The Boy Who Would Be King
by Ron Rose
This tiny baby, tucked away in Bethlehem, rocked the world from the moment he appeared. Angels filled heaven and earth with praises to him, shepherds left their flocks to see him, wise men traveled hundreds of miles to worship him, King Herod tried his best to kill him, and under God's direction Mary and Joseph fled in the middle of the night to protect him.
Yet we know very little about Jesus' early years. He probably grew up playing among the shavings of Joseph's carpenter's bench. He likely learned to read and write in the synagogue, along with the other boys in the neighborhood. Like other Jewish families, Jesus and Mary and Joseph celebrated the Jewish feast days.
The spring after his twelfth birthday Jesus accompanied his family to Jerusalem for the Passover Feast. Crowds filled the narrow streets and temple courts. Thousands of families gathered inside the colonnades. The outer court was more than two football fields long, so it was easy to get lost in the crowd.
After the feast, the boy who would be Savior slipped away from Mary and Joseph, but he wasn't lost. He found the temple teachers and spent hours talking with the priests and instructors. As a boy on the edge of manhood, he listened and questioned. The amazed temple teachers had no idea who he was, but he knew.
When his parents found him, Jesus was in deep discussion with the teachers. Perhaps he was asking questions designed to help them accept the coming Messiah. Even as a young man, Jesus knew who his father was, and he was already bent on doing what his Father had sent him to do.
Reflection: The teachers missed their chance. They were sitting with the Messiah, looking into the face of the God who created their world and everything in it, and they didn't know it. Years later at least a few of them must have remembered the moment and regretted what they missed. How tragic for them -- or for us -- to be in the presence of God, to hear his words, to speak with him, and never recognize his presence.
Posted: 09/28/2003
URL: http://www.heartlight.org/articles/200309/20030928_diary59.htmlText copyright (c) 1997, Multnomah Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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