was Jesus, only 12 years old, mingling among the adults (Luke 2:46), including the teachers like the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and likely the Scribes. You wonder why Jesus’ parents didn’t look in the temple in the first place. And during Jesus three days in the temple, who cared for Jesus during that time? Who fed Him? Or did He simply fast during those three days?
We Are Astonished
Jesus might ask you why you were looking for Him. Was it simply a way of escaping hell? Was it to make your life better? Was it for the purpose of having a happier life, an improved marriage, or a more fulfilled experience in this world? Jesus came to die for sinners, so we should have been looking for Him to go and tell Him we are sorry for our sins, we repent, and we trust Him to save us, asking to please forgive us. Really, we didn’t choose Him, but He chose us (John 15:16) because the Spirit of God revealed Who Jesus is (Matt. 16:17), and the fact is that He loved us first before we ever loved Him (1 John 4:19). Were you really looking for Him when the Bible clearly says that none of us seek after Him (Rom. 5:11)? Really, He was looking for you. Now that is astonishing.
A Closing Prayer
Righteous God, You loved me first, even while I was a sinner and Your enemy (Rom. 5:8, 10). Please forgive me for where I fall short, and help me to serve You better where You have placed me within the Body of Christ. In Jesus’ name I pray.
Amen
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