Sunday, December 30, 2012: Luke 2:41-52

I love this story about Jesus and his parents and am astonished by the author’s deep understanding of the human condition. Mary and Joseph were facing the adolescent years with a most unusual child, and yet we have only this one glimpse in scripture of that time in their lives.

Each time I read this passage, I wonder how Mary and Joseph could have left Jerusalem without their son. Yes, I understand that 12 seemed older then than it does now and that Jesus, soon to be a teenager, was so focused on his conversation with the scribes he did not think to tell his parents what he was doing. We can understand his parents’ hurt when they finally found him. We all know the feeling of waiting for a child to come home, thinking we will never see that child again—but if we do, we’re going to give him or her a piece of our mind!

All this is part of a coming-of-age story, a drama of an adolescent going through moments we’ve all gone through in the treacherous waters of growing up. The story is common and primal. A young gifted boy is growing up and beginning to assert his independence against his parents.