Luke 2:49. [Jesus said], “Did you not know that I must be in
my Father’s house?”
The occasion for the above passage is the response Jesus
gave to his parents upon being discovered by them in the temple in Jerusalem,
where Joseph and Mary had made the annual journey from Nazareth to observe the
feast of the Passover.
Since a Jewish boy became a man at 12 years of age, and
thus became a son of the law and had to assume the obligations of the law,
Joseph and Mary had brought Jesus with them.
At the conclusion of the feast Joseph and Mary,
separately, joined the return caravan, assuming that Jesus was among the
travelers, but the first evening they discovered that he was missing. When they
could not find him they returned to Jerusalem, and after three days found him
in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them
questions. All who heard Jesus were amazed at his understanding and his
answers.
Mary, evidencing her maternal concern over the past three
days, inquired of him “Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your
father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety.” Jesus, perhaps now
asserting his filial independence for the first time, inquired back, “Why were
you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”
Note the distinction between “father” and “Father.” Jesus
gently, but very definitely, takes the name “father” from Joseph and gives it
to God. As his childhood years have now officially passed with his first
Passover, Jesus has the realization that he was, uniquely, the Son of God.
Notwithstanding this realization, Jesus later returned
home to Nazareth with his parents and “he was obedient to them,” demonstrating
that the real man of God continues to respect his earthly ties.
—Curt
Young
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