Here we have the perfect family of the Son of God Incarnate, and this passage shows us that they had the same difficulties of every family: misunderstandings, stress, anxiety ... and a teenager doing his "thing". By the way, Jesus doesn't hesitate to correct his Mother as to who his real Father is. Doesn't He sound like any family with a teenager on board?
The circumstances were so trying that the gospel concludes:
"Jesus' Mother pondered all these things in her heart."
Mary met here, probably for the first time, a Jesus she didn't know yet: the obedient Jesus who had a mind of his own as to Who he would ultimately obey.
Jesus was already attuned with the Inner Voice but this visit to the magnificent Temple of Jerusalem, a first as a young adult Jew, was a very special experience. He got in touch with his calling and his sense of identity in such a powerful way that everything else dropped off his attention, including his parents. Jesus had to respond to that experience and did so by probing his insights in conversation with the teachers of Israel and breaking with the expectations of behavior of a good son.
But then, as it always happens with authentic experiences of encounter with God, Jesus went down to the ordinary and was obedient to Joseph and Mary. He was free to "disobey" them for a greater obedience, but he was free also to obey them again afterwards in humble alignment with the ordinary.
This is no small lesson on freedom and obedience which, with Mary, we too are invited to ponder in our heart in order to be able to live our lives and make decisions with mature fidelity to God first, and then to our elders, in the different aspects of life. Let us ask Mary for the wisdom she learned from Jesus as she was teaching him to live as a human son of God.
