Three Days

Every year, Mary and Joseph went to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Passover. When Jesus was twelve, they went up according to the custom of the feast. This journey belonged to the familiar pattern of their family’s life. They went to Jerusalem, kept the feast, and prepared to return home.

When the days were over, Jesus remained behind in the city. His parents did not know He had stayed. They assumed He was somewhere in their company and traveled for a day before beginning to look for Him among their relatives and friends. The people with whom they were traveling were familiar enough that they had expected to find Him there.

They could not find Him. The search among relatives and friends ended without their son, and Mary and Joseph turned back toward Jerusalem. The road they had just traveled became the road they had to retrace. Jesus was in the city, but they did not yet know where.

Luke gives no list of the places they tried. He tells the return and the search, then marks its length: after three days, they found Him in the temple courts. The account brings the parents into the place where Jesus was sitting among the teachers. He was listening to them and asking them questions.

Everyone who heard Him was astounded at His understanding and His answers. Mary and Joseph were astonished when they saw Him. The teachers had been hearing the boy speak; His parents had been trying to find Him. They arrived at the same scene with three days of searching behind them.

His mother spoke to Him. “Child, why have You done this to us?” His mother asked. “Your father and I have been anxiously searching for You.” She named both of them and the anxiety of their search.

Her question concerned what had happened to them while He remained in Jerusalem. She had found Him alive and sitting among the teachers, but finding Him did not explain why He had stayed. The days when they did not know where He was still belonged to the conversation. Mary put those days before Him in a direct question.

“Why were you looking for Me?” He asked. “Did you not know that I had to be in My Father’s house?” He answered her question with questions of His own. Mary had spoken of His father searching beside her; Jesus spoke of His Father’s house.

They did not understand what He was saying to them. Luke leaves that plainly stated, even after the account of the teachers’ astonishment. Mary and Joseph had found their son and heard His answer. Their search was over, but the meaning of His words was still beyond them.

Then Jesus went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. The return journey that had been interrupted was made with Him present. Luke does not record another exchange along the road. He brings the family home and describes the boy living under His parents’ authority.

Mary treasured up all these things in her heart. She had done so after the shepherds came to Bethlehem, and she did so now after the search in Jerusalem. The account does not say that keeping these things meant she understood them. It has just told us that she did not understand His answer.

Jesus continued to grow in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man. The narrative lets the remaining years of His growing pass in that sentence. When John next places His mother beside Him, they are guests at a wedding in Cana. There, Mary will notice that the wine has run out and bring the need to her son.