Lent 2019 | Day 11 | The Sacrificial Life - The Boy Jesus at the Temple

Scripture

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The scriptures tell us that (12 year old) Jesus and his parents had gone up to Jerusalem for the Festival of the Passover. After the festival the family was returning home when they realized Jesus was missing. So they went back to Jerusalem to look for him.

After three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers. When his parents saw him, they were astonished. His mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.” “Why were you searching for me?” he asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” But they did not understand what he was saying to them. Then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. But his mother treasured all these things in her heart. And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man. - Luke 2:41-52 (NIV)

Reflection

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Ponder and grow in your awareness of Jesus’ life of sacrifice by reflecting on the following questions.

What did it feel like to have your wisdom increasing as you sat with Rabbis?

Did you feel excited? Did you feel tension? Did you feel fear?

Were you aware of how different you were? Did this make you feel lonely? Did you have someone that you could talk to?

What did it feel like to not have your parents understand you?

Could you feel God’s comfort and encouragement for you to continue to press in?

Response

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Jesus, the fact that you counted all things lost for my sake. That you took on flesh and had to grow in wisdom and stature. That you had to struggle with being misunderstood by your parents and loved ones. This inspires me and moves my heart toward you in love.

I say with Paul:

But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. - Philippians 3 7-14 (NIV)