Growing Up Like Jesus – Part 2

Scripture — Luke 2:39-52 (NRSV)

When they had finished everything required by the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth. The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom, and the favor of God was upon him.

Now every year his parents went to Jerusalem for the festival of the Passover. And when he was twelve years old, they went up as usual for the festival. When the festival was ended and they started to return, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but his parents were unaware of this. Assuming that he was in the group of travelers, they went a day’s journey. Then they started to look for him among their relatives and friends. When they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem to search for him. After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. When his parents saw him they were astonished, and his mother said to him, “Child, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously looking for you.” He said to them, “Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”

But they did not understand what he said to them. Then he went down with them and came to Nazareth and was obedient to them, and his mother treasured all these things in her heart.

And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in divine and human favor.

Devotion

Joseph, Mary, and Jesus Returning to Nazareth by Leonard Gaultier (1576-1580)

To believe that Jesus is God is a challenge for those who are not Christians, but not so much for Christians; it’s a given. But coming to terms with Jesus being fully human has always been a stretch, even for believers.

Of course, Jesus is sinless. He is God, after all. Could Jesus walk on water? Of course, he could; he is God, after all. Could Jesus really have failed at the temptations in the desert? Of course not! He is God, after all. And so it goes.

Of course, Jesus is God, but how human is he really?

So, perhaps like me, you wonder about Jesus’ humanity more than you do about his divinity. That’s why I find this story of Jesus growing up so fascinating.

When you read stories in the Bible, it’s often helpful to look at how a story begins and ends. Sometimes, narrators help us understand the story by placing a “verbal frame” around it. That’s true for this story:

When they (Mary and Joseph) had finished everything required by the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth. The child (Jesus) grew and became strong, filled with wisdom, and the favor of God was upon him (Luke 2:39-40).

And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature, and in divine and human favor (Luke 2:52).

There’s nothing in the language of Luke’s verbal frame to suggest that Jesus is anything other than human. Similar language was used of John the Baptist (“the child grew and became strong,” Luke 1:80) and of the prophet Samuel (“the boy … continued to grow both in stature and in favor with the LORD and with the people,” 1 Samuel 2:26). That kind of language signals to the reader that this person is someone prophetically marked out, but not that they are divine.

Importantly, today’s story concludes by describing Jesus’ growth in all aspects of his humanity, including his relationship with God and with other people.

To put it another way, Jesus becomes the kind of human being God always intended. In that sense, Jesus becomes the new “Adam.” Jesus isn’t just perfect because he didn’t break God’s law—although He didn’t, of course. Jesus is perfect in a larger sense because he is precisely the kind of human being God imagined when God created humanity. Jesus becomes the mature human being that God had in mind from the beginning.

So why is that important to us? Isn’t this just a story about Jesus’ life? Well, yes, of course. But not only.

God, through Jesus and by the Holy Spirit, intends the same for us: To become the mature human beings that God had in mind from the beginning.

In his letter to the early church, the apostle Paul argues that the ultimate goal for all Christians is that we come “to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ” (Ephesians 4:13). Significantly, Paul’s word “stature” is the same as Luke’s word here in v. 52. In other words, we are to grow up like Jesus.

Each of us as individual Christians – and indeed our Christian community as a whole – is to grow up and become fully human, as God originally intended. To reiterate, becoming a mature Christian means becoming fully human, just as Jesus was. That’s a helpful reminder for those of us who tend to think of Christian maturity as merely becoming more “spiritual.” Growing up with Jesus means discovering and developing all aspects of our humanity. Just like Jesus.

So, how do we become that kind of human being? What might this singular text from Jesus’ early life in Nazareth have to say to us about that? We’ll take a look at that in detail next month.

Stay tuned!

Find all Life for Leaders devotions here. Explore what the Bible has to say about work at the High Calling archive, hosted by the unique website of our partners, the Theology of Work Project. Reflection on today’s Life for Leaders theme can be found here: A Christmas Miracle?.