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| Jesus among the Doctors Duccio di Buoninsegna (c. 1255 -- c. 1318) |
Saint Luke’s account of the finding of the child Jesus in the Temple is the only episode we have in the canonical Gospels from what are sometimes described as Our Lord’s “hidden years.” Apart from this one incident, the New Testament skips from the infancy of Jesus to his baptism at the River Jordan, conventionally reckoned to have occurred when he was about thirty years old.
Some of the non-canonical apocryphal Gospels do feature fantastic stories of Our Lord’s childhood, such as the boy Jesus fashioning twelve clay birds and then causing them to come to life and fly away, or striking his playmates dead with a wave of his hand when they tease him. By comparison, Luke’s account of Mary and Joseph losing Jesus and then finding him three days later in the Temple is simple and prosaic by comparison -- and yet so much more profound.
Although this story is not devoid of symbolic elements, nonetheless in its basic outline it’s entirely plausible as the description of an incident that could really have happened. Jews living in Judea were expected to go up to Jerusalem three times a year for the great festivals of Pesach (Passover), Shavuot (the Feast of Weeks), and Sukkot (the Feast of Booths). For those living in places further away but still within reasonable traveling distance, such as Galilee, the requirement was reduced to once a year, at Passover.
In the way he tells the story, Luke is emphasizing that Jesus was brought up in the traditions of Judaism in an observant household. Luke is careful to make this point all along in his infancy narrative, noting both that Jesus was circumcised on the eighth day after his birth, and that after forty days Joseph and Mary brought him up to the Temple to present him to the Lord, as required by the Torah.
Even the detail of Jesus getting left behind by mistake is credible in the context of the times. Pilgrimages to Jerusalem often involved populations of entire villages traveling together, so Mary and Joseph could easily have assumed that he was elsewhere in the party. In his commentary on this passage, the Venerable Bede speculates that since even in the same caravan men and women customarily traveled separately, Mary and Joseph could each have assumed that Jesus was traveling with the other.
Although this story is not devoid of symbolic elements, nonetheless in its basic outline it’s entirely plausible as the description of an incident that could really have happened. Jews living in Judea were expected to go up to Jerusalem three times a year for the great festivals of Pesach (Passover), Shavuot (the Feast of Weeks), and Sukkot (the Feast of Booths). For those living in places further away but still within reasonable traveling distance, such as Galilee, the requirement was reduced to once a year, at Passover.
In the way he tells the story, Luke is emphasizing that Jesus was brought up in the traditions of Judaism in an observant household. Luke is careful to make this point all along in his infancy narrative, noting both that Jesus was circumcised on the eighth day after his birth, and that after forty days Joseph and Mary brought him up to the Temple to present him to the Lord, as required by the Torah.
Even the detail of Jesus getting left behind by mistake is credible in the context of the times. Pilgrimages to Jerusalem often involved populations of entire villages traveling together, so Mary and Joseph could easily have assumed that he was elsewhere in the party. In his commentary on this passage, the Venerable Bede speculates that since even in the same caravan men and women customarily traveled separately, Mary and Joseph could each have assumed that Jesus was traveling with the other.
Yet something new is also happening here. Up until now in the infancy narratives, Jesus has remained silent. As an infant he could say nothing, so others did all the talking for him. Between them, the angel Gabriel, Mary's cousin Elizabeth, the angels and shepherds in the fields, and Simeon and Anna in the Temple, have made some extravagant claims on his behalf: he is “the Son of the Most High …” “a Savior, who is Christ the Lord,” “a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to thy people Israel.”
But now, Jesus speaks, and his first recorded words in Scripture are: “How is it that you sought me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” Here he claims for himself the filial relationship with his Father in heaven that up to now others have ascribed to him. He is the Son of God. The Jerusalem Temple is his Father’s House.
(Notice that the Church offers children the opportunity to do something similar at about the age of twelve or older. If we were baptized as infants, our parents and godparents made the baptismal vows on our behalf. That was fine, but sooner or later there comes a point when we must own those promises for ourselves, and claim the relationship with God into which baptism has initiated us. So, in the Sacrament of Confirmation we reaffirm our baptismal vows and receive the strengthening of the Holy Spirit through the bishop’s laying-on-of-hands.)
In telling the story, also, Luke conveys something of the tension that is beginning to emerge in Our Lord’s relationship with his earthly family. His remaining behind in the Temple causes Mary and Joseph no small amount of distress, as Mary herself voices in the words, “Son, why have you treated us so? Behold, your father and I have been looking for you anxiously.” As a son, he has clearly defined duties to his parents. Luke duly notes that after this incident Jesus returned to Nazareth and was obedient to them. At the same time, however, his growing awareness of his filial relationship with his Father in heaven has introduced the claims of a higher loyalty: “Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”
Here the boy Jesus gives an anticipatory hint of the conflicts that his disciples will experience between earthly loyalties and obedience to God’s will. Later in the Gospels, Jesus repeatedly warns his disciples that they must be willing to give up everything that stands in the way of following him – and that sometimes faithful discipleship will entail conflict with members of their own families and even the sundering of family relationships.
Early Christian commentators on this passage liked to point out two more details of the story from the viewpoint of Mary and Joseph. First, they found Jesus in the Temple after three days of searching. Whether or not Luke intended it in telling the story, the three days struck the early Church fathers as an overwhelmingly obvious symbolic anticipation of our Lord’s Resurrection from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion and death. The losing-and-finding of Jesus in the Temple thus exemplifies the basic pattern of death and resurrection that shapes all Christian experience.
Second, the place where they found him was none other than “his Father’s House.” When we feel that we’ve lost sight of Jesus, and don’t know where to find him, that detail gives us a clue as to where to look: namely in the Church, the assembly of the faithful gathered for worship.
Listen to the words of the third-century Christian writer Origen of Alexandria:
“He is not found as soon as sought for, for Jesus was not among his kinsfolk and relations … nor in the company of the multitude … Learn where those who seek him find him, not everywhere, but in the Temple. And then seek Jesus in the Temple of God. Seek him in the Church, and seek him among the masters who are in the Temple. For if you will so seek him, you shall find him. They found him not among his kinsfolk, for human relations could not comprehend the Son of God; nor among his acquaintances, for he passes far beyond all human knowledge and understanding. Where then do they find him? In the Temple! If at any time you seek the Son of God, seek him first in the Temple, thither go up and you shall find Christ, the Word, and the Wisdom of God” (quoted in Thomas Aquinas, Catena Aurea).
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