And when he was twelve years old, they went up to Jerusalem after the custom of the feast.
At twelve Jesus stood at the passage from childhood to youth when a Hebrew boy was counted a son of the law and expected to share in the sacred feasts, and He went up with Joseph and Mary to Jerusalem for the Passover as they did every year by law and custom. The feast drew worshipers from across the land and beyond to recall God's deliverance of Israel from Egypt, though for many it had become mere festivity while its rites pointed to His own redemptive work. This first childhood visit to the temple awakened His understanding of His mission, for as He watched the priests, the incense and the paschal victim He saw that every act bound to His own life as the sacrifice for sin foretold in Isaiah 53. When the services ended He remained behind in concern for His Father's work, and after a day's journey His parents found Him missing and only recovered Him after three days of sorrowful search. That separation and finding again foreshadowed His death for the sins of the world and His revealing Himself after three days, and it warns followers that a day of careless talk and neglect of prayer can lose awareness of Christ that takes long sorrowful searching to regain.
Age, Feast, and Journey
Twelve marked the Hebrew boy's passage from childhood to youth, when he was called a son of the law and a son of God, was given special opportunities for religious instruction, and was expected to take part in the sacred feasts and observances. At that age his mind was developing along spiritual lines. Joseph and Mary went up to Jerusalem for the Passover every year in accordance with Jewish law and the custom of the feast, and when Jesus was twelve He accompanied them. That yearly journey was kept in obedience to the law requiring attendance at the feast.
The Passover was one of three annual feasts at which the men of Israel were commanded to appear before the Lord in Jerusalem, and it drew worshipers from across Palestine and from other lands where Jews lived. The trip from Galilee and Nazareth was about seventy miles and took several days on foot or on oxen or on asses. It fell near the close of March or the beginning of April, when Palestine was bright with flowers and glad with birdsong, making a pleasant spring journey. Families and those from the same place traveled together in a large company, recalling Israel's history along the way, with parents telling their children what God had done for Israel in ages past, and as they approached Jerusalem travelers often sang together some of the beautiful psalms of David.
The annual feast recalled God's deliverance of Israel from Egypt and His miracles, mercies, and loving-kindness. It was meant to turn the people from worldly concerns, to strengthen their love and reverence for God, and to teach them to trust Him rather than turn to other gods. The Passover had solemn significance connected with Jesus, yet for many it had become only a form and ceremony of festivities, reunions, hilarity, and glee. For Him its rites had deep meaning because they pointed to His redemptive work.
He had made His home in Nazareth for thirty years, living there unhonored and unknown. Nazareth was proverbial for wickedness and moral darkness, considered the worst in Palestine, a town from which no good thing was thought possible to come, yet the great work of uplifting and regenerating the whole human soul began there. By becoming a citizen of that place He set His feet on the paths the poor and neglected must tread, and as the Light of the world poured contempt on human pride of place, station, honor, and fame. He could have lived in places of renown but chose the lowly place, showing that any hard and lowly place, if it is the post of duty, can be made honorable by fidelity, so that His followers compelled to live in lowly places have no excuse for sin and rough, hard, discourteous character. He grew up in the humble home at Nazareth under God's care and the guidance of a pious mother, receiving the religious and practical training given to Hebrew children, in which parents taught God's requirements and dealings with Israel and connected daily life with God and the hope of eternal things.
Temple Awakening to Mission
This was His first visit to the temple in His childhood, and what He saw and heard there awakened His understanding of His mission. Seeing the white-robed priests performing their solemn ministry, He witnessed the worship, the incense, the sacrificial victim, and the impressive rites of the paschal service. He understood that those rites pointed to His own life and mission, and He bound every act to His own life, seeing their meaning more clearly day by day.
Silent and absorbed, with new impulses awakening within Him, He studied out the great problem as the mystery of His mission opened to Him. That mystery was that He was to be the great sacrifice for sin fulfilling Isaiah 53, and to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord as God's prophet. It was also the work He was to accomplish for the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as the appointed heirs of the covenant promises, which began to dawn upon His mind. His work began as He listened to Scripture read and questioned the teachers, beginning His first recorded exchange with them about the coming Messiah.
At twelve He was already a teacher who went in before the rabbis and doctors of the law as a learner, asking questions with eagerness to obtain information whose depth surprised the learned doctors. By every question He poured light into their darkened minds, teaching them without letting them suspect He was trying to teach them, for they would have spurned Him. By purity, humility, and meekness He rebuked sin while giving no cause for blame. At that age He began to make clear that He knew His work and what lay before Him, and His childhood is an example of a life lived as humanity should live.
