Thursday, September 17

Every year his parents went to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Passover. When he was twelve years old, they went up to the Feast, according to the custom. After the Feast was over, while his parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it. Thinking he was in their company they traveled on for a day. Then they began looking for him among their relatives and friends. When they did not find him, they went back to Jerusalem to look for him. After three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers. When his parents saw him, they were astonished. His mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.”

“Why were you searching for me?” he asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” But they did not understand what he was saying to them.

Then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. But his mother treasured all these things in her heart. And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.

Like most families, we have a doorframe in our home where we track the growth of our four sons in terms of their height. Periodically we will stand them up against the doorframe, put a book on their heads, and make a little mark on the wood. Then we will take a tape measure and carefully record the height of that particular boy right down to the quarter inch.

When we look back at the marks on the doorframe we can see clearly the times when physical growth was dramatic; sometimes up to 3 full inches in a year. But then we can also see, just as clearly, the slowing of the growth process as the boys get older. Eventually the growth -at least in physical height - stops.

Then, due to gravity and time, we actually begin to shrink! I remind my boys often that I used to be 6’5”! (Actually, I used to be 6’1 ½” and now I’m just a smidge under 6’1”.)

But we all know that when physical growth slows down other kinds of growth become far more important. That’s why I have always loved what Luke says about the growth of the young boy Jesus.

And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.

Luke touches on four dimensions of growth in this one sentence. 

As the boy grew toward adulthood Luke says Jesus grew in wisdom. Now, wisdom assumes intellectual growth, but also includes a deeper kind of intelligence. Wisdom isn’t just knowing information, it’s knowing how to use that information appropriately for one’s own good and the good of those around you. It strikes me that wisdom also is something we tend to learn from others; typically from those who are older and wiser than ourselves. From the little we know of Mary and Joseph, I think we can assume that Jesus absorbed many lessons in wisdom from his own parents. This part of the story teaches us that Gospel-centered parenting focuses more on wisdom than on information and performance.

Luke says Jesus also grew in stature; his body grew and developed in the way an adolescent’s body does. I have always been somewhat curious as to how tall Jesus might have been. The Bible offers very little in regard to his physical appearance, other than it was unremarkable. So we can simply assume that Jesus was neither extraordinarily tall nor unusually small in stature. Researchers have projected that the average height of a Jewish man at the time of Jesus would have been between 5’1” and 5’3” so while it might be difficult for us to envision it would be totally reasonable to assume that Jesus’ physical stature fell somewhere in this range.

Our culture, as we all know, places a terribly high priority on physical appearance; including stature. But the gospel does not! The Bible is silent on Jesus’ height because it simply isn’t significant!

Then Luke adds that Jesus also grew “in favor with God and men.”

Luke is talking about relationships; the kind of relationships the young Jesus forged with others and with God. And he says those relationships were defined by “favor.” The word used here is the root word for “grace”; so Luke’s language could be translated as, “Jesus grew in wisdom and stature and in grace with God and men.”

Jesus grew in grace. He grew in understanding and experiencing the grace of God and he grew in extending grace toward others. 

Now we get to the kind of growth that we all want desperately for our own children. We would love for our children to grow in physical stature and health. We would love for our children to grow in wisdom and understanding. Btu what we want most for them is to grow in favor with God and men. We want them to grow in grace.

And what is grace? Grace, simply put, is the unmerited favor and blessing of God; grace is the gospel.

May our deepest desire as parents be to know and experience the gospel, the grace of Christ, in our lives; and may we then teach and model that grace, that gospel, to our children.

Pastor Brian Coffey