Jesus The Teenage Rebel
“I wish there were a couple hundred more verses at the end of Luke 2… (PUT IT IN CONTEXT!)
- as a youth pastor, more stories about Jesus teen years. some indication of how He related to His peers. of how He and His parents got along.
- somehow we get this idea that Jesus’ growing up must have been conflict-free; that since He was sinless everything would have been just fine all the time. that simply can’t be true – Jesus was perfect but His parents (and siblings) weren’t!
- maybe Mary was having a bad day and got all mad at Jesus for something He didn’t do, or maybe Joseph hit his thumb with His hammer one time and tried to blame it on Jesus because He made some noise in the shop right then, or maybe one of His siblings lied and got Jesus in trouble (it wouldn’t be the last time He was punished for someone else’s wrongs)… How would Jesus have responded when He saw His parents sin? There may have been some conflict!
- point is: there would inevitably have been some conflict., for though Jesus was without sin, His parents and siblings were not.
I hope that those of you who are parents of teens, and those of you who are teens, will take some comfort from that. Some conflict is normal
- although there are not a bunch of stories of Jesus as a teenager, there is one: Luke 2:41-52. And you know what it shows us? There WAS some conflict; Jesus was a teen-age rebel!
HAVE ALEX/JENNY READ THIS SCRIPTURE…
A little bit of historical background… Jesus’ education:
- at the time of Jesus, most Jewish kids went to school. in synagogue.
- 3 schools:
- #1 – Bet Sefer – house of the book – you went seven days a week for 5 years (mornings only) and learned to read and memorized Torah (our Old Testament – except for Song of Songs and David and Bethsheba…) No Questions Allowed!
- #2 – Bet Talmud – house of learning – at this point you went morning and evening, 7 days a week for another 5 years. And here you memorized all the previous interpretations of Torah (which is collected is writings called the Talmud). Still you couldn’t discuss anything or ask questions. You would be about half way through this school when you had your bar mitzvah (turning 13). This was where almost everyone stopped – memorize the Torah and the Talmud, and then if you didn’t really have any new ideas or interpretations of Torah you would quit school and continue to learn a trade from your father.
- #3 – Bet Midrash – for really gifted, finally you could discuss and argue and interpret (and you can imagine that after 10 years of memorizing without speaking some may speak with some passion when they are finally able to!)
- so the normal pattern for raising your kids in first century Palestine was to send them to school when they were between 5-7, have a bar or bat mitzvah the Saturday before their 13th birthday (which welcomed them as adults into Jewish society), teach the boys a trade at their father’s side and the girls all of the home skills of cooking and sewing and child-rearing, and then get them married off by age 18. Now this is important: in Jewish culture – if you were not married by age 20 at the latest, not only were your parents and family upset, but God Himself was very angry with you!
- so that’s a bit of cultural background to the passage that Alex/Jenny read, which I thought you might find interesting just as context. Since this passage tells us Jesus was 12, we can assume he was in the middle school working hard at memorizing the Talmud.
Anyway, enough history. Let’s look at the passage:
vs. 41-42: notice what is going on here: the family, together, having a Spiritual holiday. “every year” they went to Jerusalem for the feast of the passover.
- Sue’s holiday comments at our deacon’s meeting
- family, together celebrating their spiritual heritage.
- THAT IS TRUE CHRISTIAN EDUCATION!! it is the family TOGETHER celebrating and remembering and learning.
- we have a few things like that – a few customs and traditions: Christmas is one – kids being a part of the kids Christmas pageant, going to church together on Christmas eve, our Lent campaign that we encourage families to work on together, our Easter services…
- even (maybe especially in our culture) getting to church together week after week. This teaches our kids – when the family goes to church together.
- TANGENT TIME: I want to encourage you to try really hard to enjoy coming to church as a family. Make sure you get here five or ten minutes early, so that you have time to get the kids boots off and coats hung up and can get into the sanctuary and find your seat before things begin (I know I’m asking a lot here, especially at Laurier…). But then you’ll be ready to worship, and you’ll show your kids how important God is. And maybe you can find something as a family that you can do each week to make it more enjoyable – stop for a slurpee on the way home, or let your kids invite a friend over, or have lunch with some friends – whatever you can think of to really make each Sunday a positive experience for your family. For lots of you it is already – if it isn’t I challenge you to sit down today after church as a family and decide how you can make it more enjoyable!
