Boy Jesus Takes His Elders To School
- As good Torah-abiding Jews, Joseph and Mary go each year to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover festival there.
- When he's twelve years old, Jesus stays behind in Jerusalem after his parents go back home.
- His parents travel for one whole day before they realize he's not with them in their group of family and friends. Way to be super unoriginal, Home Alone.
- They head back to Jerusalem, but it takes them three days of searching to find him. He's sitting in the midst of teachers, listening and questioning.
- They're all shocked by the depth of understanding this kid has. He's twelve, for crying out loud.
- His mother and father are out of their minds when they finally discover him. What did you do? Can you imagine how worried we were? Turns out Jesus's parents aren't much different than ours.
- Now Jesus gets a little sassy. They should've known that he'd be in his father's house.
- Like so many parents, they are baffled at their kid's behavior. But there's something supernatural about all of this, since the "father" he's referring to is God.
- Jesus returns home with them to Nazareth, but Mary stores this strange event in her memory along with the whole birthday shenanigans twelve years earlier.
- To round things out, Jesus matures in wisdom, age, and grace.