The Boy in His Father's House

Luke tells one story from Jesus' boyhood. At twelve, on the family's yearly pilgrimage to Jerusalem for Passover, he stayed behind when the caravan left. Mary and Joseph searched for three days and found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening and asking questions, and everyone who heard him was astonished at his understanding. When Mary asked why he had treated them like this, he answered with a question of his own. Did you not know that I had to be in my Father's house?

Readers of 1 Samuel will hear the echo. Another boy, brought to the sanctuary by a mother's devotion, growing in stature and in favour with God and people. Luke uses almost the same words for Jesus that 1 Samuel 2:26 uses for Samuel. But there is a difference that the temple scene makes plain. Samuel served in the Lord's house. Jesus called it his Father's.

The lesson is about what Jesus knew of himself before he had done anything public. His identity as the Son came first. Everything else, the teaching, the miracles, the cross, flowed from that settled knowledge. Then Luke says he went home to Nazareth and was obedient to his parents. Knowing who he was did not make him restless with ordinary life. It made him able to submit to it for another eighteen years. Followers of Jesus are given a Father too, and the same order applies. Know whose you are, then do the next ordinary thing.