When You Know It Was God but Don't Understand It: Luke 2:41-52

Mary knew exactly who her son was. She had the angel, the virgin conception, the shepherds, and Simeon's prophecy. And when her twelve-year-old said he had to be in his Father's house, Scripture tells us plainly that she did not understand what he said to her. Today we're finishing Luke 2 with Jesus at twelve in the temple. This passage gets taught incorrectly a lot, so we're going to slow down and ask some questions of the text. We'll look at what Passover actually meant to this family, what Jesus was really doing among the teachers, and the difference between knowing something and understanding it. Join me on an immersive Bible Study Experience. Learn more at BibleStudyLive.org Have a question about the series or a prayer request? Leave me a voicemail: SpeakPipe SEEDS: Download the free SEEDS app and take one small step today. Plant your first seed and see what God can grow. SEEDS What was the Feast of Passover? It goes back to Exodus 12, the night God rescued Israel from slavery in Egypt. Each family killed a lamb without defect and put its blood on the doorposts, and when God's judgment moved through Egypt that night, He passed over the homes marked with the blood. That same night Pharaoh finally let God's people go. God told them to keep that meal every year forever. Roasted lamb, bread without yeast because there hadn't been time to let it rise, and bitter herbs to remember the bitterness of slavery. The feast ran eight days, one for Passover itself and seven for the Feast of Unleavened Bread right after, which is why Luke says they stayed until the days were over. It fell in late March or April, right around when we observe Easter. Deuteronomy 16 required all the men to appear before the Lord three times a year, at Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles. Technically only Joseph had to go. Mary went anyway, which was common for devoted families but not universal. We see the same thing with Hannah going up year after year in 1 Samuel. Luke is telling us this was a faithful household. There was a lot of hard in their lives, and they kept showing up. Why did it take a day to notice Jesus was missing? Because nobody traveled alone. Nazareth was about eighty to ninety miles from Jerusalem by road, which was a three to five day walk, and families traveled together in large groups with relatives and neighbors for safety. Luke tells us exactly that in verse 44. So when Mary and Joseph couldn't find Jesus, it was because they assumed he was with the caravan, somewhere among thirty cousins. A whole day could pass before anyone noticed a twelve-year-old was gone. What was Jerusalem like during Passover? Packed. Scholars think Jerusalem normally held somewhere in the tens of thousands, and during Passover it swelled well beyond that. Josephus, the ancient Jewish historian, wrote about numbers in the millions. Many scholars think that's heavily exaggerated, or that he simply meant there were people everywhere. People camped on the hillsides and in surrounding villages because there was nowhere to stay in the city. The temple courts would have been loud and crowded, with lambs being sacrificed and the Levitical priests singing psalms. For a boy from a small village, this would have been one of the biggest things he saw all year. Why did Passover matter so much to them? For us it reads like a history lesson. For them it was how Israel remembered who they were and where they came from. God built the teaching right into it. Exodus 12 says that when your children ask what this rite means, you tell them the story again. So every year the children asked and the parents retold it. That's part of how the faith got handed down, because most people couldn't read. It was an oral history carried by ritual. And remember where they were standing. Israel was under Roman occupation. A feast week about God breaking the power of an empire and setting His people free meant something. During Passover, they were reminded of hope. Rome knew