SCRIPTURE: Luke 2:41-52
He was sitting with the teachers. He was listening to them and asking them questions. Everyone who heard him was amazed at how much he understood. (Luke 2:46-47)
Was Jesus a prodigy, with a higher IQ than others… because He was God?
We often think that because of Jesus divine origins, He was wiser, more powerful, than everyone else.
But Luke observes that Jesus had to learn and grow like the rest of us: “Jesus became wiser and stronger. He also became more and more pleasing to God and to people.” (Luke 2:52)
Jesus was fully human, equipped just like us, with human capacities and limitations.
Granted, He did not have a sinful human nature, but He was still open to weakness, pain and temptation; He was still free to choose wisdom or folly, selfishness or selflessness, He was still tested and tempted.
He did not have superpowers (like Superman), He did not perform miracles as a child.
Jesus was a normal child Who chose to learn, to obey, to listen, to ask questions, to seek God, to serve God.
This is what enabled Him to grow “in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.” (Luke 2:52 NIV)
It was because of His openness and obedience to God that God’s Spirit rested on Him, and performed miracles through Him.
Jesus succeeds where Adam and Eve (and us) failed; He resists Satan and sin and tempation.
He takes back what Adam and Eve lost (in Genesis 3), is God’s perfect image-bearing ruler (Genesis 1) and thereby restores God’s kingdom authority.
We are called to join with Jesus, to trust Him and imitate Him, to be open and obedient, and to allow God’s Spirit to work God’s power in and through us.
Like Jesus, with the Spirit’s help, we too can “grow in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.”
What do you sense the Lord saying to you?
PRAYER
Thank You Jesus for choosing, for living well! Thank You for defeating sin and Satan and restoring me to God, and God’s Spirit to me. Help me to choose an open, obedient heart, to be human just like You!
We don’t get a lot of press coverage as to Jesus earlier life. We hear about his birth, and then this story when he was 12. The biographers tend to cover his years of ministry, when he was about 30.
The social structure of the time allowed youth to have freedom to hang out with each other all day, and parents of the day certainly were not watching their every move, as seems to be the case today. I bet Jesus didn’t need to wear a helmet for the activities he was involved in.
I wonder what this story was like from Jesus’ point of view. Did he worry about his parents? Did he give any thought to re-uniting with his family? What about food, and a place to sleep? For a 12 year old, I would have expected a little less independence.
The fact that Jesus was doing what he loved, talking with people in the temple, asking questions, and giving his ideas, shows that his people skills were being used at a young age. He would use these throughout his ministry as well.
It is also interesting to me that after scolding Jesus for not paying attention to what the family was doing, that Mary pondered these things. She had pondered the events around Jesus birth and was now pondering again. I know that the view she had of Jesus was a unique and intimate view. She certainly had a lot to think about. I wonder if Joseph did any pondering. We will never know.
I pray that I will take the time to think, to ponder over what Jesus means to me, and to those around me. I pray that I will continue to ask questions and provide answers, as Jesus was doing at such an early age.
Observations/Application
Christ’s parents observed the religious rules. They also gave Jesus the freedom to travel within their group when they returned home. How anxious they must have been when He was not where they had imagined where He would be. Parents and children – on different tracks.
Relief – is finding your lost child. Which family hasn’t experienced that? Yet when they found Him He was teaching in the temple courts. Amazed and yet the parent asked why have You runaway?
Jesus was ‘here’ for a specific purpose as we all are and yet family at times gets in our way. As Christ was obedient until the right time, so must I. And in the meantime grow in the Spirit. I need to walk with the risen Saviour for He is my Guide, my Lifeline. How then shall we live? In God’s presence, growing in Him and working before His face. Imitate Him!
Prayer
Thank You Lord for Christ Jesus Who gives life and life eternal. Help me more and more each day to be like Him – growing in wisdom and knowledge in Your presence and being a living letter to ll those around me. Help me this day to be Your champion.
To be like Jesus
To be like Jesus
All I ask- to be like Him
All through life’s journey
From earth to glory
All I ask- to be like Him.