The Silent Years
And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom: and the grace of God was upon him. Luke 2:40.
Fast-forward 12 years. Verse 39 features the young Jesus returning from Egypt (after a brief stay) to Nazareth with His family. And verse 41 has Him traveling to Jerusalem at age 12 for His Bar Mitzvah. Today's verse (Luke 2:40) provided our sum total of biblical knowledge about the intervening years.
Then verse 41-51 describe His trip to Jerusalem, closing with the observation that He returned with His parents to Nazareth "and was obedient to them" (verse 51, NIV). Verse 52 adds that "Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature, and in favor with God and man" (RSV). After those few verses the story of His life fast-forwards another 18 years to the arrival of John the Baptist and the beginning of Jesus' ministry at about the age of 30. Thus after the events surrounding the birth narratives and the glimpse of His trip to the Temple at age 12 we have only three verses of the first 30 years of the most important individual in earth's history. Silence is what we have--nearly total silence.
What I would give to be able to fill out the picture! Just think if I discovered five pages of text or one "photograph" of those missing years. I would be instantly wealthy. But God in His wisdom just tells us that Jesus was normal in His growth patterns. Beyond that, we find nothing.
But not everybody was happy with that lack. As a result, from the second century on we find several birth and infancy gospels that fill out the blanks. The infancy Gospel of Thomas, for example, has the 5-year-old Jesus fashioning sparrows out of soft clay. That was OK with His neighbors, but it was the Sabbath. As a result, certain Jews complained to Joseph. Joseph, in turn, rebuked Jesus, who "clapped his hands and cried to the sparrows: 'Off with you!' And the sparrows took flight and went away chirping." The Jews, as we might expect, "were amazed." Other stories picture the young Jesus healing the injured, raising the dead, cursing His enemies so that they die, and so on. Those glimpses into the developing years of Jesus were extremely popular for the next few centuries, so much so that the clay sparrow sequence found its way into the Koran in the seventh century.
What a contrast we find in the inspired Gospels, which present Jesus as one whom we and our children can identify with. He was obedient to His parents and developed mentally, physically, spiritually, socially, and vocationally as He lived in Nazareth and worked with Joseph in his carpenter's shop. He was truly one of us.
And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom: and the grace of God was upon him. Luke 2:40.
Fast-forward 12 years. Verse 39 features the young Jesus returning from Egypt (after a brief stay) to Nazareth with His family. And verse 41 has Him traveling to Jerusalem at age 12 for His Bar Mitzvah. Today's verse (Luke 2:40) provided our sum total of biblical knowledge about the intervening years.
Then verse 41-51 describe His trip to Jerusalem, closing with the observation that He returned with His parents to Nazareth "and was obedient to them" (verse 51, NIV). Verse 52 adds that "Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature, and in favor with God and man" (RSV). After those few verses the story of His life fast-forwards another 18 years to the arrival of John the Baptist and the beginning of Jesus' ministry at about the age of 30. Thus after the events surrounding the birth narratives and the glimpse of His trip to the Temple at age 12 we have only three verses of the first 30 years of the most important individual in earth's history. Silence is what we have--nearly total silence.
What I would give to be able to fill out the picture! Just think if I discovered five pages of text or one "photograph" of those missing years. I would be instantly wealthy. But God in His wisdom just tells us that Jesus was normal in His growth patterns. Beyond that, we find nothing.
But not everybody was happy with that lack. As a result, from the second century on we find several birth and infancy gospels that fill out the blanks. The infancy Gospel of Thomas, for example, has the 5-year-old Jesus fashioning sparrows out of soft clay. That was OK with His neighbors, but it was the Sabbath. As a result, certain Jews complained to Joseph. Joseph, in turn, rebuked Jesus, who "clapped his hands and cried to the sparrows: 'Off with you!' And the sparrows took flight and went away chirping." The Jews, as we might expect, "were amazed." Other stories picture the young Jesus healing the injured, raising the dead, cursing His enemies so that they die, and so on. Those glimpses into the developing years of Jesus were extremely popular for the next few centuries, so much so that the clay sparrow sequence found its way into the Koran in the seventh century.
What a contrast we find in the inspired Gospels, which present Jesus as one whom we and our children can identify with. He was obedient to His parents and developed mentally, physically, spiritually, socially, and vocationally as He lived in Nazareth and worked with Joseph in his carpenter's shop. He was truly one of us.
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