CFM: Matt 2 & Luke 2 ~ The "Perfect" Child

January 14–20. Luke 2; Matthew 2: We Have Come to Worship Him

This week's study covered the story of the child Jesus teaching in the temple.  I've often felt a bit unsettled by this story, I've never really understood what we were supposed to learn from it.  That Jesus was fulfilling His mission from a very young age?  That He as a child was more learned than doctors and teachers in the temple?  That He led a perfect life even in His youth?  That He knew better than His worrisome parents?  Because that just doesn't sit very well with me.

In my opinion, no "perfect" child would have left the caravan and his family, without a word to his parents as to where he was going.  And then, after days of frantic searching the city, when his parents had finally located him in the temple, would he have looked into their tear-filled, anguished eyes and answered his mother's sorrowing plea with, "How is it that ye sought me? Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?"  Ouch.

The scriptures say they didn't understand his response (Luke 2:50).  Neither do I.  

No, no - a "perfect" child should have communicated his whereabouts to his parents before running off, and would have acknowledge the pain caused them by his not doing so.  But there was no apology given, and His response seems almost a censure - a slap in the face to the people tasked with the unfathomable task of raising the Son of God on earth.

But I noticed this time something I had not previously, it comes in the very next verse: "and he went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject unto them..." Luke 2:51

Wait. What?

From that point on - He went with them, and was subject to them?  Implying that in this instance Jesus had not been subject to His earthly parents??  And He perhaps changed His future behavior based on this experience??

We so often say that Christ led a perfect life, that He was the only perfect man who lived.  But is that true?  Did He always do everything in the most correct way possible?  Did He never make a mistake?  Did He never feel regret or remorse?  Did He never need to improve?  I'm not so sure about that kind of "perfect" thinking.  The next verse states "And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man." Luke 2:52 

Hmm, did He learn from His own experience, as we do, line upon line?

I have no doubt that Christ led a sin-free life, in that respect He was perfect.  But what is sin?  Are our innocent mistakes sin?

Joseph Smith said, "What many people call sin is not sin" TPJS, p.193

I would say that boiling it down to the essentials, sin = going against the will of God.  Christ never did that.  But the idea that He too might have had to learn through His own experience a better way to act, brings me a great deal of comfort.  

He learned that He had earthly parents who were also concerned with His well-being, and to stay with them, and be subject to them - perhaps until the time of His ministry, which had not yet come.

In our attempt to become like Christ, it helps to know He understands what it is to be like us.  

I'm reminded of this quote from Sheri L. Dew: "I fear that some people know just enough about the gospel to feel guilty that they are not measuring up to some undefinable standard but not enough about the Atonement to feel the peace and strength it affords us... It's quite the irony—that the gospel of Jesus Christ, which contains the power to save every human being and to strengthen every soul, is sometimes interpreted in such a way that feelings of inadequacy result." 

This is a Test. It is Only a Test 

I have pondered those words, and I agree with Sheri.  

I've seen the crippling effects of guilt in my own life, and in so many others.  Being down in the dumps, when we should be up in the peaks!  

I don't want to be held back by incorrect understandings and impossible standards.  So here's to letting go of paralyzing perfectionism, the falsity of never feeling good enough, and on to finding peace, strength, and power through the Atonement and gospel of Jesus Christ!  To recognizing that my perfection can only come through Him and His grace, and that my life (flaws and all), truly can be an acceptable offering unto Him - as I continuously seek to learn from my experiences a better way to be, and to follow in His footsteps.