Hi again!

This month we are learning about Jesus’ life (next 2 months will be His miracles and His teaching.)

The Bible doesn’t say much about Jesus when He was growing up, but there is one story which can be found in Luke 2.

Every year, all the Israelites would travel to Jerusalem to the temple (the one big church for God.) They would celebrate Passover (when they remembered God leading the people out of Egypt and the angel of God PASSED OVER the houses of the people who obeyed God.)

At your church, you may go to a sunday school class while mom and dad go to “big church” or “grown up church” or the main sanctuary.

Well when Jesus was 12 years old, Mary and Joseph told Him He was big enough to go “big church” with them and celebrate the Passover.

Joseph, Mary and Jesus traveled from their home with their whole family (aunts, uncles, cousins…probably a LOT of people on this trip). So when it was time to go home, Mary and Joseph assumed Jesus was with them. (And they were probably looking after Jesus’ smaller brothers and sisters). So no one noticed that Jesus WASN’T with them.

Not long after they headed home, Mary looked around and said, “Where’s Jesus?”

They looked, but couldn’t find Him. So they went back to Jerusalem and 3 days later!!! they found Him in the temple.

Jesus was talking with the leaders and they were very impressed with how much He knew about God and how well He knew God’s heart. (We know that’s because He’s God’s son! But they didn’t know that yet.)

When Mary found Jesus she said, “What do you think you’re doing?! We;ve been so worried?!”

And Jesus answered, “Didn’t you know I would be in my Father’s house?”

Jesus called the temple His FATHER’S house. (It is God’s house and Jesus is His son.) Mary was confused and told Jesus it was time to go.

The Bible says Mary thought about all these things on the way home…about how it was Jesus’ Father’s house and how He had to be there. Jesus DID need to be in the temple listening and even teaching others about God, but He also knew the importance of obeying His mom.

The next stories about Jesus’ life are after He’s a grown up. And we’ll learn more about that tomorrow.

 

**Update:

This year we made a craft. We cut out a basic “temple” shape and also a square of a different color paper. We drew Jesus on the square and glued it to a big piece of paper. Then we cut out the temple shape and starting from the middle of the bottom, cut a letter T into the paper. This created two flaps to be doors. We then glued the temple over the square so we could open the temple doors and find Jesus.

THIS VIDEO from Saddleback kids tells today’s story.

THIS is another video posted by Teaching Kids about Jesus that tells this Bible story.

Thanks for joining us, love to you all!