Jesus in the Temple at 12

I. Introduction
 A. This year: series on the Bible; this 13 weeks: Bible stories about the Bible
 B. Read Luke 2:41–51, the only incident of Jesus’ childhood recorded in Scripture.
 C. Story: After a week of celebrating the Passover in Jerusalem, Joseph and Mary and many friends and relatives began the trek home to Nazareth. At the end of a long day’s travel, His parents suddenly realize Jesus is not with them.
  1. They return and on the third day finally find Him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions.
  2. “Son, why have You treated us this way? Behold, Your father and I have been anxiously looking for You.” Mary is irritated that Jesus wasn’t with the rest of them headed toward his father’s house. But Jesus had headed to His heavenly Father’s house, “Why is it that you were looking for Me? Did you not know that I had to be in My Father’s house?”(these are the first recorded words of our Lord – v .48-49).
  3. This story gives us tantalizing little  glimpses into the fact that Jesus is not just Mary’s son, but the Son of God in heaven. In this way, He was gently and tenderly discipling His mother.
  4. At this point He compliantly returned home with them.
II. Explanations
 A. Mary has frequently been criticized for what happens here. How do you lose Jesus? How do you lose track of the Messiah? How can you get a whole day’s journey down the road before you realize He’s not with you?
  1. But this is perfectly understandable to anyone who has a big family.
  2. Jesus was the oldest of at least seven children (Matt.13:55-56 “Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? 56 And are not all his sisters with us?”) – and probably more. 
  3. Assuming they were all born at this point, Joseph and Mary had six or more other children under 11.
  4. We know something about this family. Things were a little crazy. His parents were very busy.
  5. All those who have seven children can understand it easily. Virtually all families of that size have their stories about how they left a kid here or there and didn’t realize it.
   a. He was the oldest. He was the last one they were worried about. They also knew He was trustworthy. (Mary & Joseph must have experienced quite a let-down when the second child came along.)
  6. I’m not suggesting that Mary & Joseph felt no grief when they realized Jesus was not with them. Every parent has grief when they lose a child!
   a. But how much more intense was the grief of Mary and Joseph when they lost not only their child but the salvation of the world!
   b. The 3 days of missing Jesus foreshadowed the three days of Mary’s grief after the cross. 
 B. What was going on in the temple for those three days? Luke 2:46–47 “After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. 47 And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers.”
  1. Listening to them explain things and asking them questions
  2. Explaining things to them and answering their questions
  3. There was back and forth, teaching and learning from each other.
III. To grasp the power of this story, we need to understand the relationship between Jesus & the temple.
 A. The foundations of the threshold must have shaken (Is.6:4) when this little 12 year old wandered in.
 B. A temple is the house of a god. And the OT temple  was God’s house. He dwelt there in the glory cloud which hovered over the ark of the covenant. But before the exile to Babylon the glory cloud departed from the temple (Ezek.10). In the destruction of Jerusalem the ark of the covenant was lost. And after the people returned from exile and rebuilt the temple, the temple had no ark of the covenant and no glory cloud. When Solomon’s temple was built, the glory cloud came and entered into the temple in spectacular fashion. But when this temple was built, there was no such entrance. For many years it sat, triumphant and glorious in terms of beauty and architecture, but its real beauty was missing, for God was not in it.
 C. So, when Jesus comes to the temple, the temple is suddenly fulfilled, the temple becomes what it is supposed to be. The owner of the house is back at home. Finally, the temple was the way it was supposed to be.
 D. So, it’s no wonder that when Jesus enters at age 12 the whole place gets stirred up at His presence.
 E. And this was just the beginning: Jesus did a lot of teaching and healing in the temple.
 F. Later He shook things up even more when He overturned the tables of the moneychangers and said, “My Father’s house is to be a house of prayer!” (Matt.21:13)
 G. But what’s most interesting is His final departure from the temple in the last days before the cross.
  1. Matthew 23:37–24:2 “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! 38 See, your house [not My Father’s house] is left to you desolate [tragically empty]... 1 Jesus left the temple and was going away, when his disciples came to point out to him the buildings of the temple. 2 But he answered them, “You see all these, do you not? Truly, I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.” (Predicting the destruction of the temple).
  2. That Friday, at His crucifixion, the veil in the temple which separated the place of the priests from the Holy of Holies was torn in half from top to bottom, signifying that the entrance into God’s presence had now been opened through Christ’s death.
  3. This temple was totally destroyed in 70AD, about 40 years later, and has never been rebuilt.
 H. But this doesn’t mean there is no temple today. There is a temple, though it is a different kind of temple.
  1. OT temple versus NT temple
  2. John 4:23 “An hour is coming and now is when people will worship God in spirit and in truth.”
  3. 1Pet.2:4-5 a temple made of living stones (see also Hebrews 3:6, 10:21)
IV. In light of all this, the story of Jesus in the temple at 12 is amazing!
 A. Jesus, the Son of God, the very glory of the temple, humbled Himself by immersing Himself in the human structures God had instituted in order to grow in the knowledge and wisdom of God.
