Dwight Fletcher | Growing up Jesus

At Christmas, we are accustomed to the usual accounts of Jesus’ life: the manger, the virgin birth, the escape to Egypt, and so on. However, there were other incidents and circumstances that occupied Jesus’ life. This Christmas, we are going to look at a few of those, in particular, the humanity of our Lord and the lessons we can learn from it.

Jesus, who was fully God and fully man, had two natures, and each nature was full and complete. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made ... The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” John 1:1-14 (NIV). Jesus is God and human, but we often ignore His humanity. But what did it mean for His life, and what can it teach us about our own lives?

There is really not much information in the Bible about His childhood and teenage years. We know some of what happened during his first eight days of life; that he spent a short time in Egypt when King Herod was trying to kill him; and that he grew up in Nazareth. Other than that, and what we are going to learn today from Luke 2:41-52, we know nothing of Christ’s childhood.

We can assume that the childhood of Jesus would have been normal. As a Jewish boy, He had experiences similar to other children. It was customary for Jewish families to go to Jerusalem for the Passover each year. Though it was required only of men, many times, it became a family excursion, and Jesus’ family followed this Jewish custom.

On a boy’s 13th birthday, he was accepted as a full “son of the law”and became responsible for His own obedience to Hebrew law. Normally, a boy at 12 would be taken to the Passover to prepare him for this responsibility. Therefore, the recorded incident in Jesus’ life when He was 12 is significant.

Cultural Norms and the Scriptures

What we usually focus on in this passage is Joseph and Mary leaving Jesus behind in Jerusalem. Although some of us may have once or so forgotten to pick up a child from school, we have to be careful not to impose our cultural norms on the scriptures. Extended families would have normally travelled together in a larger community of people for safety reasons. Missing a child was something that could happen to any family and doesn’t suggest neglect on the part of Mary and Joseph.

Ordinarily, the women would leave before the men since they walked slower, and the men and boys would follow later. Mary could have easily assumed that Jesus was with Joseph and the men, and Joseph assumed that He was with Mary and the children. It wouldn’t be until they met at the close of the day, when everyone is settling down to sleep, that they would have discovered that Jesus was not present. They, therefore, had to return to Jerusalem to find Him. What this account implies is that Jesus grew up without special treatment. He experienced an ordinary family life with ordinary mishaps. Luke may be trying to convey this and attempting to demystify aspects of Jesus’ life.

The overarching theme from this passage is that Jesus had to grow up like everyone else without any free passes for the sinless Son of God. Next week, we will look at how Jesus grew as He got older and what lessons we can learn from it.