Christmas Devotional: 18th December 2020
This passage is about Jesus as a child, I don’t know about you, but I somehow find it difficult to imagine our God, the saviour of the world, as a twelve-year-old boy in all his humanness. In these verses Luke describes Jesus growing up, and then tells the story of Mary and Joseph not being able to find Jesus after Passover and then discovering him in the temple courts.
Let’s not forget that this Jesus we are reading about is a real human; in my mind at least, a twelve-year-old boy with grazes on his knees, grubby clothes, running around and smiling. Luke tells us that at even this age Jesus was ‘filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was on him’ (verse 40).
I think this passage tells us something about the extraordinary nature of our king. In this passage we see that Jesus’ response to his parents’ questions is simply “Why were you searching for me…Didn’t you know that I must be in my Father’s house?” (verse 49). Whilst Jesus understands the value of his earthly parents (we later see that he ‘was obedient to them’ (verse 51), his eyes are ultimately cast upon His heavenly father.
This is big stuff, whilst twelve-year-old me was maybe mostly focused upon persuading my parents to let me get my ears pierced, we see that twelve-year-old Jesus’s natural instinct is to seek out the Father in his dwelling place, wanting to grow and understand.
I think there’s a call for us here. Where are the places in our lives where the Lord wants to lift our faces upwards towards Him and call us to look beyond our circumstances? I’d encourage you to spend some time pondering this, maybe find a quiet space and ask the Holy Spirit to speak to you.
With this in mind, I particularly love the part of this passage that makes reference to the way in which Mary ‘treasured all these things in her heart’ (verse 51). As the Holy Spirit gives us fresh revelations, let’s meditate and delight in these truths just as Mary did whilst she watched Jesus grow up.
At this time of year let’s praise God for what He has done in sending His son and let’s run to the Father, surrendering every area of our lives to his kind and faithful hands.