The Early Life of Christ

Welcome to Halting Toward Zion, the podcast where we limp like Jacob to the Promised Land and talk about life, the universe, and everything along the way. I’m Emily Maxson here with Greg Uttinger and Rachel Voytek, and we are continuing our walk through the life and ministry of Christ at this point. We’re still in the early stages of his life, as we have yet to talk about the visit of the Magi, which I think is our first stop along the road trip today.

I’m given to understand that the Christ child was about 2 or 3 years old when the Magi visited, contra every nativity set and Christmas card ever made.

Because they had to actually travel across the whole desert Fertile Crescent area, which takes a long time.

Yes, it doesn’t take two years, though.

But they weren’t there at the birth, is the point.

Yes, they weren’t there at the manger. There are probably some people who are saying, “What? We’ve been lied to?” Yes, you have. It’s a grand conspiracy to sell Christmas cards. There’s got to be a reason that the Magi are shown constantly at the manger. I just cannot imagine exactly what it is.

I wonder how far back it goes, because if it’s an old enough tradition it could be some sort of symbolism in icons, if it goes all the way back and it’s just meant to say, “Oh, you know this is Jesus because there are the kings from the east around him with their gifts.”

But distinction between Christmas and Epiphany is very ancient.

Oh, that’s true.

It would be strange that the Church might be confused about that. More likely, if we do any research we’re going to find out that it came out in greeting cards in the late 1800s by someone trying to make a quick buck on people who didn’t know the Bible very well .

Or there could be a positive side of them wanting to play up the majesty of Jesus’ birth, so they see the fact that these wealthy men visited as more prestigious and prominent for Jesus to show off his kingly side. I’m not saying that does make him a king as if he isn’t in his own right, or they want there to be gifts for Christmas.

Oh, maybe that’s it. I would find that compelling, not that it’s a good reason but I would believe that that was the reason.

Yeah, I can see that. Anyway, back to the actual time. I used to say two years but let’s talk about Herod for a second. He was a master politician. If you heard that your rival had been born two years ago, and wanted to get rid of him, would you say two years and under? No, you would say three or four years and under. You’re going to do a shotgun approach and make sure you get every one, because you can’t trust Roman soldiers to be able to tell at a glance how old a kid is. You’re going to give them a nice wide spread. More likely Jesus was a year or so old. Yes, Herod inquired and then wanted to make sure that he got him.

What incredible insecurity though to be like, “This child is going to depose me.”

It feels very much like Greek mythology. “This child is going to be your downfall. Of course, I will go give him to this random couple in the woods and they will kill him for me,” which they don’t, that sort of thing.

Let’s talk about Herod just a little bit. He’s a fascinating character. He is Idumaean, that is to say he’s an Edomite. His father Antipater was made Procurator of Judea by Julius Caesar in 47 BC, and about the same time Herod himself was made Governor of Galilee. So we’re going back before Augustus, before Octavian, to Julius Caesar, and these guys are becoming a factor because no one wanted to work with the Jews. No one trusted the priests/princes that have been the Maccabean family.

Rome wanted to have its fingers in everything, so here were some people who claimed to be kind of Jewish, and they did formally convert. Herod was officially Jewish to gain the support of the people. But things went kind of sour.

Antipater was assassinated and Herod had to flee to Rome, where at the insistence of Marc Antony he was proclaimed king of Judea by the Roman Senate, and with Roman aid he went back and claimed Judea, so that’s how he ends up on the throne. He is king of Judea because of Marc Antony, who’s got to be the loser in this proposition, together with Cleopatra, the Battle of Actium. I suppose that’s where we pick up.

Herod was a master politician. When Julius Caesar dies, is assassinated, Octavian – soon to be Augustus – and Marc Antony step in, take over, eliminate the competition, divide what was then officially still a republic, ever-expanding with armies everywhere, and Marc Antony starts playing footsie with Cleopatra in Egypt, so we have a Western and Eastern empire.

They start by calling each other names and waging a propaganda campaign against each other, but it eventually becomes open warfare, and we’ve talked about the Battle of Actium before off the Greek coast.

Antony and Cleopatra collide with Octavian, barely, because Cleopatra does a quick back-row on her boat and takes off for Egypt, and Marc Antony – “Wait, wait for me!” – follows her. And Octavian, rather than follow by sea, takes the land route round about. Along the way he comes to Judea and he runs into Herod, who was put on the throne basically by Marc Antony and the Roman Senate back when Marc Antony had some pull, which he’s now losing.

