Passover--Luke 2:41-42
Day 6
The time between Joshua celebrating Passover for the first time in the Promised Land and then King Josiah rediscovering Passover as part of a radical revival to stave off the destruction of Judah was about 2,000 years.
The time that elapses between King Josiah reinstituting Passover and Jesus’ birth and my next Passover Scriptural tidbit is about 630 years.
Time enough for the Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, and Romans to leave their marks on the Jewish people and establish the environment that Jesus grows up in.
And happily, by the time of Jesus, that still included Passover.
Luke 2:41-43 41 Every year Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the Festival of the Passover. 42 When he was twelve years old, they went up to the festival, according to the custom. 43 After the festival was over, while his parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it.
Apparently, the custom (or law), by the time Jesus steals away from His parents, required all males to travel to Jerusalem for the Passover feast, Pentecost (which celebrated the giving of the Torah about seven weeks after Passover), and a festival called Tabernacles which happened in the fall and celebrated the time the Jewish people wandered the desert.
And it's not lost on me that the time between Jesus staying behind at the Festival of the Passover when He was 12 years old and now has also been about 2,000 years and yet we still celebrate secular federal holidays and the Christian holidays of Christmas and Easter and for the Jewish people, Passover.
And I like doing the “stuff” of our religious holidays.
I don’t know what Jesus, Mary, and Joseph did specifically, during the Passover Festival, but Jerusalem’s population would have swelled with hundreds of thousands of pilgrims from all over.
That’s a lot of roasted lamb and matzah. 🙂
For Easter, we will attend Stations of the Cross at noon with my parents on Good Friday, then we’ll find some fried seafood somewhere.
We’ll attend a sunrise Easter service on the beach and then share Easter dinner at my parents’ house.
We do the “stuff” that Chris Ritter describes in This Changes Everything about Jesus and His family:
“His family did “the stuff.” Every once in a while I run into a sincere Christian who somehow feels that doing the routine religious stuff is somehow beneath them. “Communion? It is just a symbol… I can have communion anytime. Baptism? That is cool and all, and I might do it if the mood strikes me. Aren’t these the mere externals of religion?” My advice: Do the stuff. It’s not about you proving you have a faith that places you somehow above the ordinary. Do the ordinary. The ordinary is the base camp that must be reached before going higher.”
The other interesting part of Jesus at this Passover is how He holds court in the temple during His absence from His family (Verses 46-47).
Jesus is already–well, Jesus. He’s better at this religious stuff than His parents.
David Mathis explores why Jesus is more faithful in Jesus Obeyed His Parents:
“Here Jesus, at age 12, teaches us an essential lesson for any age: godly submission, in whatever context, does not stem from lack of competency. We are never too smart, too skilled, too experienced, or too spiritual for God-given submission.”
Heck, In today’s environment, Mary and Joseph would be arrested for child abandonment and neglect and the Jerusalem Department of Family and Children Services would have placed Jesus in temporary foster care. 🙂
Instead, Jesus is unveiled as sort of a theological child prodigy.
(And I’ve never met a highly gifted child prodigy that wasn’t also obnoxious–but I’m not sure that’s covered in the Gospel–except to say Jesus was without sin, so maybe He wasn’t all that annoying). 🙂
It’s 2,000 years later.
We are still doing the stuff.
Right?
If not–do the stuff. Everything else, including your salvation, will follow.
Lord, guide us to approach Your presence with eagerness and reverence. May we, like Jesus and His family, make pilgrimages in our hearts to honor You.
Lord, fill us with Your Spirit and let our lives be a reflection of Your glory.
Amen.