I was reading Luke 2:41-49 in which Jesus is about twelve. The whole wider family has all gone to Jerusalem for Passover and on coming home, when they stop for the night, Mary and Joseph notice Jesus isn’t with them so they travel back to get him.
Now I’ve heard sermons about this which say that because Jesus was now twelve he would have been traveling with the men and no longer with the women and children so Mary wouldn’t have been keeping an eye on him. But this sort of shifts the blame then to Joseph for not keeping an eye on him. Almost back to that thing you hear about fathers “baby sitting” their own children. I like to think that Joseph was better than that. I mean after all he gave up when Jesus was born – not just his reputation by marrying a girl who was pregnant, but also going into exile in Egypt and probably losing his business and having to restart when the family returned to Nazareth – would he really have forgotten to keep an eye on his eldest who had now entered the company of the men? I don’t think so.
I’m suspecting as all good parents we would have just presumed our lad was hanging out with his mates and would join us when he was hungry. And that’s where my next point comes in – so it says that they’d travelled for a day before they noticed he was missing and then when they got back to Jerusalem it took them three days to find Jesus. The throwaway line is that he was “sitting amongst the teachers and asking them questions” – for the whole time? Really?
We are told that Jesus was fully human, well I remember my son, his friends and teenager boys of my friends and they never seem to stop eating. My son would eat a whole meal then sneak tins of baked beans into his room or eat a whole block of cheese. I’ve known others who can demolish a packed of Cornflakes in an evening or a whole loaf of bread. If Jesus really was fully human then he would have needed food. Also where did he sleep? Was the temple open all night? Did someone take pity on his and take him home when it got dark? Did he really really sit for three or four whole days with nothing to eat and no sleep asking questions all the time?
Also was it the same learned men he spoke to or did they come and go? And were any of those learned men still alive twenty years later when Jesus was doing his ministry? Was one of those learned men in the temple back then Nicodemus which is why he chose to follow Jesus?
And what were those questions? Was he doing what he then did in later life and asking questions that challenged and made people think?
Then I always wonder when Mary and Joseph find him what was his tone of voice when he responds? I know how my teenage son would have responded to an obvious question – with a touch of sarcasm. I’m hoping Jesus’ response was compassionate and that he was sorry he’d upset his parents even though he did need to be in the temple but we aren’t told.
There are so many details that are left out. Why? I often wonder if the Bible had been written by women instead of men would it have had more details in, more of those day to day things that I’d like to know? I remember using the bible once to try to do a kid’s writing workshop and in the end felt that it has so many plot holes and details missed out it made it hard work to use.
Although I often think it is these lack of details that give us space to ask God to help fill in the gaps and lead us to their truth – though also can lead to disagreements over the whole argument of “this is what the Bible REALLY means” – which people have killed and died for.
So as AI decides Jesus must have had a beard from boyhood we have to make up our own pictures of what went on, not just over those few days at Passover twenty odd years before Jesus died, but through so much of Jesus’ life.
Interesting aside – one of the few details is it took his parents three days to find him. Was this detail to correlate to the three days he was in the tomb from crucifixion to resurrection? Another question! Another detail missing!
Aspirational Adventures 