Herod is the master politician. He goes out to Octavian and says, “Hey boss, about all of that – sorry about that. I don’t know what I was doing. I’m your guy. I’m on your side. I’ll do whatever you want. I’ve got stuff for you, I’ve got support, I’ve got troops. What can I do? How can I make your life easier?” and Octavian, strangely enough, says, “Cool, you’re my guy. I’m going to give you even more power than you had, and greater glory and a better title.”

“Sounds good to me.”

Octavian proceeds into Egypt where Antony and Cleopatra commit suicide and Egypt falls into Octavian’s hand. He collects the treasures of Egypt, returns to Rome, and declares himself Augustus – god-like – not the emperor. He learned from Julius Caesar – you don’t do that one, First Citizen, High Priest, every other title you can think of – and Herod is still king of Judea.

He had an ego issue, if you can’t already tell. He wanted to be famous, so he lavished his personal wealth on building projects both at home and abroad. He erected statues and monuments in the Greek style throughout Jerusalem. He gave the city both a theater and an amphitheater, and built and enlarged the temple, which took forever, making it one of the wonders of the Roman world. He built new cities. He adorned cities beyond his own kingdom – Athens, Antioch, Rhodes, Actium, and a host of others.

Can I insert one thing in here? You mentioned that he did a beautification and rebuilding of the temple. One part of that was that the foundation area around the temple needed some reinforcements, so they put in retaining walls around the Temple mound, and the so-called temple wall that is the holiest place to the Jews today in Jerusalem is one of the retaining walls that Herod put in.

The wailing wall. I knew it was a retaining wall. I didn’t know that’s where it came from. That’s interesting.

They want to burrow under the mound because they hope to find actual temple remains there, but if they were to burrow under the mound they would be burrowing under where the Dome of the Rock is, which is the third holiest place to the Muslims, so even for the Jews in Israel they’ve not yet been able to get that one through.

In his later years Herod’s reign was plagued by conspiracy and intrigue, which he met without mercy or scruple. He tortured and killed his adversaries. He even ordered the death of his beloved wife Mariamne and three of his sons. At the end of his life, beset by a horrible disease, he summoned the chief nobles of the Jews in order that they be imprisoned and killed when he died so that Jerusalem would not rejoice in his death. A nice guy here.

Will Durant in his history says this: “His character was typical of an age that had produced so many men of intellect without morals, ability without scruple, and courage without honor. He was in his lesser way the Augustus of Judea. Like Augustus he overlaid the chaos of freedom with a dictatorial order, beautified his capital with Greek architecture and sculpture, enlarged his realm, made it prosper and achieve more by subtlety than by arms, married widely, was broken by the treachery of his offspring, and knew every good fortune but happiness.”

Alfred Edersheim in his History of the Jewish Nation says, “Cunning, ambitious, bold, energetic, he was equally hated and feared by his subjects. The two distinguishing features of his character and government were the most unrelenting cruelty which sacrificed even those nearest to him at the slightest suspicion, and the magnificence which induced him everywhere to raise lasting monuments to himself.”

So this is the guy on the throne when Jesus is born, and as is my way I want to press the historicity of this event. We are very much enmeshed in what secular history knows only too well. This is not a make-believe bogeyman kind of character. This is somebody that the Roman and the Jewish histories tell us about and he was not a nice guy. He was dangerous, and he was also prophesied.

There’s a prophecy at the tail end of Daniel that has confused a lot of people. It comes after the prophecy of Antiochus Epiphanes, and everyone recognized, “All right, that’s Antiochus Epiphanes, that’s the abomination that makes desolate. He takes away the evening sacrifice. He’s vile.” Everybody recognizes that, but then there’s a break. Everyone says, “There’s a break here because it’s been the king of the north and suddenly it’s just the king.”

Because so many prophetic books in the last century were written in the context of gap theory, dispensationalism, kingdom postponement and all that, it became a matter of course in biblical prophecy to say, “Oh, we just ran into something strange we don’t understand. Obviously, we’re leaping 2,000 years ahead and this is the anti-Christ.” The Bible actually really doesn’t do that very much, if at all, but this is a little bit of what it says, starting in Daniel 11:36 -

And the king shall do according to his will; and he shall exalt himself and magnify himself above every god, and shall speak marvellous things against the God of gods, and shall prosper till the indignation be accomplished, for that that is determined shall be done. Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers, nor the desire of women, nor regard any god, for he shall magnify himself above all.

