Spiritual Insights: #Jesusinthetemple

Thursday, 28 December 2023

A GOD YET A BOY

“And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man……and continued from grace to grace until he received a fulness.” (Luke 2:52; D&C 93:13)

We know little about the boyhood of Jesus but what little we know is befitting of the God who condescended to be a mortal to save humanity. From a dependent babe in arms Jesus grew into a boy who was in all things subject unto his earthly parents even though He was in every way superior to them (Luke 2:51). It shows incredible meekness. And even though He was endowed with talents and spiritual capacities exceeding those of any other person, He participated in the normal activities and experiences of His time and was subject to the restrictions and testings of mortality (Hebrews 2:10-18; 4:15; 5:8-9; Bruce R. McConkie, Doctrinal New Testament Commentary, 1:111)

The Prophet Joseph Smith taught that as a boy, Jesus Christ possessed superior intelligence to all mortals: “When still a boy He had all the intelligence necessary to enable Him to rule and govern the kingdom of the Jews, and could reason with the wisest and most profound doctors of law and divinity, and make their theories and practice to appear like folly compared with the wisdom He possessed.” (in History of the Church, 6:608)

It is evident that by the age of 12 the Saviour knew who He was. When He was found in the temple teaching the doctors of the law who ‘were hearing Him and asking Him questions’ (JST Luke 2:46), He confirmed as much telling Joseph and Mary that He was about His ‘Father’s business’ (Luke 2:49). It is said Christ started His ministry at 30 years of age but to me He started at 12. A boy, yet a God, who at 12 proved, in the temple, the Father is with Him and that He will ‘do always those things that please him’ (John 8:29).

Did You see me Father

Giving glory to Thy name?

My words of Thee

Flowing from my tongue

Like a holy flame.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN

(Art: When Did He Know by Liz Lemon Swindle)

Thursday, 19 January 2023

A SON OF THE LAW

Imagine being 12 years old and knowing you are the Son of God. Imagine you are a child being brought up in a devout Jewish home and being schooled with scriptures from a very tender age. Imagine studying the prophecies of much awaited Messiah and coming to realise that YOU are ‘the man of sorrows, acquainted with grief’, that you will one day be despised and rejected of men, bruised for the iniquities of others, and led as a lamb to slaughter when you will make your soul an offering for sin of all mankind (Isaiah 53). Would you feel superior to your peers? Would you feel consuming aloneness knowing that there is none like you? Would you be scared to tell others that you knew who you were? Would you be scared of your future?

At twelve years of age Jesus found himself to be ‘a son of the law’ according to Jewish custom, and as such He had become subject to obligatory fasts and attendance of feasts. A question begs to be asked how He viewed the Jewish Passover in Jerusalem that He attended at this age knowing what He knew. One cannot but wonder if He remembered the very first Passover when He, as Jehovah slew the firstborn of Egypt and saved His people Israel. Was He overwhelmed with His knowledge, His rapid growth in grace and intelligence, and His memories as He traversed the streets of Jerusalem and followed Joseph to the temple with the Paschal lamb to be offered in similitude of His own offering? Was He overwhelmed with the experience of Jerusalem to the point that He yearned to be ‘about His father’s business’? Was the fire of His passion for redemption He was destined for so great within Him that the only way He could quench it was to commune with those who understood His destiny, supposedly as He did, the doctors of the law, whose wisdom and knowledge was valued above all of the Jewish populace. Did He think He was going to find some acceptance and understanding there, or the same level of wisdom and knowledge that He possessed? Most likely He didn’t, because these doctors of the law were “hearing HIM, and asking HIM questions” (Luke 2:46 JST) simply because “He needed not that any man should teach Him” (Matthew 3:24-26 JST).

Who cared for this boy all alone in Jerusalem for three whole days at the temple while his parents searched for Him? Who fed him? Where did he sleep? Was nobody concerned that He was alone? Did nobody search for his parents? Maybe nobody had to because He truly was ‘about His father’s business’ and His Father watched over Him. And no doubt He watched this boy of His who would one day be nailed to the cross with love that seared His heart. No wonder Jesus was surprised when Mary and Joseph found Him and questioned Him why He had remained in Jerusalem. Why would they be worried? Because, in His mind, He was in His father’s house, and He was home.