- back to the story…
vs. 43-52: use your imagination with me a little bit here… (tell the story…)
So there we have it: Jesus was a teen-age rebel. Now by saying “Jesus was a teen-age rebel” I don’t mean that He turned His back on His parents, rejected everything they had taught Him, and took off to become a Greek Philosopher. Although His parents might have been a bit concerned… “I just don’t know what could have gotten in to Him… He’s always been such a cooperative young man, and yet I’ve been worried sick about Him these past three days…” So what DO I mean? Well, lets look at what we learn about Jesus in this passage:
1. Jesus was a pretty normal guy. normal family, normal upbringing, lived in a normal Jewish place and had a normal mother and father – even the fact that there were some abnormalities is pretty normal. This passage shows how normal everything was.
some of you are saying now wait…, how many other twelve year olds are sitting among the teachers in the temple and impressing them?? THAT certainly isn’t normal… and I’d have to agree. But what I would say is normal is that all of us at some point in time need to embrace our faith for ourselves. And that is what I see Jesus doing here – embracing His faith for Himself. We need to make a separation from our parents – distance ourselves a bit as we become adults and individuals – and there comes a time when each of us has to examine the things we have always been taught and always believed and determine whether in fact we will own that faith for ourselves. Looking at this passage from a developmental point of view, I think that is what is happening. Jesus is getting it from another source. He is taking the initiative, as a twelve-year-old boy, to search out His faith and embrace it himself. Parents you need to provide room and opportunities for your kids to do that as they grow older – send them to camp, make sure they have exposure to other adult Christians, encourage their questions and help them find the answers for themselves, even if that means allowing them to struggle to their own conclusions. Really, that is one of the key reasons why I love working with teens – to help them think through and challenge and question and thus come to a firm personal conviction and experience with Jesus as THEIR Lord and Savior. And parents – your biggest job here is to be a consistent example and to pray. And to let your kids know that you are praying for them!!
in the sense of beginning the process of individualization, Jesus’ “rebellion” was normal.
one other comment here – just as Jesus impressed the teachers of the law, all of our kids have qualities that are impressive. I want to brag about a few of our kids – share some things about them that may “amaze” you just like Jesus questions amazed the teachers in the temple:
- Chris Bagan – AND HE IS NOT THE FIRST!!!
- Michelle Spate – She should be on the payroll of LHS as the resident counselor – she is the one that her classmates and friends turn to when they have needs and issues that they need to talk through, and believe me the kind of deep, occasionally tragic things that she deals with with her friends would shock you. The fact that she does it well is proved by how often they return to her.
- Grace Morrison stood up in front of 80 of her junior high peers at Gull Lake Winter Camp at the beginning of the month, and she simply shared what God is doing in her life. And she was fantastic!!
- Kyle Brown – gave up a ski trip to Banff this past week because he had committed to coming to a ministry team meeting here at the church. And then the ten junior high kids on our ministry team met here by themselves, and covered all the items I left for them on an agenda.
- Gina Gurel – here is a young grade eight student who phoned me a couple of weeks ago and asked if we could go for lunch ‘cause she wanted to talk. We get to A&W, and it turns out that what she wants to talk about is how she can be a more effective witness for Jesus to her peers at school. She’s telling me “I talk to them about Jesus, and invite them to come to youth things, but I don’t feel like they are really listening – how can I communicate Jesus to them better? Oh – and I’m going on a band trip in a few weeks and am staying with a non-Christian friend – can you pray that I’ll have a chance to share Jesus with her??
- I can totally see Lisa Thompson sitting in the middle of the teachers in the temple and asking them questions and debating with them! If you have a couple of hours, send her an email with a theological question and wait for her reply to completely wrestle honestly and Biblically with the issue. Her insights will amaze you
- Lindsay White – here is a junior high girl just quietly living her faith out among her friends with integrity. What better witness is there than that??
- I could go on and on – Josh Marshall telling his soccer team-mates that he prays for them before a game, Jenny Hodges modeling excellence in everything she pursues from academics to soccer, Chris Smith being the vice-president (he’s only in grade eight so can’t be president until he’s in grade nine…) of his junior high and winning the debating award, Geoff Thompson being the one brave enough to pray, continually, out loud with his peers, Serena Kobialko babysitting at the last church business meeting and telling me to take the money she was supposed to earn and use it to help another teen, Ryan getting into a fight at school because he stuck up for some oriental friends who were getting picked on by people twice their size … you get the picture – all of our teens have some absolutely amazing qualities and maturities that would amaze and astonish you. The honest truth is that I think I learn as much and am challenged as much by them as they are by me.
Those kids are all a bunch of rebels!! They are different from their peers in a lot of ways, and they challenge us!!
not that they are perfect, I don’t want to give you a false impression (and I don’t want them to get inflated heads…) – they all still have a lot of room to grow – but they are a pretty wonderful bunch and I love you all dearly!
back to the story… so that was the first thing we notice about Jesus – He was pretty normal and pretty amazing!!
2. Jesus chose to go to the temple:
I love where they found Jesus – at the temple!! How mad can you get at your teen sneaking away so that he/she can spend more time exploring their faith??
