Mysteries Of JoySample

The Twelve-Year-Old Jesus in the Temple

Our fifth and final mystery is the delightful story of Jesus remaining behind in the temple in Jerusalem. I say delightful because we must try to resist applying our twenty-first century experience onto the story.

Jesus is left to his own devices, at twelve years of age, in a heaving city, full of tourists and pilgrims. He seems to be fine, which says a lot about the culture of first century Israel. This is not to remove the fear experienced by Mary and Joseph from the story but to perhaps reduce it significantly. It is not the primary reason for the story being told to us.

The focus of the story is, again, the recognition of who Jesus is. Luke is continuing to teach us about Jesus being truly the son of God. He wants to highlight that Jesus, at age thirty, did not just decide to start teaching and claiming to be God’s son. He always was God’s son.

Luke is underlying the fact of who Jesus is. He is showing us that from an early age Jesus knew that He was the son of God.

It makes us smile to think of the twelve-year-old Jesus asking and answering questions with the teachers of the Jewish faith. Anybody who has children, or has worked with children, knows the nature of these questions. The word ‘why’ would have been used on numerous occasions.

It is a brilliant question for us to focus on at the end of our Joyous mysteries.

We can’t always find an answer to the ‘whys’ in our lives, but the answer probably involves the fact that God loves us. That is the answer that Jesus represents. His life, death, and resurrection are a direct result of the fact that God loves us.

As we end our ponderings of these mysteries, take a few moments to sit with that most basic and yet most profound truth - God loves you.

Pray a simple prayer over and over as you consider this piece of scripture.