But in his estate shall he honour the God of forces, and a god whom his fathers knew not shall he honour with gold, and silver, and with precious stones, and pleasant things.

Then skipping a little to verse 40:

And at the time of the end shall the king of the south [Egypt] push at him, and the king of the north [Rome] shall come against him like a whirlwind, with chariots, and with horsemen, and with many ships; and he shall enter into the countries and shall overflow and pass over.

He shall enter also into the glorious land, [Palestine, Canaan] and many countries shall be overthrown, but these shall escape out of his hand, even Edom, and Moab, and the chief of the children of Ammon.

Notice we’re at a time when those nations were still there.

He shall stretch forth his hand also upon the countries: and the land of Egypt shall not escape. But he shall have power over the treasures of gold and of silver, and over all the precious things of Egypt: and the Libyans and the Ethiopians shall be at his steps.

We’re flipping back and forth. We’ve had the king of the north, the king of the south, king of the north, king of the south…then the king, without qualification. That should mean the king of Israel, and if we look after the whole Maccabean thing there’s one man who is the king and it’s Herod the Great, who does not regard the God of his fathers, whether you reckon that through Esau or Jacob, who does not regard the desire of women (the slaughter of the babies), who exalts himself above all, and who gets caught up in a battle between the north and the south.

And as the king of the north passes through and heads to Egypt he somehow survives it all, but this is what’s really important for our purposes –

But tidings out of the east and out of the north shall trouble him; therefore he shall go forth with great fury to destroy and utterly to make away many.

And he shall plant the tabernacles of his palace between the seas in the glorious holy mountain; yet he shall come to his end, and none shall help him.

Tidings out of the east – Matthew chapter 2 –

Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him. When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.

We were talking earlier about, “Why is Herod panicked over a kid?” He knows the prophecies. You don’t have to believe in God to believe that religion is a factor in how people act and behave – witness the last few elections, for instance.

When you realize that you are dealing with a religious power block that may thwart you, may rise a rival, may question your actions just a little, and you see the rallying point, this child, and the wisemen saying, “Where is he that is born King of the Jews?” – it was not “born to be king” but born King, Herod understood and he immediately calls the high priests and scribes and says, “Where is Messiah to be born?” so he’s buying into the story enough.

He knows it very well. He knows that the prophets even tell where the child is supposed to be born. He just never paid attention at Sabbath school or his bar mitzvah lessons, but he knows somebody knows. He says, like Henry Ford, “I don’t know the answer to that, but I know who does,” and they say Bethlehem, quoting the prophet Micah.

I suppose this is where we stop and talk about the magi. When you are introducing the magi, ladies, what things do you point out are not true about them?

There were probably more than three, because it was three gifts and not three people that are specified in the text.

And probably three might not have created such a stir, but a whole bunch of them sure might have. What else, judging against an old song, since we’re still doing Christmas carols.

Are they kings? I don’t think they’re kings.

They’re not kings, no. They’re magi.

And I believe magi is actually a term for stargazers that are more priests of the religion from the east, the Persian area.

So not what we would call the Orient.

Right, they are not from the Orient, there are not three, and they are not kings. Aside from that the song is pretty…never mind.

Even as a side note, the word Orient is not meant to refer to people, but it’s more of things that come from what we would think of as Asia, like an oriental rug. We don’t speak of people as Oriental, not normally.

Well, when I was a kid you kind of did.

That’s a generational difference.

And in passing, for those of you who don’t know, the word orient used like “I need to get oriented here” meant that you needed to turn your map in the direction of Jerusalem in the east, which would be at the top of your map, so then your map would be pointed the right direction. You would be ‘oriented’ facing east.

I don’t like that, sorry. North needs to be up. I can’t work with this.

Daniel was said to be the head of the magi under Cyrus’s reign and Darius’s reign, so we’re dealing more likely with people from Persia or thereabouts. The magi probably had traveled and moved around a little bit. They may not have been exactly in Persia, but that’s their roots and their origin. They were stargazers, philosophers, priests. The Persian religion originally worshiped the god of heaven under the open sky with gifts and flowers and foods and such. They had no idols. They had no temples.