- twelve year-old boy – didn’t stay behind to play pranks on the temple money-changers or laugh at the “old guys just sitting around talking”; didn’t stick around to spend more time with a new friend he made in Jerusalem; He stayed behind so that He’d have a change to spend more time at the temple – to ask His questions of the teachers there, to sit among them and digest the wisdom of God of which they spoke.
- I think the example for us here is that Jesus maximized His opportunity to learn and grow. He maximized the opportunity to sit with the best teachers and learn from them. He maximized the opportunity to deepen Himself in His understanding of God and the world He was in.
- Do we? week after week, do we maximize the opportunities we have to grow, to worship, to learn? Are you prepared when you show up to worship? Are you eager to be a part of a small group and an Adult Christian Education class? Do you maximize the opportunity to be a light for Christ in your school or home or workplace? God has so much to offer us, and so often we settle for such a small part of the fullness that He wants to because we fail to maximize the opportunity – to take a risk – to ask a question. It caused Jesus a bit of grief – His mom wasn’t too pleased – but it was worth it!!
This picture of Jesus at the temple surrounded by adults is to me a great picture of a rebel. That’s not where you would find ordinary twelve year-olds!! They generally would rather sit in front of a N64 video game, or a WWF or WCW wrestling match, or just hang out with friends. Jesus rebelled against the teen tendency to view adults as irrelevant, boring, stodgy, out of touch old people and instead saw how much He could learn from them and maximized His opportunity to learn (there is a flip side to that too – we adults need to rebel against the tendency to see teens as wild, evil, unmanageable hooligans, and actually be brave enough to start a relationship with them and get to know them and share some of the things God has taught us). To rebel means to go against the norm – Jesus certainly did by going to the temple and learning from the teachers there!
Jesus maximized His opportunity to learn and to grow.
3. There is a third thing I notice in this passage: Jesus’ obedience to God caused some anxiety. His growth produced some tension. By choosing to maximize His opportunity for growth Jesus made His mom and dad anxious.
That is often true for us also. As we grow, and change, it is often uncomfortable.
my growing pains - legs
- weight then height
the same is true spiritually. as we grow in obedience to God, it often creates tension with others around us
- one spouse decides they want to be more giving and another would rather make the next big purchase;
- one family member does our lent devotional guide on becoming a world Christian and wants the family to give up a meal each week and send the saved money to the hungry in Africa,
- the partner at work doesn’t understand why you “suddenly” have a moral problem with the way income is reported for tax purposes.
that is just how it goes. growth produces change and change sometimes creates tensions and anxiety. Expect that! Embrace that as part of the process! Above all, don’t let it stop you from making steps in your spiritual life. It is part of being a rebel!!
4. Fourth and finally, we see how Jesus had to learn and grow just like everybody else.
notice what Jesus is doing in the temple: vs. 46: listening and asking questions! He’s learning - listening and asking questions!
we often think in this passage that Jesus is there setting them all straight – but that is not what is says!! It says He is learning from them! We have a glimpse here of Jesus’ Spiritual formation – of His Christian education. Jesus had to learn too. and it was hard work Look at vs. 52 – Jesus GREW in wisdom (mind) and stature (physical) and in favor with God (spiritual) and men (social). See how well-balanced that is! I love this. It wasn’t instantaneous for Jesus. It wasn’t handed to Him on a silver platter. How did He grow? How did His Spiritual Formation occur? over time. through education. through His family regularly attending spiritual celebrations. Jesus grew and learned just like every other human being.
I find that encouraging. It reminds me again how much Jesus really does understand all that we go through. He sat through school on days when the sun was shining brightly and it would have been more fun to run and play. He sat through sermons like you are now, and maybe some of them weren’t all that great. He maybe got in trouble for something He didn’t do. Isn’t it great to know that Jesus really does understand the things we go through on a daily basis – because He has lived them also.
notice finally the consequences of Jesus’ growth: vs 51: “He went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient”. Obedience is always the consequence of true spiritual growth.
Conclusion:
Jesus was a teen-age rebel. He rebelled by choosing to put God first and by living to a higher calling. He rebelled against the mediocre legalistic religion of his day and lived with a faith of the heart that was intense and personal and full of joy.
will you be a rebel like Jesus? Will you go against our world and:
- live for others rather than for yourself
- stand up for those our world takes for granted and treats with contempt
- will you turn the other cheek when people do you wrong
- will you love in the midst of hate
- will you maximize your opportunities to learn and grow instead of taking them for granted
- will you choose to obey and grow even when that causes anxiety and tension
Will YOU be a rebel like Jesus??
I challenge you to that today: be a rebel like Jesus.
