Do you remember being 12 years old?

Maybe that was a long time ago or maybe just a couple of years. If you can’t remember exactly, think about somebody you know who’s 12: sixth grade or maybe seventh, the end of elementary school or the beginning of middle school.

Twelve is an in-between time, not yet fully grown but no longer a little kid. In some countries, 12-year-olds are working full-time, picking through garbage dumps searching for copper wire or pounding rocks into small pieces to make gravel, digging for cobalt in a mine for use in electric batteries, earning pennies a day for their families.

In some parts of Africa, a girl who’s 12 now heads her household, caring for younger siblings after their parents have died. In far too many countries, a boy who’s 12 is carrying a rifle as part of a rebel army he probably didn’t choose to join.

Do you know somebody who’s 12? Imagine. Imagine a boy who desperately wants to be taller? Does he feel left out because he doesn’t like sports? Or that boy with the earbuds, blocking out the world? What is he thinking about as he moves to the rhythm of the music?

What about that girl, the one whose makeup is so heavy you can’t really guess her age? Has she already been pressured to activate with an older boy? Or the girl whose parents are pushing her to take advanced placement classes so she’ll get into a good college, when all she really wants to do is to be 12?

Twelve is an in-between time. When Jesus was 12, he and his parents went to Jerusalem, as they did every year for the festival of Passover. At 12, Jesus was in an in-between time. Luke places the story in between the dedication of the infant Jesus in the temple and Jesus’ baptism as an adult in the river Jordan.

We find in that Gospel account that Jesus, even as a boy on the verge of manhood, had the amazing ability to make God’s plan sync with daily life: He was able to unite knowledge with application, wisdom with compassion, and make them run as one horse.

Luke’s message tells of a remarkable Jesus, but, on this Mother’s Day weekend, moms, it also reminds us of the principle of growth. In His perfect humanity, Jesus grew, physically, mentally, socially, and spiritually. Jesus did not come to the earth and immediately begin to minister. We know from the gospel accounts that Jesus would be nearly 30 years old or more before His public ministry commenced.

The event at the temple occurred after 12 years of growth on the part of our Lord. His public ministry required another 18 years of growth before its onset. Luke wants us to know that, from childhood onward, there was something innately present in Jesus which drew him to knowledge of God and growth in that knowledge.

What is it that makes a 12-year-old so hungry for God that they lose all track of time and even the absence of family to linger in the temple to learn everything he can? What makes any of us so hungry for God that we lose track of what we are doing, and stop to pay attention to what God is doing?

If it was necessary for God incarnate to grow and to mature, in preparation for His ministry, why is it that we are so interested in instant spiritual maturity?

In Luke’s text, Jesus is growing and self-differentiating from Mary and Joseph. Mothers and fathers find that threshold of growth a happy as well as a troubling time.

“Self-differentiation” is a term used to describe one whose emotional process is no longer ultimately dependent on anything other than themselves. Healthy sons and daughters are able to live and function on their own without undue anxiety or over-dependence on others. They are self-sufficient. Their sense of worth is not dependent on external relationships or occurrences.

One of the things we see in that snapshot into the life of young Jesus is that he is able to live and function on his own without undue over-dependence on others. He is growing. Jesus is self-differentiating and that has to do with his vocation, his call, and his focus on a different “Father’s business.” No longer is he talking about “Joseph and Son Carpentry Co.” That became clear as he sat and interacted with spiritual leaders.

While I do not pretend to fully grasp how or why our Lord grew, it seems evident to me that being at the temple and having the opportunity to ask questions of the scholars was essential to the growth of our Lord. That was so important to Him that He found it necessary to act contrary to the wishes of His parents who had to come searching for him.

This Mother’s Day, let our prayers be that God would bless all 12-year-olds. Bless the mothers of 12-year olds. Bless also those who are not yet 12 and those long past. Bless the questions of our children and the wisdom of our mothers and fathers and help us this day see Jesus as God’s incarnate son, growing daily into the fullness of God’s grace. May we, too, grow in faith no matter how many years lie before us. Amen.