Heavenly Father

Or LK 2:41-51A

Each year Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the feast of Passover,
and when he was twelve years old,
they went up according to festival custom.
After they had completed its days, as they were returning,
the boy Jesus remained behind in Jerusalem,
but his parents did not know it.
Thinking that he was in the caravan,
they journeyed for a day
and looked for him among their relatives and acquaintances,
but not finding him,
they returned to Jerusalem to look for him.
After three days they found him in the temple,
sitting in the midst of the teachers,
listening to them and asking them questions,
and all who heard him were astounded
at his understanding and his answers.
When his parents saw him,
they were astonished,
and his mother said to him,
“Son, why have you done this to us?
Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety.”
And he said to them,
“Why were you looking for me?
Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”
But they did not understand what he said to them.
He went down with them and came to Nazareth,
This seems like a flashback to Jesus childhood when he was especially precocious:
" having or showing the qualities or abilities of an adult at an unusually early age."  Maybe precocious is an understatement.  After all, it is the Son of God that we are talking about here.  Even at the age of 12, Jesus had a clear understanding that his real Father was in heaven.  So Jesus wasn't troubled at all by the grief that he caused Mary and Joseph by slipping away to temple.  And in what would be a mantra for future teens everywhere, he determined that they just "didn't understand."  The lesson here is that I am  called to follow our Heavenly Father at all costs - even if it means losing our relationship with our biological father and mother.   In Luke 14:26 it is written: "If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters--yes, even their own life--such a person cannot be my disciple."  In light of our commandment to love each other, Jesus clearly wants me to love God above everything else.