Luke 2.52

Finally Luke ends chapter 2 with an amazing statement. Jesus grew in stature with God and with man, 2.52. Many can grow in stature with God by being solely religious, such as John in the desert. Many can grow in stature with men as Alexander the Great did under the tutelage of Aristotle. But now, to do both is quite rare. It means Jesus was not a young man of compartments in which God is here and man is there. He was a young man who saw how much of God is in man and how much of man fufills our concept of God. He seemed to know what it meant to be the image and likeness of God.

Verse 52 could not be possible if Jesus were not God and man, both and yet without shearing the other's nature. This will not be understood until centuries later. It's no wonder Joseph and Mary did not understand what Jesus said; the Pharisees would not, and the priests would arrange his crucifixion when they realized what He had said of His heavenly Father.

THIS has been a long chapter in which Luke compiled everything known for sure about the upbringing of Jesus. Luke does not say if Jesus traveled or what scrolls He read or if He had close personal friends. Luke is focused on Jesus and the growing relationship to His heavenly Father. This relationship to God the Father may have been greatly aided by His relationship to Joseph. I would imagine God chose Joseph in order to teach the young Jesus that God in heaven is His Father. Joseph must have been a man of great maturity in the faith, as Mary was great in her trust of God.

But how does Luke describe a boy who is God? The very thought is bizarre. What was it like to be with Him? When John Milton wrote the poem Paradise Lost, he asked the Holy Spirit to help him:

And chiefly Thou, O Spirit, that dost prefer
before all Temples the' upright heart and pure,
Instruct me, for Thou knowest...

And in another passage, Milton asks of God:

thou celestial light,
shine inward and the mind through all her powers
irradiate, there plant eyes, all mist from thence
purge and disperse, that I may see and tell
of things invisible to mortal sight.

Luke has described in some details the people around Jesus--mother and father and cousin John and Simeon and Anna, the shepherds, Elizabeth and Zacharias, and those in the temple. He has written down the OT prophecies of Jesus, the talk of those around Joseph and Mary. He said very little of Jesus Himself except that He grew in wisdom and that the grace of God was upon Him.