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Homiletics - The Jewish people, family of Jesus: Luke 2:41-52
Etienne Ostier
During the Christmas season it is customary to think of the family at Nazareth and of all families in general, Just for once I want to break away from this tradition.. In this prolongation of Christmas I should like to discover once again, with you, an important aspect of the Mystery of the Incarnation, an aspect which can smiled roes he irritating when it is called to mind and stressed; an aspect, moreover, which is rarely given its full importance and significance.
I want to speak of the bonds existing between Jesus and his national and religious family. St. Iohn wrote at the beginning of his gospel: "The Word became flesh". He could have written equally well: "The Word of God, the Eternal and Living Word of God, became a Jewish man"!
Jesus was a Jew. Jesus is a man in the heart of the Jewish people, within a Jewish family. For his earthly and spiritual family Jesus had not only Mary and Joseph, but also the entire Jewish people with the whole of their history, from Abraham down to John the Baptist.
These historical and theological findings are, as it were, illustrated by the passage from Luke to which we have just been listening. Jesus is twelve years old. He is going up to Jerusalem on pilgrimage for the celebration of Passover. He is approximately "Bat Mitzvah" age, the age when young Jews attain their religious adulthood. At about 12-14 years of age he becomes a "Son of the Commandment'', which is the meaning of "Bar Mitzvah". He commits himself to fulfil in his everyday life all the commandments given by God to Israel as a living sign of his Covenant. Jesus makes the pilgrimage to Jerusalem with Mary and Joseph but there is nothing private about it, The little family unit of Mary-Joseph-Jesus is absorbed into an immense crowd, comprising all the pious Jews from Nazareth and the surrounding countryside. They are all so much part of the great family of Jesus that Mary and Joseph will not be at all worried by the fact that for a whole day they do not know in whose company the child might be!
In Jerusalem during Passover week the young Jesus finds himself in brotherly contact with Jews from all over the known world (cf. Acts 2:5-13). Passover is a great national and religious feast and Joseph would certainly have passed on to Jesus its profound significance. The Law of God gave explicit instructions to all fathers concerning this duty (Dent 6:20-25). Passover is like the sacrament of the Exodus from Egypt, the passage from slavery at the hands of other human beings to the freedom of God's service, the constant transition from darkness to light, from sadness to the joy which conies from God.
Thus the whole world is converging on the Temple. It is the unique Holy Place which God chose in order to testify there to his sanctifying Presence. It is the Place of Praise and of Sacrifice. It is the Place where the people of God, already dispersed throughout the world, gather together. It is even the Place to which the pagans themselves are beginning to come to adore the One, true God.
It is also a place for study and teaching. Apparently there was a synagogue within the Temple precincts.
There the Torah, the Revelation of God to Israel, is studied, commented on, discussed and interpreted. The boy Jesus stays behind in the Temple without his parents noticing. We have heard: "After three days they found him in the Temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions..." But why did Jesus stay behind in the Temple when all his companions had set out again for Nazareth?
The simplest answer is that Jesus remained precisely to listen to the doctors of the Law and to ask them questions. I am bold enough to say that he stayed in the Temple to learn about the Torah of God. I say specifically "to learn".
We are often victims of the type of imagery that exaggerates the spectacular nature of this meeting between Jesus and the doctors of the Law.
Firstly, we imagine that a meeting between doctors of the Law and children is exceptional. Not at all! In the house of Torah study, all ages meet on familiar terms in the same room, from the eight year old child to the venerable old man! They study side by side.
The tradition is still kept up today. In the pious quarter in Jerusalem I have seen with my own eyes this astonishing mixture of ages; each one reads the traditional texts in a low voice and discusses them with his neighbours. A child seated among the doctors of the Law is not in itself an exceptional occurrence.
Secondly, we imagine Jesus. at twelve years old, giving a lesson to the doctors of Jerusalem! But Luke does not say this. It is something much simpler. The child listens to the masters, asks them questions and answers the questions they put to him. Later, at the end of the account, Luke stresses that "Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature, and in favour with God and man" (Lk 2:52). Why should we then imagine that Jesus increased in wisdom, in knowledge of the things of God, without owing anything to Mary and Joseph, without owing anything to the synagogue in Nazareth, without owing anything to the doctors of the Law in Jerusalem?
In the Temple, Jesus certainly seeks to learn, he is eager for a knowledge of religion which is largely transmitted through oral tradition and community discussion. Jesus stayed behind in the Temple in order to grow in Wisdom, in personal assimilation of the tradition of Israel, in an intimate knowledge of the ways by which God reveals himself, gives himself, and seeks to lead everyone to salvation by means of the unique destiny of his people Israel.
But if it is all really so simple, what is revealed as remarkable in this time spent by Jesus in the Temple? Surely I am in danger of bringing Jesus too much in line with the other young Jews of his time?
I do not think so, hut there are two essential points still to be made. Firstly, for a twelve year old, Jesus shows an exceptional understanding of the things of God. Ile does not know everything, but he understands everything at amazing depth! "All who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers" (Lk 2:47). Luke never wrote that Jesus knew everything beforehand. Jesus nourished himself on Jewish tradition, both written and oral... nourished himself on it more than anyone else. Afterwards, and most importantly, this desire to know, this eagerness to assimilate the Torah, this depth of understanding of the things of God, gave rise to an intimate Secret, his Secret, difficult to express and to transmit, even to Joseph, even to Mary.
The eagerness of Jesus before the Word of God confided to Israel is the result of a secret intuition.
There is an unprecedented correspondance between this Holy Word which he hears and studies and something which he experiences in the depth of his being. Jesus recognizes that he is absolutely at home in this Word of God which gave birth to and shaped the People of Israel. lie is at home in the Word of God, at home, that is to say, with his Father! This is the answer he gives to Mary and Joseph: "Did you not know that- I must be in my Father's house?" (Lk. 2:49).
There is in Jesus as it were an instantaneous intuitive perception of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. An intuitive perception which does not exclude, but on the contrary sharpens the need, the thirst to learn, to listen to questions!
It is the intuition of a Son. He sees himself totally, in all his actions, as being of God, as coming from God, as originating in God. This is his deeply-hidden secret. This is his absolute uniqueness!
His God is also his Father in such a striking, unprecedented way that he is at home in the Word and in the Temple of the God of Israel. He is with .his Father...
These are difficult things to understand. Mary and Joseph do not understand them (Lk. 2:50)... But Mary kept all these things in her heart while waiting for the Day when God would shed light on them. Let us do the same in her company! (1)
Pere Ostier is Assistant Priest in the Parish of St. Francois Xavier, Paris and lecturer in Biblical Studies at the Seminary of Issy-les-Moulineaux
1. I have found a brief and enlightening exegesis of Lk. 2:40-52 in a recent commentary by Pastor Charles L'Eplattenier, Lecture de l’evangile de Luc (Desclee, 1982). Nevertheless 1 do not accept the way he sees the "Law of Moses" in the gospel according to Luke (p. 42).
