“The Childhood of Jesus”

BIBLE READING: Luke 2

DISCUSSION                                                                 

                The Bible gives us everything we need to know about the life of Christ, yet there is a great deal about His life that we do not know.  It reminds me of John’s concluding remarks in his Gospel “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” (John 20:30-31).  Even though I fully understand that I have everything I need to know about Jesus, what I do not know has always intrigued me. For instance, we really have nothing mentioned about the childhood of Jesus except for the story of Jesus in the Temple recorded in Luke 2.41-51. That story would place Jesus about twelve years old, but after that there is nothing mentioned until His baptism when He was about 30 years old.  In my opinion, some of the most difficult years that people face as they go on their journey of faith are between the ages of 13-21.  These are the years where we grow from the awkwardness that puberty causes to the man or woman we will become.  It is during these years that most of our life long relationships have been formed, as well as many of our mistakes have happened as we go through the trial and error process of life.  It would seem to me, that would be interesting information for us to have concerning the life of Christ.  However, according to the Bible all we have is this small verse in Luke 2.52 “And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man.”  On the surface, that may not seem like a lot to have, but when we are honest with ourselves, it really is all we need.  Just in this small verse we learn that Jesus grew and matured just as we do today.  That means Jesus went through some type of educational process just like we do.  It also means that Jesus went through puberty, just like we do.  Finally, we see that Jesus grew in the social circles just like we do.  Yet, we also learn that even though Jesus went through all those changes, He never let them interfere with His relationship to His Father.  That my friends, is a lesson that all of those who pass from childhood to adulthood need to learn.