Jesus Speaks to Women: Chapter 1, Mary at the Temple
Meditations for the weary, wounded, and wondering | Luke 2:41-52
Introduction
Welcome to the Jesus Speaks to Women series. The Gospel writer John records these words of Jesus to the religious people who opposed him: “You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me” (John 5:39). The Scriptures are meant to introduce us to a person—Jesus. And our friendship with that person is meant to change everything. My goal with this studies is to help you see and hear the real Jesus more clearly by meditating on the words he spoke specifically to women. Do you know there are more than 20 accounts in the Gospels of Jesus’ words to women? Would you step into these stories with me and imagine how they experienced Jesus? Will you listen to what Jesus might have to say to you too? Thanks for joining me here!
The Scripture: Luke 2:41-52
"Every year Jesus' parents went to Jerusalem for the Festival of the Passover. When he was twelve years old, they went up to the festival, according to the custom. After the festival was over, while his parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it. Thinking he was in their company, they traveled on for a day. Then they began looking for him among their relatives and friends. When they did not find him, they went back to Jerusalem to look for him. After three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers. When his parents saw him, they were astonished. His mother said to him, "Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you." "Why were you searching for me?" he asked. "Didn't you know I had to be in my Father's house?" But they did not understand what he was saying to them. Then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. But his mother treasured all these things in her heart. And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man." (Luke 2:41-52 NIV)
The Poem:
I lost it the day we lost him
streaked across my vision
was the mirrored terror of
those hushed nights on desert roads
surviving on gifted gold
my babe, just a lamb
in the shadow of murderous power
Three restless nights later
we find him
just 12, but blooming a man
shoots of stature
roots of wisdom
the happiest, sweetest, smartest
everyone says so
And he says,
Why were you looking for me?
Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?
He always has that way
of correcting without shaming
reminding me that He is ours
but not ours
now nailing his destiny to this temple
where lambs’ blood stains
and bleats still echo
We will return here
year after year
to place the burden of our faults
on the innocent
until a time
written in the very stars
but still murky as night to me
I wrap him in my arms
just the three of us again on a dusty road
as I ponder another piece
in my heart always tender
with the promise of grief
and all I will lay down
as I watch Him lay all down
Meditations on the Scripture
We’ve been taking a lot of road trips for our daughters’ travel volleyball season this year, and I’ve had to face some of my biggest fears: driving at night, driving in the rain, and driving in the snow.
One night at Bible study, I asked my friends for prayer for our travels and shared how an incident from years ago might be behind some of my fear.
Soon after graduating from college in 2000, I moved back home to live with my parents in a beautiful part of Maryland where the Potomac River meets the Chesapeake Bay. My dad was serving as a chaplain at Patuxent River Naval Air Station. My mom and I were driving home from church one evening after dark and were just about to cross the expansive bridge over the the Patuxent River, connecting Lexington Park to Solomons Island.
As we approached the bridge, we saw a large work van sitting horizontally across the road in front of us. To our left was a small red sports car. In the few beats it took us to realize that they had just collided, my mom pulled the car over to the side of the road.
The passengers in the van were slowly emerging from their vehicle dazed, but unhurt. My mom exited our car first and approached the red car as I followed, heart pounding, in the eerie quiet and stillness. In the red car was a woman with short, cropped, almost neon blond hair slumped over in the driver’s seat and unconscious. Even in the dark, I could tell her shoulder was bloodied and unnatural. Mom and I let her know we were there and prayed over her until the ambulance arrived, and the competent responders took charge of the no-longer-quiet scene.
In those moments when it was just my mom and I and the few people first on the scene, there was no privacy screen between us and the woman’s frail and torn body. For day and weeks afterwards, I felt a heaviness I couldn’t shake. I couldn’t escape the reality that at any point, my body could also be twisted and broken. An anxiety sprouted, took root, and hung over me for many months afterwards.
That was nearly 25 years ago now, but that moment and others like it have gouged deep crevices in my mind. When overwhelmed, they provide the avenue for the flood waters of anxiety to rush over me.
When I think about Luke’s account of Jesus in the temple, I imagine Mary’s panic when she realizes her 12-year-old son isn’t with the large, raucous group of traveling family coming home from celebrating Passover in Jerusalem.
Let’s think about her story so far because this isn’t her first tangle with overwhelming circumstances. Since an angel made an extravagant announcement to her all those years ago, her life has been a strange mix of the very normal and humble and the shockingly supernatural
Her marriage and her first pregnancy were far from normal. Jesus was conceived in a manner no human has ever been conceived before or since. She had to present her betrothed, Joseph, with an unexpected pregnancy that they both knew did not involve him in any traditional sense. Her reply to the angel’s announcement of “I am the Lord’s servant” (Luke 1:38) meant accepting possible rejection, judgment, poverty, and abandonment.
Maybe even more unusual than the mechanics of his conception was the promise of who he was to be! The writer Luke gives us clues about the identity of Jesus from multiple sources before we get to this account at the end of Chapter 2—clues from the angel Gabriel, Elizabeth, Mary, Zechariah, a heavenly host, Simeon, Anna, and even the unborn John the Baptist (see Luke 1-2).
What do we learn about this child? He will be Great. Son of the Most High. Given the throne of David and a Kingdom that never ends. Son of God. Good news for all people. Christ, the Lord. God’s salvation for all people. Destined for the rising and falling of many. The redemption of Jerusalem.
This all sounded glorious and hopeful, but how would it come about? When would it start? What would it cost? What about the mighty Roman empire? How could she keep him safe?