 B. He submitted Himself to the institution of teaching.
  1. He learned from the teachers of the law. He asked them questions and listened to their answers.
  2. He put Himself under the teaching of others.
  3. He could have been transfigured at that moment instead of much later. Then everyone could have seen that He was the glory cloud in human form. But instead He humbled Himself and listened and asked questions and explained things.
  4. We’re told elsewhere (Luke 4:16) that, as he was growing up, each week He went to synagogue.
   a. To know the Bible this well at the age of 12, He must have spent a lot of time in God’s word as a child. Did His family have a Bible? Probably not. Very few had copies, and virtually none among the poor.
   b. He learned His Bible in the synagogue and in conversations with others. 
   c. Think about how He must have listened in the synagogue, listening to the word of God, but also listening to fallible men.
   d. Jesus’ attentiveness to the word of God – even as taught by fallible men – is a calling to give our attention to the word of God.
  5. One of the gifts of the Spirit by which the Spirit blesses His church is the gift of teaching: the ministry of teaching and explaining the Scriptures, along with the building collection of understanding and insight about the Scriptures which as been passed down through the ages.
   a. And that gift has never been more accessible to God’s people that it is today.
   b. Commentaries, books, Sunday school, online resources, Sermon audio app, etc. besides sermons at church. And there are many great teachers of the Bible accessible to us today!
  6. If Jesus was willing to learn God’s word from fallible teachers, who are we to turn away?
 C. God’s word is significantly understandable even to a 12 year old. Do we have any 12 year olds here?
  1. Jesus has two minds, a divine mind and a human mind. Jesus using His human mind here.
   a. Ordinarily Jesus used His human mind, except for a few times.
   b. We see His human mind in Matthew 24:36 when He says, “Of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven nor the Son, but the Father only.”
   c. Luke 2:52 And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man.
   d. How can the mind of God increase in wisdom? This is clearly referring to Jesus in His humanity. In His deity He couldn’t learn anything – for God knows everything.
   e. If the point of this story was to work a miracle, it would have been done when Jesus was two or three years of age. But He’s 12.
  2. Here was a mind fully engaged in what you should be engaged in when you’re 12 years old.
  3. He eagerly absorbed everything that came His way – so that He grew in wisdom. He had a hunger to do right, a passion to become wise, a zeal to please His Father in heaven.
  4. Would the author of all the Bible’s commands to give close attention to the word of God and to have His word upon one’s heart, would He not practice this Himself?
  5. What does this story say about what a 12 year old is capable of? What does this say about the human capacity to grasp the truth of Scripture?
  6. Our problem with the Scriptures is not an intellectual one but a spiritual one.
  7. Jesus was this way not because He was God but because He was sinless. (God doesn’t have to learn anything or debate with anybody.)
  8. We are NOT this way NOT because we are not God, but because we are not sinless. Or to put it another way, we are not this way because we are sinful.
  9. We often have the wrong idea re: sin. We think what is normal is OK. And when I do what is extraordinarily bad, that is sin. But Jesus is the standard. We need to repent not only when we lie or disobey. We need to repent that we're not like Jesus. And this makes it very clear why we cannot rely on our own righteousness but only on His! Praise God that He lived the life we – in our sin –  couldn’t live.
 D. And finally, if we want to follow Christ, we need to go where He goes. We need to go with love into the world of sinners. We need to go into places of need. We need to be willing to go into places of danger and risk. And we also need to go to the temple, even if it means going without our family.
  1. The church has an earthly dimension to it and a heavenly one. There is the visible church and the invisible church. And the relationship between the two is complicated.
  2. But there is a temple for us – made of living stones — which is our home.
  3. It is our Father’s house, where we live with our brothers and sisters. It’s where we have supper together. It’s where we pray for each other and learn about each other and get to know our Father.
  4. It’s the place of the Book, which our Father opens and tells us its wonderful stories.
  5. In this story Jesus neglects His family to attend to a higher family.
  6. And by His example He calls us to forsake even the best things of this world, in order to seek the things above, in order to go to that place God has designated for people to connect with Him. And what is that place? It is where 2 or 3 gather in His name, and He is in the midst of them (Mt.18:20).
  7. It is the place where God’s people dwell, the place where the Scriptures are read and studied and discussed and cherished, the a place where our questions get answered, the place where God lives.
  8. In this story, Jesus is pointing us to His temple, a home more important than our family’s home.
  9. Jesus wants us to follow Him there: into God’s presence, into the house of Scripture, in the house of prayer, into the house of God’s people.