Let’s just clarify, when you say stargazers you’re not talking about like how we would go down to Kings Canyon and go camping and look at stars. You’re talking about astronomy, right?

Or astrology. The thing is, until at least the Reformation, astronomy and astrology were not strongly distinguished. Some of the Reformers actually thought that there was nothing wrong with astrology as long as you didn’t get magical or something with it.

The idea that things in the heavens influenced things on earth has a prima facie of plausibility. The sun makes crops grow. The moon affects the tides and bodily functions and things. Would it be so strange if all the stars and the constellations also had some effect? You can see the logic. That doesn’t mean that it’s true, it just means that in their state of knowledge it made sense.

But Augustine does a good job of saying, “Look, let’s put some caps on this.” His early chapters in The City of God are dedicated to, “If you think the stars determine your destiny, you’re wrong.” It’s one thing to say they have an influence, but it’s very different to say they chart out the course of your life, that they predestine you.

And clearly the magi were onto something. They knew Jesus had been born.

Yes. God used this to reveal the birth of his son to them. It’s an odd thing. We kind of get up on our hind legs sometimes and say, “Wait a second. Why is he talking to these pagans through stars?” Maybe because that’s where they looking.

Clearly it was a star unlike anything else they had seen, so it’s not as though we can look out into the sky and see the same star. It was a singular star that appeared one time and was such that they associated royalty with it, and in some way it was able to direct them particularly to the land of promise.

You said it appeared once but actually it appeared twice because it led them to Canaan and then apparently went away, and when they left Jerusalem the star which they had seen in the east (past tense) went before them until it stood over where the young child was. So they lost sight of it apparently for a while, then it came back and led them the 15 or 25 miles or whatever it is to Bethlehem. It moved in the sky. Stars don’t do that. It was something unusual.

I guess we have to reference Balaam’s prophecy – A star shall arise from Jacob – and all that. There might be something there but it’s kind of stretching. It’s just the idea that in scripture stars and the sun and the moon represent powers and nations and royalty and kings and such is common. You don’t particularly need that one prophecy to try to make something of this, though there might be a connection.

Yes, you need Genesis.

Yes, Genesis 1 pretty much will do it. “Oh, a brand new star like nothing we’ve ever seen just showed up and it’s over there – very over there – and it’s staying over there. It’s like a planet except it’s not a planet. We know all the planets. Oh, guess what?”

The whole world knew that something was about to happen. Octavian had cashed in on that and announced his own advent ceremony. The world was looking for a savior. The prophecies of Daniel of 490 years and such, and the four empires that had passed, these things were not done in a corner.

The secular world today would have us believe that nobody ever read the Bible in the ancient world. It was just a Jewish thing. No, everybody knew about it. It would be like going to the New York Times bestseller list and trying to find out what Christians read today. It would be an interesting experience but there’s no connection to reality.

So these men came the distance around the Fertile Crescent. They probably went around, rather than through the desert. It would take several months, and they came obviously to Jerusalem because it’s the capital. That’s where the king is, and if it’s not one of Herod’s children, he’s the king so surely he knows. He’s the head of this people. The king is always the secular and religious leader in the ancient world of a nation so, “Let’s go talk to the king and he’ll tell us exactly where the Messiah is.” Well, he does – “Bethlehem of Judea,” quoting Micah. Then this brilliant politician, tactician, strategist utterly fails in his wisdom.

I think if any of us knew there was someone who put our whole life, kingdom, and enterprise at stake, and we sent someone to go see them – first, we wouldn’t send someone to go see them, we would go find them ourselves – but if we did send somebody, they would go under the auspices of our right-hand man, Secret Service, hit squad, something, and we wouldn’t trust complete strangers to go and come again and tell us.

I wonder if he thought it would work because they were strangers, so they couldn’t know the politics of it all and such, so he was kind of playing on their naivete. “Yes, I’m your friend and this is completely innocent, so you must want to come back and tell me and inform, and then I can do whatever I want.”

“I will come and worship him also.”

They seemed to be very excited and thankful for the help. They’re not stupid men, obviously, but they seemed to have bought into whatever Herod was selling because they set out for Bethlehem without being observed, no one following, no one tailing, no GPS trackers, and the star appears and leads them to Bethlehem. It comes and stands over – and again a lot of people go, “What?” – the house where Mary and Joseph were living. They had been there long enough for Joseph to acquire work and a house, not a barn or a cave.

