On This Day: Jesus’ Example for Our Growing Up

   And he said to them, “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?” And they did not understand the saying that he spoke to them. And he went down with them and came to Nazareth and was submissive to them. And his mother treasured up all these things in her heart.
   And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man. (Luke 2:49-52)

   Jesus is more than an example. Anyone who treats Jesus as only a good example is still in charge and has never submitted to him as Lord.

   However, when we confess Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, declaring our faith in him through baptism, we receive new life in him that is characterized by following his example. 

   What hit me today is that, from the age we associate with adolescence through what the Western mind thinks of as the teen years, Jesus modeled maturing as a human being. And today, two things stood out. 

   First, I was drawn to consider what it may have been like for Jesus to mature without a sin nature. Even Adam did not experience this since he invited sin into the world early in his development. It is simply mind-boggling to consider Jesus maturing, particularly as I watch society around me settle into ever-lower expressions of immaturity! 

   Second, I couldn’t help noticing the contrast between the way the teachers “were amazed at his understanding and his answers” (Luke 2:47) as he was “listening to them and asking them questions” (vs 46) and the way the religious elite felt about him when he was well into his ministry two decades later. As Mark described, “And the chief priests and the scribes heard it and were seeking a way to destroy him, for they feared him, because all the crowd was astonished at his teaching” (Mark 11:18). The jealousy and hatred they felt towards Jesus was because of the same development in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man! 

   Jesus’ example calls us who trust in him to grow up. The pattern of church folk reaching their senior years and acting like entitled children who need to be taken care of cannot be found in God’s word. Luke just showed us Simeon and Anna devotedly serving the Lord until the day they died. Before that, we saw Zechariah and Elizabeth experiencing the work of God in old age. Running the race of faith with perseverance has no age limit, and the strongest witnesses to the life of faith ought to be the ones living it the longest! 

   Okay, I’m in my senior years, so I trust that allows me a senior-sounding rant. However, my years (decades) in both church ministry and daycare assisting have made maturity issues a big deal for me. 

   Today, I hope that Jesus’ example of maturing in body, soul, and spirit gives anyone’s dead-battery experience the jump-start you need to “not be children in your thinking. Be infants in evil, but in your thinking be mature” (I Corinthians 14:20). 

© 2024 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com 

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)