The Finding in the Temple

Secular presentation

The fifth joyful mystery

We now see Jesus aged 12, on another visit to the temple.  He's surrounded by a lot of grey haired men who are experts in scripture (Holy writings).  They started out thinking they would teach Him about scripture, but now He's teaching them.  It's fascinating because He's at that mid point in maturity, half way between asking and telling eveyone how it is.  But He's obviously doing quite well because they've been listening to Him for days!

And that's why He's in trouble now.  You see he'd come up to town in a big group from His village, and they'd all returned a few days back.  His parents have been distraught trying to find Him.  We don't know if He stayed behind, because He was so cought up in what He was doing as to not notice they'd all gone!  Or if it was because what He was doing, simply seemed more important at the time.  Either way, His answer was interesting enough to be remembered and written down later:

Instead of making excuses He simply says, "you could have found me easily - I was doing my Father's work!"  He meant the work of His Father in heaven - God!  And that work in this case was learning and teaching about the things of God.  We now know what He meant, but at the time it seemed a strange thing for a 12 year old to say.

Now I don't think this is meant to say that Jesus was super-smart for a 12 year old.  Scripture isn't something you study like a text book.  Rather it shows that Jesus was an early starter when it came to faith matters in a broader sense.  Clearly, He was able to speak with authority from an early age.  But authority with the scriptures, doesn't come from an understanding of the all the details, rather it relies on having grasped the heart of what it's all about.  So although the older men will have known many of the details in scripture, the twelve year old Jesus was still able to put it into a fresh enough context for them, to keep them curious for days!

While we could marvel about what it took to captivate the older men for so long, this scene matters to Christians for an entirely different reason.  And it's all down to Jesus' words on this occasion: they tell us that if we lose sight of God, we can always find Him again - we simply have to turn to doing God's work and He'll be there.