Lk 2.42 to 2.52 tells the story of a pilgrimage, on which the twelve year old Jesus accompanied his parents to Jerusalem. On the way home after a day the parents noted that her son is not with them. They seek him first among the other pilgrims, as they find him not there, they return to Jerusalem. Finally, after three days they found him in the temple. Jesus sits in the middle of Temple scholars hears them and asks questions and all are amazed at his wisdom. When asked his mother what her son had actually thinking, this is the answer: "Why are you looking for me? Did you not know that I am in the must be about my Father? "(Lk 2:49). Then he returned with his parents in Nazareth, is "obedient to them" (Lk 2.50) "... and his wisdom grew, and in favor with God and man. "(Lk 2:52).
We know very little about Jesus' life circumstances prior to his encounter with John the Baptist and is the least, ranging from birth up to the events just described, legend. In particular, Luke Jesus surrounds the date of conception until the episode in the Temple in Jerusalem with an aura of the divine and miraculous. Luke here follows the practice of Hellenistic biographers that the life of famous figures like with wonderful details from their childhood embellished. The purpose was to make it clear that the extraordinary personality of a early in their life history, sometimes in the womb, has announced. This was a special expression of appreciation for the person concerned and was understood as such. No reader would have taken this kind descriptions at face value.
have now, however, texts, once they are fixed in black and white, their own dynamics. They do not always reveal only what its author originally intended it. Luke portrays here a boy who put his surroundings by a wisdom in astonishment, not only far reaches beyond his age, but appear to the twelve-year-old as of divine wisdom can inspire. One might even pass for a conventional bow one day before the impressively gifted spiritual teacher can.
Like Jesus but then on the anxious and probably reproachful question of his mother replied that what he was really thinking, just auszubüchsen so is already a very different quality: "Why are you looking for me? Did you not know that I am in the must be about my Father? "(Lk 2:49). Of course, the subtle Lukas will not document here the bad manners of Jesus towards his mother but to pursue a theological stake. Even as a twelve year old, on the threshold from childhood to youth, Jesus was aware of his divine descent. Luke hurries then also with the statement that Jesus had returned as a good son to his parents in Nazareth, and they "obey" was (Luke 2.50). One may have his doubts.
considered fasting and left the theological mumbo-jumbo aside, we have the story of a highly problematic parent-child relationship before us. A twelve year old boy runs away and drives to his parents for almost a week around in a strange city. The parents, however, need a whole day to notice the disappearance of her son at all! That the story is fiction, does not alter the fact that it exposes a problematic train in the biography of Jesus of Nazareth. Both the harsh rejection, Jesus puts towards his mother on the day, as indeed seems to be the difficult relationship with his family in other places in the Gospels. Of course, these embarrassments are cushioned always theologically by in one way or another by sending Jesus to be justified. But considering the high value that had the respect of the child's parents to Judaism, then it is unlikely that Jesus was invented numerous frictions with his family to do this or that theological point. Rather, one may expect the reverse.
The episode of the twelve-year-old Jesus in the Temple illustrates almost textbook the search for a fatherless son after his father. That Jesus' biological father is unknown, is not concealed from the Gospels. There are rumors peddled his opponents of Jesus' questionable origin (Jn 8.41 b), in Nazareth called him, believed the oldest Gospel (Mk6, 3), "Jesus, the son of Mary," Matthew said that before Maria her betrothal to Joseph was pregnant (HS1, 18). The declaration "by the Holy Spirit" (Matt. 1:18) is by no means imply that Mary's pregnancy had been different than in the normal way about. Only Luke, the Hellenistic literary gentleman and protector of the mother of Jesus designed to Mary's conception to father a Greek demigod (Lk1 0.26 to 38).
Josef plays in the confusion surrounding Jesus' origin is an unclear role. On the one hand, it is against the law to the Father of Jesus, which Mary before the birth of her son takes to wife (HS1, 24). Jesus also called in some places in the Gospels, without limitation, son of Joseph (John 1.45; 6.42, Lk 4:22). After the episode in the temple, which is at issue here, Joseph appeared in the biography of Jesus no longer. The tradition insists that Joseph died sometime between the twelfth birthday of Jesus and his public appearance. One can also wonder whether it is of Joseph ever existed, or whether he is merely a literary fiction. Either way, whether real father, stepfather or an invention, Josef is always a weak and / or an absent father, who has played in Jesus' life is a purely marginal role.
Jesus words in the literal or figurative sense has no father, he sets off to find one. It is quite obvious that he does on the threshold from child to young man does. As a Jew, Jesus with his thirteenth birthday at a bar mitzvah , a son of the duty . From now on, you must follow all the commandments of the Torah. He is now a full member of the Jewish community. But it must be clear beyond any doubt who his father. Who's Father can not call that can not dispel any lingering doubts whether he really belongs to the people of Israel. Only much later will determine the parentage of a Jewish mother alone on the Jewishness of a man or a woman.
For Jesus, it's more than not knowing a psychological problem in the modern sense of who his father. It is a question that determines good or evil. It is not the modern question of identity, which for a man in an archaic society is not so. It is the existential question of the group affiliation. To which group I belong to decide on who I am. This decision, I can not themselves meet. The group decides whether or not I belong to. I am keeping for my people.
The fatherless son is basically his life a homeless man. He gets in the truest sense of the word not set foot on the ground, it lacks the anchoring in reality. This is no different with Jesus. He says of himself: "The foxes have holes, birds their nests, a person like me but has no place where he could lay his head" (Matthew 8:20 par). He runs away to his parents and seeks refuge in a new father's house, the temple, with a new father, God. It is quite conceivable that the story that Luke tells a real, has less edifying background in the biography of Jesus.
builds step by step, Jesus, native and fatherless walkers, a new, virtual world, with God as his Abba, the disciples as his family, the Familia Dei, in which the sisters and brothers to each other at the same time caring service mothers prove. In the vision of the kingdom a new virtual reality is created as an alternative model to the real existing world. Of course, Jesus here draws from the rich tradition of his Jewish heritage. Intimacy with God as Abba have maintained other holy men of Israel before Jesus. From the image of hope brought about by God in his kingdom of peace, Israel has worst of times drawn strength. The very specific dynamics and energy but applies the vision of Jesus in his own state as home and fatherless. Jesus is in a very real sense, not of this world . This is certainly one of the reasons that made his followers so easy to deify Jesus so soon after his death.
who is not of this world, however, which also holds little in it. The drives also an inner strength from the world. So also the premature and violent end of Jesus is not unexpected. Also this must be quite logical development of the internal dynamics of Jesus are understood. For a mythical thinking is it not as absurd as the fulfillment of this to understand the will of God. Today's thinking however, can not help seeing in it the profound tragedy of the fate of Jesus. Jesus searching for the father ends with his brutal execution on a Roman cross. Who here will not be too quick to stick to pre-cut answers, which finds itself suspended between two opposing words, the dying Jesus are attributed to: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me" (Mk 15:34) and "It is finished" (Jn 19:30). Sun is behind Luke's story of the twelve year old Jesus in the Temple, which is so often used as a foil for edifying sermons, even the whole drama of Jesus of Nazareth.
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