They were coming to the house and they saw the young child and Mary, his mother. Joseph was not there, at least at that point, but he shows up. He was probably out working. He’s busy. He’s got to provide for his family.

They open their treasures – gold, frankincense, and myrrh – and of course the carol specifies what many commentators have thought, gold for a king, frankincense for worship, and myrrh for burial, although myrrh was also used in marriage rites as well.

They’re wealthy rich gifts, and sometimes we forget the economics of it. We’re so wrapped up in the spiritual meaning that we forget there’s a very practical purpose here, because very soon Mary, Joseph, and the baby are going to have to flee to Egypt, without any visible means of support – “Oh, except the treasure we were just handed that’s worth a small fortune.” How they would have survived without that is hard to say. God could have provided something else, but he didn’t. He provided this.

The wisemen and magi are thinking, “Well, we’ve seen the newborn king.” Lots of poems and stories and songs have been written about that, what they thought and how they felt, but the plan no doubt was to do exactly what they were told, to go back and tell Herod.

But then God comes to them and says, “Uh, no. Get out of here. Get out quick. Go another way. Do not pass Go, do not collect the king’s reward,” so they take off across the desert. It takes Herod and his guys a while to figure out they’ve been shafted. The wisemen are gone and they didn’t track them.

It doesn’t matter, Bethlehem is a small town. How many newborn children can there be? Herod’s attitude is, “Kill them. Kill them all. Let’s shoot at two. If we get two, we’ll hit that medium in there someplace.”

Meanwhile the angel comes to Joseph and says, “Take your family and get out of here. Go to Egypt,” so they take off with the treasure which will sustain them. Most likely they went to Alexandria. There was a huge Jewish colony there, and they lived there until Herod’s death and they flee.

The comment that Matthew makes is interesting. As they are leaving Judea he says, “…that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet saying, Out of Egypt have I called my son.”

“But they’re going to Egypt.”

Yes, geographically they’re going to Egypt. Spiritually they’re leaving Egypt. Here we have a Pharoah-like king trying to destroy all the baby boys again, and failing to get the one that’s most important.

Matthew also references the prophecies of Jeremiah –

In Rama was there a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not.

In that prophecy, Rachel is comforted. Rachel is the mother of Benjamin of the tribe of the babies that were taken captive, the Benjamites. She’s comforted that they will come again. Well, those children did. They grew up and they returned with Zerubbabel and Ezra and such, but these children are dead. How can they possibly return? Oh yes, resurrection. The covenant children are always the devil’s attack, and God remembers them faithfully and they will see their mothers again one day.

With that, Joseph and Mary come back. Herod’s dead and they move off to Nazareth at God’s direction, and Galilee, where they had first met. He sets up shop as a carpenter and silence falls over Jesus’ life, except for the one event when he was 12.

The Gnostic gospels and the spurious histories tell all kinds of stories about him, that he made pigeons out of clay and gave them life, that he traveled to Britain with his uncle Joseph of Arimathea and introduced Gnostic truths there, and all kinds of weird things. But he was a normal little boy, except he never sinned.

He had brothers and sisters, who no doubt were really annoyed that he never sinned. You can see this. “Who took the cookies?”

“It wasn’t me, mom, it was Jesus. Really, it was Jesus. He took, he took…never mind, spank me now.”

When you’re the good kid, and not goody two shoes but you just do the right thing all the time, your siblings are not going to like you, and as he grows up they don’t like him. But Joseph and Mary were both good Bible scholars. We know Mary was especially.

Every Passover they go up to Jerusalem, as the law requires of Joseph. It doesn’t require it of her, but she always goes with him. They have a wonderful romantic relationship and they’re both committed to the Lord, so if she can she goes with him, and when Jesus turns 12 he goes and it’s presented as his first visit, because otherwise there’s nothing particular. The writer could have said, “as was their custom,” that is the whole family’s, but the rest of the family isn’t there. It’s just Jesus. He’s the firstborn.

Jewish tradition had boys attend Passover when they turned 12, a year before they were Bar Mitvah’d or at the beginning of the year of which they would be Bar Mitvah’d. Confirmed is the New Testament church’s equivalent, to become sons of the law. They would go and observe Passover so that next year when they came as adults – because 12 was the end of childhood and the beginning of young adulthood – they would know what they were dealing with. They’d be ready. They’d have seen it done.