Separation, Search, and Warning
When the Passover services ended Jesus remained behind in the temple after the worshipers departed while His parents began the return journey, and His staying showed His concern for His Father's work. Mary and Joseph did not miss Him at once, for they supposed He was with relatives and acquaintances in the large company, and only after a day's journey on the return, at a rest stop, did inquiry and search among relatives and acquaintances reveal that He was missing. They hastened back to Jerusalem with heavy sorrowful hearts and found Him only after three days of anxious sorrowful search, when Mary feared she had lost Him forever, showing that one day of neglect in losing Him from their company cost three days of anxious search to find Him.
Their ordinary view of Him as their child could obscure His divine mission and the great privilege committed to them in caring for the Son of God, and His staying behind gently reminded them of their duty so they would not grow indifferent or lose sight of the favor God had given them. His separation from them on the return and their three days of searching foreshadowed His later separation from them in death for the sins of the world and His revealing Himself to them after three days, and finding Him again taught them to rely on Him as the Redeemer of fallen humanity and their Advocate with the Father. Their neglect of sacred responsibility, when they became absorbed in talking and visiting with the crowd, warns all who follow Christ to remain watchful and prayerful, for carelessness, vain talk, and neglect of prayer can cause loss of awareness of Christ's presence and of the peace and comfort of His grace, and recovering what was lost may require much longer sorrowful searching than the first neglect.
The feast that was meant to call attention to Christ as the coming Saviour was given to festivities, reunions, hilarity, glee, frivolity, and indulgence of appetite, with religious thoughtful conversation set aside for another time; while recreation and innocent enjoyments when carefully guarded are no sin, such feasting leads to lax banqueting enjoyment, and the lesson is never to be loose and lax where there is danger of losing the company of Jesus for a single hour. By working constantly even in His own home until He had no home, He left a pattern of hardship and faithful witness for young people today who enter worldly schools to live the truth and diffuse light. Because Christ was once a little child, mothers are for His sake to deal gently with their little ones and honor them as a sacred charge and as God's property whom He loves, not indulging, petting, and idolizing them but teaching them to live a pure, noble life and cooperating with God in helping them form perfect characters.
At twelve Jesus stood at the passage from childhood to youth when a Hebrew boy was counted a son of the law and expected to share in the sacred feasts, and He went up with Joseph and Mary to Jerusalem for the Passover as they did every year by law and custom. The feast drew worshipers from across the land and beyond to recall God's deliverance of Israel from Egypt, though for many it had become mere festivity while its rites pointed to His own redemptive work. This first childhood visit to the temple awakened His understanding of His mission, for as He watched the priests, the incense and the paschal victim He saw that every act bound to His own life as the sacrifice for sin foretold in Isaiah 53. When the services ended He remained behind in concern for His Father's work, and after a day's journey His parents found Him missing and only recovered Him after three days of sorrowful search. That separation and finding again foreshadowed His death for the sins of the world and His revealing Himself after three days, and it warns followers that a day of careless talk and neglect of prayer can lose awareness of Christ that takes long sorrowful searching to regain.
Age, Feast, and Journey
Twelve marked the Hebrew boy's passage from childhood to youth, when he was called a son of the law and a son of God, was given special opportunities for religious instruction, and was expected to take part in the sacred feasts and observances. At that age his mind was developing along spiritual lines.
Joseph and Mary went up to Jerusalem for the Passover every year in accordance with Jewish law and the custom of the feast, and when Jesus was twelve He accompanied them. That yearly journey was kept in obedience to the law requiring attendance at the feast.
The Passover was one of three annual feasts at which the men of Israel were commanded to appear before the Lord in Jerusalem, and it drew worshipers from across Palestine and from other lands where Jews lived. The trip from Galilee and Nazareth was about seventy miles and took several days on foot or on oxen or on asses. It fell near the close of March or the beginning of April, when Palestine was bright with flowers and glad with birdsong, making a pleasant spring journey. Families and those from the same place traveled together in a large company, recalling Israel's history along the way, with parents telling their children what God had done for Israel in ages past, and as they approached Jerusalem travelers often sang together some of the beautiful psalms of David.
The annual feast recalled God's deliverance of Israel from Egypt and His miracles, mercies, and loving-kindness. It was meant to turn the people from worldly concerns, to strengthen their love and reverence for God, and to teach them to trust Him rather than turn to other gods. The Passover had solemn significance connected with Jesus, yet for many it had become only a form and ceremony of festivities, reunions, hilarity, and glee. For Him its rites had deep meaning because they pointed to His redemptive work.
