阅读经文 

十二岁的耶稣把祂的父母吓坏了，这也难怪。他们还以为把神托付给他们照顾的这个神子弄丢了！

三天后，他们在圣殿里找到了耶稣。祂和教师们坐在一起：聆听、学习，讨论互动。所有人都感到很希奇。

他们当然会感到希奇了。耶稣本为神。祂比那些教师所知道的都要多，祂无所不知。我们可能会这么想，但事情实际并不是这样。这里所说的是，对于一个十二岁的孩子来说，耶稣的表现让人希奇。

还有，当耶稣的父母在圣殿找到祂时，马利亚责备祂：“为什么向我们这样行呢？” 但，耶稣并不以为然：“你们应该知道我在圣殿里。”

十二岁的耶稣面临一个问题。祂还没有弄清楚如何把祂对天父的义务和对地上父母的义务结合起来。这并没有什么错误，也不是什么罪过。知道如何平衡这些相互冲突的责任，这是一个普通十二岁的孩子——即便是十二岁的耶稣，都不具备的智慧。

没关系，耶稣不会永远停留在十二岁。随着祂年龄的增长，祂的智慧也会增长。

Twelve-year-old Jesus scares the wits out of his parents. And no wonder. They think they've lost him—the holy child that God entrusted to them!

After three days, they find Jesus at the temple. He's sitting there with the teachers: listening and learning, asking questions and giving answers. And everyone is amazed.

Of course they're amazed. Jesus is God. He knows more than any of those teachers. He knows everything. That's what we might think. But that really won't do. What's going on here is that Jesus is amazing for a twelve-year-old.

Something else is going on too. When Jesus' parents find him at the temple, Mary scolds him: "How could you do this to us?" But Jesus doesn't get it: "You should have known I would be at the temple."

Twelve-year-old Jesus has a problem. He hasn't figured out how to put together his sense of obligation to his heavenly Father with his obligations to his earthly father and mother. There's nothing wrong with that, nothing sinful about it. It's simply beyond the wisdom of a twelve-year-old—even the twelve-year-old Jesus—to know how to balance those competing obligations.

That's okay. Jesus won't be twelve forever. And as he grows up, he will grow in wisdom.