We’re not told whether or not Jesus partook of the Passover in an official capacity. It’s a peace offering so he certainly could have, as could Mary, but it was required for covenant membership of the adult males. So they go and they go through the ceremony, and when it’s all over Joseph and Mary start home.

It was a custom later, and presumably then, for the women to travel with the women and the men with the men, and we do that kind of thing today too. “You go hang out with your girlfriends,” “Yeah, and you go hang out with the guys.” We do that, and the children will be someplace.

Since he’s 12, Mary might think, “Oh, he’s probably hanging out with Joseph. He feels all grown up. Isn’t that wonderful? But I miss him.” Joseph is thinking, “Oh, he’s not here. Oh well, one more year and it will be us men,” so neither one of them notices he’s not there until they get to the end of their day’s journey. They meet up in the evening and, “How was Jesus today?”

“Well, you should know, he was with you.”

“No, he was with you all day.”

“He was not with me. He was with…”

“No…where is he?”

“We’ve lost the son of God.”

So they ask their friends and family and nobody knows, so they start back as fast as they can, a day out, a day back, and on the third day when they’re back they’re looking desperately and somebody apparently has the brilliant idea of, “Where would you be if you were Jesus?”

“Listening to a theology lecture.”

“All right, let’s go to the temple then,” and they go to the temple. There’s a synagogue there that’s set apart particularly for seasons like this, and during this season it was common for the doctors of the law, the top rabbis, the best theologians to come and talk to the young children who were being Bar Mitvah’d or turning adult and to catechize them.

For those of you who don’t know what catechism is, it’s when you have a developed series of questions and answers concerning the faith. You ask, “What is your only comfort in life and death?” or “What is the chief end of man?” or “How do we sum up the faith?” and things like this, and the young people are supposed to have set answers that they know. In the absence of a written catechism it might vary from place to place, but they’re going to be more or less the same. Then the rabbis can ask follow-up questions to see if they really get it. Then the children can ask their own questions in return.

“Yes, I know we say this, but that does mean that?” and “When we say that, is that saying that?” or “Why do we say it that way? Why not…?” and those kinds of things. It was expected that there would be these questions and answers, but the rabbis, the doctors of the law, are in charge of this. Jesus was there listening to them, answering their questions and asking them follow-up questions in return.

We’re told that he was in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them and asking questions, and all that heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers. He understood the Bible as well as the rabbis did.

Joseph and Mary come up and Mary says, “Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? Behold they father and I have sought thee sorrowing,” and Jesus says, “How is it that you sought me? Wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?” Mary meant Joseph. Jesus means God.

This is a hard thing for us as finite humans. He’s a real little boy. He’s growing in understanding, and to what degree he understood who he was we’ll never know unless he tells us. He is God eternally. He was a human baby from his mother’s womb, and at some point that human intelligence has to catch up to what’s going on here.

At this point he at least knows that he’s got a mission from God his father, that he is the son of God, and that God has laid out something before him and he needs to know all he can about it and that’s his job. And this is interesting, I think – his job is to master the Bible, not to go out on hilltops and have ecstatic visions, not to spend all day in prayer, although he prayed greatly, but to master the Bible and to learn everything he can, even from the fallible human teachers that were around him. He wanted to know what the Bible said. He wanted to master scripture.

Joseph and Mary don’t understand him, and when they say, “Okay, we’re going home now,” he says, “Oh, okay,” and he goes and submits to these two fallible, sinful human beings, because that’s what his heavenly father says that a child is to do, “Honor your parents.”

There’s a couple things theologically going on here that we can mention just in passing, I think. One has to do with the nature of the sacrament. Male children were circumcised when they were eight days old as infants, but it was required to have a degree of spiritual maturity and self-denial, like Adam in the garden, before they were admitted to the full rights of being a grown-up covenant member and being required to take Passover. Anyone who didn’t take Passover was excommunicated. They excommunicated themselves by not taking it. So although anyone could come to the sacrament, it was designated for adults who represented their families, and that has some implications for the Lord’s Supper.

I think far more important ultimately spins around the question of was Jesus disobeying his parents. Was he a bad boy? Was he naughty? Was he rebellious? Was he just doing his own thing? We have to say no. He’s the son of God, he’s sinless, so what’s going on here?

He’s still a boy. A 12-year-old can miss stuff. They can be a little naïve. They can assume more than they should, and there’s nothing sinful about it. He tells us, “Didn’t you know I need to be about my father’s business? Didn’t you know, mom? How could you miss that one?” He thought it was obvious.

