NOTES for Luk 2:49
The twelve-year-old Lord Jesus, who remained in the Jerusalem Temple, answers the sorrowful question of His Most Pure Mother by speaking of His Father's House. This is the House in which He must be. Perhaps the thought of this served as the basis for the revelation of the Book of Proverbs: "Wisdom has built her house..." The evangelist paints two pictures at once: the teachers and scribes are amazed at Jesus' wisdom, and His parents are searching the city for Him in distress. His answer to His Mother sounds like a riddle: where else should a boy be, if not in his father's house? A person should live at home. Already then the Lord begins to reveal to people His origin and calling: He is God's Wisdom and God's Son.
But there is one more important aspect of this event. The Lord speaks of the House that belongs to His Heavenly Father; in our language, this is precisely what the word "homeland" means in its deeper sense. And when we read that His homeland is heaven, should we not ask where our homeland is? Not the territory where the people who gave birth to us live, but the homeland in the deeper sense: where we are from, and where the home is that we could call our eternal dwelling. As we try to find the answer to this question, we understand that thanks to the Incarnation of the Son of God, His homeland becomes ours as well, and through Him we receive the eternal Home.