NOTES for Luk 2:52

We know almost nothing about Jesus' childhood and youth. That is not surprising: the evangelists focused their attention on Jesus' messianic ministry, on the reason for which He came into the world. But He came here like every human being. The difference was only one thing: His nature was not touched by original sin. It had no share in it to any degree. From the very beginning it was completely free from it. But the process by which this human nature of Jesus came to maturity was the same as it should have been according to God's design for human nature. And according to this design, the physical and psychological formation of a person should be accompanied by his spiritual formation.

When the matter concerns nature, whether physical nature or psychological nature, we easily understand that a person's formation and development is nothing other than the unfolding of the possibilities placed in his nature by God, which, once unfolded, make a person what he is. But the person must unfold his possibilities himself, although without God's help this is impossible. Spiritual formation is somewhat different. Spirit is not nature; it does not develop, become more complex, or grow as natural structures do. Spirit has no structure; it manifests itself as will, and its growth is the strengthening of its will. And correspondingly, it is the widening of the circle of influence available to the will, the inclusion of ever new objects in this circle of influence, and, of course, the widening and deepening of interaction with other spirits. With other wills. With other persons, because a person is self-aware will. The spiritual formation of a human being therefore presupposes the widening and deepening of his awareness of himself. Of his will. Of his personhood. And of that on which it rests: the breath of life that is in a person from God.

Thus self-awareness leads a person, if of course he remains consistent and faithful to his true self, to communion with God. To a meeting with God, who dwells in that depth of the human person which in the language of the Bible is called the heart. All this applies fully to Jesus as well. After all, He too is human. More than that: He is Man with a capital letter. To each person God's presence in the heart is given in its own measure, and to Him alone it is given fully and absolutely. As the Messiah and the God-man. It is no wonder that He too grew as every human being grows. In order to grow into His own measure, the measure of the Messiah and the God-man.

The life of Jesus between the Nativity and His going out to preach is closed to us, but the story of the journey to Jerusalem gives us the only glimmer in the fog. Why, then, did the evangelist include only this episode from the Savior's childhood in his narrative? Hardly only because no other information had survived by the time the text was composed; rather, it was because this particular episode is important for understanding later events. For before us is a testimony that already in childhood Jesus was conscious of His mission.

Jesus must have been sociable as a child; otherwise it is hard to explain why Mary and Joseph, at first thinking that He was traveling with relatives and neighbors, showed no concern about His absence. We, for our part, may conclude that already in childhood He knew how to communicate with very different people, and that His conversation in the temple anticipated His coming work as Teacher. And that the temple is His Father's house is witnessed not only by His words, but also by how naturally He behaved in the temple. As for His three-day absence from those close to Him, many interpreters advise seeing it as a foreshadowing of His absence from the earth after Golgotha...

Why did Christ accept circumcision, and what is the spiritual meaning of this event? Of course, one can say that He was little then. But He allowed this to happen, and therefore, despite the fact that He was little, this event has spiritual content. So what is it? To confirm that "salvation is from the Jews" (John 4:22)? Or to pass through the whole path of His humility, limiting Himself not only by human appearance but also by all the limitation of human culture?

It is also certain that He knew that after Him the apostle Paul would come, sternly rebuking all who do not understand the full limitation of this rite, as of every rite in general. In the Epistle to the Romans alone he speaks of this more than once; see chapters 2, 3, and 4. For example: "For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh" (Rom. 2:28), or "Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing, but keeping the commandments of God" (1 Cor. 7:19).

The Lord knew this and still allowed His circumcision to take place. In this is His humility before the Law, which He came to fulfill (Matt. 5:17), and this is precisely what allows the apostle Paul to say: "In Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the putting off of the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ" (Col. 2:11).

Today's account of Jesus remaining in the Temple in Jerusalem recalls the words from the Book of Proverbs (9:1): “Wisdom has built her house...” Having come to Jerusalem for the Passover feast, He remained in His Father's house. The Evangelist paints two pictures at once: the teachers of the people, the scribes, marvel at Jesus' wisdom, while His parents search the city for Him in distress. His answer to His Mother sounds like a riddle: where else should a boy be but in his father's house? A person should live at home. Even then the Lord begins to reveal His origin and calling to people: He is God's Wisdom and God's Son, for those who can understand this. And if someone does not want to understand it? Well then, if he still wants to listen to Jesus, he will have to spend his whole life solving His riddles...

Today's reading continues the account of the witnesses connected with the Nativity. And if the first witnesses were shepherds, now righteous people and prophets come to take their place. It would seem that these people are not at all like simple shepherds. But there is something common that unites them: all of them are waiting for the Messiah and are ready to receive him as he is. For a prophet, the revelation received from God is most important; he hears God directly, and for him there is no question about whether he can trust what he has heard.

The prophetic experience of direct communion with God is, of course, unique every time, but with all its uniqueness, none of those who had occasion to hear the voice of God raised questions of what modern theologians call theological verification: any prophet receives the revelation given to him as a direct instruction to act. And if God points to the infant brought into the Temple as the Messiah, then that infant truly is the Messiah, whoever may say otherwise and whatever doubts learned rabbis and teachers of the Torah may express on this matter.

Righteousness is a phenomenon of another kind, but a righteous person too is often given the ability to hear God. And if at times his mystical hearing is not as sharpened as a prophet's hearing, the habit of trusting God unconditionally helps the righteous person become certain of the authenticity of the revelation received. What unites these people with simple shepherds is not only the expectation of the Messiah, but also their attitude toward God and toward the will of God. One could say that, unlike the same Pharisees, for example, they are not very religious. Of course, all of them are members of the Synagogue, but there they are apparently not in the front rows: there are people there whose activity makes them barely noticeable, and sometimes completely unnoticeable.

In theological and religious-political disputes, so frequent in the synagogues of the Gospel period, they apparently either take part rarely and unwillingly, or do not take part at all. They do not belong to any religious school and perhaps do not even have what is usually called a religious worldview. They simply trust God, who long ago became the center and meaning of their life, and they live while listening attentively for what he will say to them. Or they pasture their flocks, like the Bethlehem shepherds. Of course, compared with learned theologians they may appear simple people, even, like the shepherds, ignorant. But they will certainly have no problems with the theological interpretation of what they have heard from God. Nor will they have needless doubts about the reliability of what they heard. That is why they are granted to see the Messiah before others. Including those who were sure they would see him first.

Every person knows that someday he will die. Death is a unique phenomenon: it is completely obvious and completely closed to those who have not yet experienced it. God speaks with a person, and that person remains alive. On the basis of this Gospel passage, one can say that a person who speaks with God, not somehow but face to face, receives both life and death: life full of His presence, the light of revelation for all, and death as the fulfillment of the promise, as the possibility of a full and final encounter.