He’s now old enough to be there and to interact with the teachers of the law, the elders, the pastors directly as a young adult. Why would he do anything else? Why would he be anywhere else? It just never occurred to him that his parents wouldn’t know that, and since they hadn’t come to get him were obviously fine with it. The moment they say, “No, we’ve got to go,” it was, “Oh, alright.” He submits to them.

There’s a point when children pass beyond being immediately accountable only to their parents and are also accountable to church authorities, where the church can not go through mom and dad but speak directly to the child because the child is now coming of age, and that age is someplace around 12 or 13, in other words when they hit puberty, when they’re capable of fathering or bearing children. God begins to reckon them as adults, so should we, and the church should officially take a more active interest in looking after them and interacting with them.

“And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature and favor with man and God,” and there’s an incredible thing. He increased in favor with God. He’s sinless. There’s a difference between innocent sinless and righteous. He has yet to confront a great deal of temptation, but he will and he will overcome and he will grow and mature. It’s a process for him as it is for us.

Now again the curtain falls and for the next 18 years we don’t know what happened. There is one reference in passing. “Is not this the carpenter?” Another passage says, “Is this not the carpenter’s son?” but there’s one where he’s actually called a carpenter, so apparently he settled down beside Joseph, learned his trade and built things, and that’s it. He went to synagogue, as was his custom, we’re told later.

Somewhere in there Joseph died, because when Jesus begins his ministry Joseph is not on the scene. His brothers are still living at home. Soon after Jesus begins his ministry the family moves to Capernaum and that’s I guess where we pick up next time with Jesus and John the Baptist, the voice crying in the wilderness.

I wanted to add one additional thing about the story of Jesus at the temple, in thinking about our culture today that really struggles with authority in many different ways. I think it’s a good instance in Jesus’ life for us to meditate on when he is the perfect son of God come in the flesh, the ways that he does submit to authority when they are imperfect, when they know less than him. He does not lord it over them.

I’ve seen so-called pictures of him at this scene and it’s often him sitting and everyone sitting around him listening, and that’s not what he’s doing. He is being a child at school. He’s learning. He is answering their questions and they’re marveling at his answers, but he’s answering the questions and when we answer other’s questions we are submitting to them in a certain way because we’re saying they have the authority to ask us and to require these things, even of his parents. So often we will devalue or discredit an authority simply because we find sin in them and ignore the thing that they do have to teach us and the ways that God has put them in place.

So it may be a story that goes by us quickly because it’s like, “Oh, it’s a nice story when he’s 12,” but it has a lot to say about how we should be submissive to authorities and very slow to assert our own dominance in a situation.

Absolutely, great observation. Emily, any closing thoughts?

I think this is great. I had to step away for a moment to take care of the children, so thank you for bearing with me.

Because we submit to children, too.

We do in a sense. When they are screaming and they ought not to be screaming, we still have to see what they’re screaming about. Shall we wrap up with some recommendations then? I’ll go first. I’m going to recommend a new toy that I just got. This is a smart typewriter.

What does that mean?

I’m so glad you asked. I’ve had a typewriter for almost exactly 10 years. I remember when I bought it. It’s a 1953 Smith Corona Sterling.

You mean a real typewriter? A manual? Or is it electric?

It’s manual. I have owned it for 10 years, and for 10 years it has needed a new ribbon.

There’s this new company out there called Freewrite that makes smart typewriters, and I’ll tell you what that means in a second. I was like, “These things are very expensive. I want one but is that just because it’s a new gadget? Maybe I should take care of the typewriter that I have first,” so I learned to replace the ribbon. I took care of my old typewriter and I was like, “Yes, I still want one of these new gadgets,” so I took the plunge and got it. It’s about half the size of a laptop. It’s very lightweight.

This one is called the Traveler. They have more hefty ones that are more like an old-fashioned typewriter, but the cool thing about them is that they sync to your Google Drive. It has a very small screen, so the idea is if you are a writer who struggles to write because you keep going back and re-reading and editing what you’ve already done, the screen is so small that you can’t do that. It’s a tool for those of us who don’t know how to first-draft, and I’ve really enjoyed it.

They did a really good job on the box-opening experience design because I opened it up, pressed a button, and immediately wrote 300 words, so I do recommend it. This is called the Freewrite Traveler and I’m having a lot of fun.

