The Lamb's Apprentice

How Jesus was taught about his life's work

As we transition from the genealogy of Jesus to his life, we move from Matthew’s gospel to Luke’s. Luke is the only one of the gospel writers to give us a glimpse into Jesus’ early life as a boy. The story he tells us is about when Jesus turned 12 and travelled with his parents to Jerusalem. Allow me to quote the story in full because I think it is fascinating.

Luke 2:41-52

Every year his parents travelled to Jerusalem for the Passover Festival. When he was twelve years old, they went up according to the custom of the festival. After those days were over, as they were returning, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but his parents did not know it. Assuming he was in the traveling party, they went a day’s journey. Then they began looking 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 those who heard him were astounded at his understanding and his answers. When his parents saw him, they were astonished, and his mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.” “Why were you searching for me?” he asked them. “Didn’t you know that it was necessary for me to 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. His mother kept all these things in her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and with people.

Jesus Is the Passover Lamb

There are two things about this account that are confusing for us modern readers. The first is this: How could Jesus’ parents forget him in Jerusalem? Imagine the news headlines if this were to happen today: “Social services have been called in to support the parents of a 12-year-old boy after leaving him behind in their holiday to the Holy Land.” How could Jesus’ parents forget him? They knew that he was the special child. They had experienced the miracle of his birth. Both parents had miraculous visions from God; they had been whisked off to Egypt to protect Jesus. They knew how special he was, and yet here they were, heading home from the Passover feast and forgetting about Jesus. How could they do this?

The second thing that confuses modern readers is how much freedom children like Jesus had in those days. His parents trusted him so much that they didn't check on him before they left Jerusalem to go home, just assuming that he would be where he had to be. What child has this kind of autonomy today? Did Jesus' parents neglect him? Was he simply left to his devices? Did they lose him?

Well, to make sense of this, we need to understand the text in terms of its culture.

Firstly, what was the Passover? You will remember from our chapter on the Passover that this was the festival that celebrated God rescuing Israel from slavery in Egypt. It literally celebrates God passing over the houses of the Israelites, the houses where a lamb had been slain to pay for the sin of the household. By Jewish law, Israelites were required to attend three festivals in Jerusalem each year: the festival of Passover, the festival of Weeks, and the festival of Tabernacles. As devout Jews, Mary and Joseph kept these traditions, and so for Jesus to visit Jerusalem with his family isn't that unusual – his parents were probably in the city at least three times a year, for a week or more each time. So they, and Jesus included, would have known the city pretty well. Mary, Joseph, and Jesus would also have travelled in a great company of others who were also attending Passover at the same time.

Secondly, we have to consider Jesus’ age. He was 12 at the time. In Jewish culture, a child was considered a responsible member of the religious community at the age of 13. Luke makes it clear that Jesus was a child on the cusp of religious adulthood. This explains the weird situation where his parents could have lost him for a whole day. Most likely, when the time came for everyone to return home after the festival, the women and smaller children would go first. Then the men and older boys would follow afterward. In the evening, they would all come back together as a whole community and join up again.

So it would be easy for Jesus, a bigger boy but not yet a bigger boy, to be lost. His mother probably thought, "Okay, I've got to let him walk with the older boys. He is just about to get to that age." His dad probably thought, "The boy must be walking with his mum since he is still really just a boy." The end result is that we have a situation most parents will have encountered before…

Mary: "Joseph dear… Where is Jesus?" Joseph: "I thought he was with you."

Now we have to understand that Luke very specifically included the detail that Jesus was 12. This is around the time when a father would take his son and apprentice him, show him and teach him what his life would be all about. This would be the time when Joseph would take Jesus under his wing and start teaching him the carpentry ways, how to cut, how to join, how to build.

However, instead of Jesus being apprenticed into carpentry by his earthly father, Jesus was being apprenticed into Passover lamb-ing by his heavenly father. In some way, Jesus was learning what it would mean for him to be the sacrificial lamb. He was being shown – look at the sacrifice, look at how the blood causes death to pass over, look at how the lamb saves the people. This is what his life was going to be all about. Jesus was going to be the Passover Lamb.

Perhaps this is why Jesus’s first-ever recorded words in the Bible are in response to his mother asking where he was: "Why were you looking for me? Didn't you know that I must be in my Father's house?” Jesus knew that he was being apprenticed – he knew that he answered to a higher Father than his earthly father. Jesus knew who he was. He knew he was God the Son. He knew the job he came to do; he knew that he was to be about his Father's business, not his parents' business. Jesus knew what he came to be. He came to be the Passover Lamb so that God’s wrath could pass over us when the time came.

How would that work? That is a story for next time…