Luke 2 is the only Scripture passage that tells us what Jesus did between the stories about his birth and the beginning of his public ministry. Luke reports this scene as a way of telling us about Jesus’s whole life. He shows us that Jesus is always about his Father’s business, and we should be too.

To do this work, Jesus had to learn and grow in the experience and application of Scripture. Luke highlights this when he brackets the story by twice telling us that Jesus “grew in wisdom” (v. 40, 52). As True Man, Jesus grew in wisdom because his family ordered their lives according to God’s ordinances, not worldly values. In their devotion, Mary and Jesus traveled to Jerusalem at Passover though only men were required by the Law (v. 41-42. Cf. Deut 16:16). Jesus wasn’t “left” in Jerusalem (v. 43-45), but chose to remain there among the teachers, studying, debating, and applying the Scriptures (v. 46-47). This is why he “must be in [his] Father’s house” (v.49) – to learn to apply and obey the Bible (v. 51), crucial preparation for his ministry rooted in the truth and authority of Scripture.

There is another way of understanding Jesus’s statement. It could also be translated “I must be about the [business] of my Father.” Luke signals this by telling us that Mary and Joseph did not understand Jesus (v. 50). The phrase is ambiguous in the Greek. Most of all, the word “must” invites this deeper understanding. Almost every time Jesus says he “must” do something in Luke (8 of 10 by my count), it refers to the Cross (Luke 9:22). In other words, Jesus stayed in Jerusalem to prepare for a future journey to Jerusalem at Passover when he would be lost for three days and the women would come looking while he was about his Father’s business – dying and rising to defeat death and pay for sin.

Taking it Home: In 2023, how will you let the Good News of the Cross strengthen you to re-order your life to God’s ordinances and prioritize the Word of God?