The funny thing is that I got a new word processor precisely because you could rewrite as you went, because when I used a real typewriter or a fountain pen, if I made one mistake on the last line I would rewrite the entire page because I had mental blocks and could not go on until I fixed it. But to each his own. Glad you’re finding joy in this wonderful device, this genie in a lamp. Rachel?

I’m going to continue my trend of being controversial in my recommendations. My recommendation for tonight is for another podcast that I listened to. It’s through the group called Off Code Podcast, and they talk about things that are politically incorrect, to do with black culture and the black community. This one is a long podcast, I think an hour and a half, but it’s exposing the lies of black history, particularly bringing light to the Marxism of MLK and Rosa Parks, too.

That’s a rich mine of stuff.

They were trained by the same group of how to instigate basically rebellion and to stir up the masses. There’s a man named Chad Jackson who is in the process of putting out a documentary that is even more detailed, so he’s actually the one they’re interviewing. The documentary got delayed so I think it’s supposed to be out in April, so I’ll probably recommend it when it comes out if it’s good. It’s him going over the main points of all the things he found in researching MLK and that whole group and the ways that they were very Marxist.

What was most revealing to me is they were talking about how the black community as a whole in America in the 1950s was actually making huge economic strides forward. Almost all of them were married with children and all these things, and you see this huge turn in the 1960s and then with the beginning of the welfare state that plummets them into disaster.

There were a number of details there that I didn’t know before, but also the ways that Martin Luther King Jr and the civil rights movement was a method of basically trying to bring Marxism into the United States through the black community. It’s a fascinating and somewhat distressing and disturbing listen.

I was a child then and my father was very in-touch with the Marxist elements of all that. Unfortunately, because of his own racism it was hard to distinguish truth from prejudice, but that MLK was wrapped up with the Marxist conspiracy was obvious, but we weren’t allowed to say that because you know what it sounds like.

One of the things they bring out is how ubiquitous is the narrative of how wonderful Martin Luther King Jr was, and they actually pull some of the curtains back on the “I have a dream” speech, which was actually also written by a Marxist for him, and point to some of the things. There’s a number of things that are very iconic in our culture that we all look to for inspiration that they’re exposing as rooted in Marxism.

Well, we’ll get flack on this one but that’s okay.

You can send that flack to [email protected].

And you should at least listen to the podcast first before you say anything, because I’m repeating what I’ve heard and I still haven’t been able to see the documentary and everything, but it was very interesting and eye-opening to hear some of the details that I hadn’t heard before.

That’s alright. I still get flack for not being fully supportive of the American founding fathers. That’s another story.

I have to recommend something so let me just recommend Columbo, something lightweight and fun.

Like murder.

Yeah, murder and B-actors from the last generation being recycled.

Some of my students at school had just finished writing – or I had just finished grading, which are not the same thing – a description of a person and I thought, “You know, they need an odd sort of person to actually describe. Who would be odd but not weird? I don’t want aliens and axe murderers,” and Peter Falk as Columbo came to mind.

So I started playing through little clips, trying to find a scene where he’s just being himself. I couldn’t because everything that’s been saved is him confronting the murderer or some such thing, but along the way I ran into some great storylines, so now I want to go back and watch the whole series again.

If you’ve never seen Peter Falk as Columbo, it originally appeared in the 70s. He’s the guy in the rumpled raincoat. “Just one more moment, sir, just one moment.” Go back especially to the first few seasons. It’s a blast. It’s humorous and fun and it’s thought-provoking – something a little lighter than finding out how much of our history is a lie.

Thank you both so much. This has been a delightful conversation. I’m sure even the parts I missed were delightful. Thanks also to David, our producer and my lawfully-wedded husband. A big thank you to our transcriptionist, who makes this podcast available in your inbox via Substack. You can search for us on Substack, Halting Toward Zion, if you would rather read this podcast than listen to it.

You can also give us a thumbs up and subscribe and all that good stuff on whatever podcast catcher you’re using or on YouTube or on Rumble, wherever you’re listening to us, and always recommend us to a friend.

A big thank you also to our financial supporters. We really appreciate you keeping the show rolling. If you, Dear Listener, would like to join their number you can visit patreon.com/haltingtowardzion. And as always, you can reach us at [email protected].

Thanks so much for listening. We’ll see you next time.