Chasing Wisdom by Daniel GrotheMuestra

Have you ever taken a moment to consider just how odd it is that we know almost nothing about the first thirty years of Jesus’ life? We have exactly two stories recorded in the four Gospels that give us only a sparse glimpse of Jesus before his public ministry was launched.

The first time we hear about Jesus is that he was circumcised in the temple when he was eight days old (Luke 2:21–24). Because every Jewish boy was circumcised on the eighth day, this seems like a detail that’s hardly worth noting. This revelation doesn’t elevate Jesus above everyone else to a place of transcendent power; rather, it situates him immanently within the people of God by showing that his life had been given over to the Mosaic tradition. It sounds like it was a good day at church for the eight-day-

old Jesus and his family as the old sage, Simeon, took up the child in his arms and sang the song of salvation, and the elderly prophetess Anna “gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem” (Luke 2:38). But that’s it! That’s the first gospel story written about the little boy Jesus. His parents took him to church and he got circumcised.

The second time we hear about Jesus is that Mary and Joseph had to file a missing child report for him when he was twelve years old. As the story goes, they had made their yearly pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Passover. But when the feast was over and their group of relatives and friends started their slow journey back home to Galilee, for a full day, Mary and Joseph failed to discover that Jesus was not among them. There was a lot happening as in any traveling company, so it’s understandable that they thought Jesus was in their company before realizing he had actually stayed behind in Jerusalem (Luke 2:43–44). Mary and Joseph had lost track of the Son of God! This is one of those stories to be filed under the “you had one job” folder. But Jesus was just fine, and when they found him three days later, he was “in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions” (Luke 2:46).

These two stories of the young Jesus have so much to teach us, the least of which is this: God can be up to something beautiful with your life even if the world knows almost nothing about you.