He had made His home in Nazareth for thirty years, living there unhonored and unknown. Nazareth was proverbial for wickedness and moral darkness, considered the worst in Palestine, a town from which no good thing was thought possible to come, yet the great work of uplifting and regenerating the whole human soul began there. By becoming a citizen of that place He set His feet on the paths the poor and neglected must tread, and as the Light of the world poured contempt on human pride of place, station, honor, and fame. He could have lived in places of renown but chose the lowly place, showing that any hard and lowly place, if it is the post of duty, can be made honorable by fidelity, so that His followers compelled to live in lowly places have no excuse for sin and rough, hard, discourteous character. He grew up in the humble home at Nazareth under God's care and the guidance of a pious mother, receiving the religious and practical training given to Hebrew children, in which parents taught God's requirements and dealings with Israel and connected daily life with God and the hope of eternal things.
Temple Awakening to Mission
This was His first visit to the temple in His childhood, and what He saw and heard there awakened His understanding of His mission. Seeing the white-robed priests performing their solemn ministry, He witnessed the worship, the incense, the sacrificial victim, and the impressive rites of the paschal service. He understood that those rites pointed to His own life and mission, and He bound every act to His own life, seeing their meaning more clearly day by day.
Silent and absorbed, with new impulses awakening within Him, He studied out the great problem as the mystery of His mission opened to Him. That mystery was that He was to be the great sacrifice for sin fulfilling Isaiah 53, and to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord as God's prophet. It was also the work He was to accomplish for the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as the appointed heirs of the covenant promises, which began to dawn upon His mind. His work began as He listened to Scripture read and questioned the teachers, beginning His first recorded exchange with them about the coming Messiah.
At twelve He was already a teacher who went in before the rabbis and doctors of the law as a learner, asking questions with eagerness to obtain information whose depth surprised the learned doctors. By every question He poured light into their darkened minds, teaching them without letting them suspect He was trying to teach them, for they would have spurned Him. By purity, humility, and meekness He rebuked sin while giving no cause for blame. At that age He began to make clear that He knew His work and what lay before Him, and His childhood is an example of a life lived as humanity should live.
Separation, Search, and Warning
When the Passover services ended Jesus remained behind in the temple after the worshipers departed while His parents began the return journey, and His staying showed His concern for His Father's work. Mary and Joseph did not miss Him at once, for they supposed He was with relatives and acquaintances in the large company, and only after a day's journey on the return, at a rest stop, did inquiry and search among relatives and acquaintances reveal that He was missing. They hastened back to Jerusalem with heavy sorrowful hearts and found Him only after three days of anxious sorrowful search, when Mary feared she had lost Him forever, showing that one day of neglect in losing Him from their company cost three days of anxious search to find Him.
Their ordinary view of Him as their child could obscure His divine mission and the great privilege committed to them in caring for the Son of God, and His staying behind gently reminded them of their duty so they would not grow indifferent or lose sight of the favor God had given them. His separation from them on the return and their three days of searching foreshadowed His later separation from them in death for the sins of the world and His revealing Himself to them after three days, and finding Him again taught them to rely on Him as the Redeemer of fallen humanity and their Advocate with the Father. Their neglect of sacred responsibility, when they became absorbed in talking and visiting with the crowd, warns all who follow Christ to remain watchful and prayerful, for carelessness, vain talk, and neglect of prayer can cause loss of awareness of Christ's presence and of the peace and comfort of His grace, and recovering what was lost may require much longer sorrowful searching than the first neglect.
The feast that was meant to call attention to Christ as the coming Saviour was given to festivities, reunions, hilarity, glee, frivolity, and indulgence of appetite, with religious thoughtful conversation set aside for another time; while recreation and innocent enjoyments when carefully guarded are no sin, such feasting leads to lax banqueting enjoyment, and the lesson is never to be loose and lax where there is danger of losing the company of Jesus for a single hour. By working constantly even in His own home until He had no home, He left a pattern of hardship and faithful witness for young people today who enter worldly schools to live the truth and diffuse light. Because Christ was once a little child, mothers are for His sake to deal gently with their little ones and honor them as a sacred charge and as God's property whom He loves, not indulging, petting, and idolizing them but teaching them to live a pure, noble life and cooperating with God in helping them form perfect characters.