The first threat to his life took place early in their parenting. After Jesus’s birth, a paranoid king obsessed with holding onto his position and power was convinced her child was a threat, so he ordered all little boys his age and younger in their hometown to be killed, likely many of Jesus’ little friends and neighbors (Matthew 2:16-18). An angel’s warning in a dream followed by a stealthy escape to Egypt was all that kept them from the same fate. There they lived as refugees until the king died.
Did those terrifying nights on the road fleeing to Egypt flood back as they kicked up dust on the long road back to Jerusalem in Luke 2? He’s no longer as small and helpless as he was then, but even at 12, he’s still too young and tender to be alone in a big city.
Luke tells us that when Mary and Joseph found Jesus and saw him talking to the teachers in the temples, they were “astonished.”
French watercolorist James Tissot* captures this moment in his painting Jesus Among the Doctors. Tissot depicts the elder teachers huddled around the young Jesus mid-conversation as his mother approaches him. One of Mary’s hands rests on her hip, a sign of her fatigue and frustration.
Jesus simply replies, “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”
I wonder how those words struck her heart that day? Yes, you are the Son of God, but you are also a boy, my boy, tender as a lamb. And I know what happens to lambs here in this place.
This day seems to mark a significant point in the development, or maybe the revelation, of Jesus’ identity, significant enough that the Gospel writer, Luke, decided to include it in his careful and ordered account of the life of Jesus. Jesus understood even at this age that he came from Mary and was raised by Joseph, but his Father was God and his loyalty was to the will of his Father.
Here we also get a glimpse of the Jesus we will get to know further in the Gospels. He will be a good teacher, both listening and asking good questions. He will challenge the highest religious authorities with an even higher authority. And his allegiance will be to his Father above all. But even within his allegiance to his Father, there is space for loving his parents.
Jesus transforms what was a moment of anxiety, frustration, and confusion for Mary into a moment of revelation and understanding.
“Why were you looking for me? You knew where I’d be,” he asks.
Luke tells us that Mary kept these words of Jesus in her heart. For all parents watching their children grow, at some point we look at our children and realize that they have their own minds, their own plans, their own thoughts and feelings. They come from us, but they are not ours. We become witnesses to the lives they will live, and it’s a combination of terrifying and thrilling.
For anyone who walks this life with Jesus, we will face similar moments of fear and disorientation. The path that we have to take is not clear or comfortable. Jesus is not doing what we expect him to do. Jesus is not where we expect to find him. And we’re tempted to take is personally. Why are you doing this to me?
Sometimes all we can do is take the mysterious circumstances of our lives, ponder them, and store them away in our hearts like Mary. We learn to accept that while we may understand God’s work and will in this world in an overall sense because of Scripture, the day-to-day working can be unfathomable at times.
I think back to that terrifying moment at the scene of the car accident my mom and I came upon so many years ago. It was a first taste of a broken body, but it was also a holy place, marked also by a surety of God’s love for a nameless woman in her darkest hour.
My mom and I happened to be there in that spot, but God was also there, as surely as he will be in any spot in which you or I may find ourselves.
Scriptures for Further Study:
Luke 2:19
Luke 2:29-35
Your thoughts, corrections, and suggestions are valued and welcomed in the process of writing these studies. I consider you part of my writing team, and I appreciate you joining me. If you have time and would like to, let me know your thoughts in the comments!
All writing and images copyright Marydean Draws 2025.
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Questions for Personal or Group Reflections:
What role does fear play in your life? How does it affect your perceptions? Like Mary may have experienced, are there your fears sometimes triggered by past experiences (big or small)?
Jesus’ words seem to challenge Mary’s perceptions of the events. She may have thought he was being difficult and thoughtless, but Jesus knew he was where he needed to be. Have you had that experience with Jesus? Has he prompted you to see an experience from a new point of view, showing you that he was right where you should have expected him?
Luke records that Mary pondered her experiences in her heart. Do you make space in your life to ponder your experiences?
Mary had been chosen by God, yet most of her life was very ordinary, filled with ordinary words, ordinary childrearing, and ordinary pain. Yet all this time she was birthing and raising the hope of the whole world. Everything she did mattered. How might this encourage your today?
Mary said “yes” to this life that had no idea the outcome or how much it would cost her (see Luke 1:26-38). Can you imagine what kind of struggles she might have had raising Jesus?
Mary was promised grief from the very beginning (see Simeon’s prophesy in Luke 2:33-35). We often hear that God has a wonderful plan for our lives. God’s plan was for Mary to experience the most terrible grief while also being woven into the best story ever. What does that tell you about the ways of God’s Kingdom?
Sometimes it is much easier to lay down and sacrifice something ourselves, than the witness the sacrifice of someone we love—whether for us or for someone else. Have you ever had this experience? How difficult must it have been to see Jesus follow the path God had for him and not be able to protect him from it? Sometimes trusting God means letting those we love trust and follow him too. Is there a relationship that you are holding on too tightly too (even if it’s out of love)?
Have you ever experienced God as distant? He’s not where you expect him to be or doing what you expect him to do. While not the total of God’s character, why might God’s distance (from our perspective) be an essential part of who he is?
*About the art and artist:
The painting in the cover image is Jesus Among the Doctors (Jésus parmi les docteurs), 1886–1894, Opaque watercolor over graphite on gray wove paper.
French painter, James Tissot (15 October 1836 – 8 August 1902), painted a series of 350 watercolors depicting the life of Christ and made numerous trips to the Holy Land in order to paint the people and their culture accurately. After a spiritual encounter late in life, Tissot had returned to his Catholic faith and spent the rest of his life painting Biblical themes.
Just finished the intro and the first lesson. Excited for what comes next❤️. Luke 2:19 …But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. This verse spoke to me during the study ❤️