Jesus was lost. He was only twelve years old.
Mary and Joseph frantically tried to find Him and had traveled away from the city for about a day in a caravan of people, only to find out their son was not with any of them. He had been left behind at Passover.
Hastily beating a path back to Jerusalem, they found Him in the synagogue with the teachers of the Law.
It took a days’ journey out to realize He was lost, a day’s journey back, already spending two days. The Bible records that it took another three afterward before they discovered Him teaching in the Temple. The better part of a week passed before Mary could account for one of her children: the most miraculous of them all.
In The 21st Year, Jesus Completed His Work.
Upon finding Him, after the better part of a week, Mary asked the young Jesus how He could do this to them, for they were anxiously searching for Him to which He replied:
“Why did you seek Me? Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?” – Luke 2:49
Jesus announced that He must begin to work about His Father’s business, not His step-father’s carpentry business, but His Heavenly Father’s business of finding the lost sheep of Israel. He started at age twelve.
Now Jesus continued to do this business until He died upon the cross at age thirty-three.
Matthew 26:18 confirms He completed His work:
And He said, “Go into the city to a certain man, and say to him, ‘The Teacher says, “My time is near; I am to keep the Passover at your house with My disciples.”
This means Jesus worked for twenty-one years. Did you know Jesus is recorded appearing in twenty-one physical locations in Israel throughout Scripture? He also appeared twenty-one times in his resurrected body, where twenty-one connects with a work cycle.
Also, note that all of Creation was created in six days, with the seventh to rest. The vital part of this is that there are six days to work.
If we take 1+2+3+4+5+6, and add them all together, what do we get? When we calculate it ourselves, we realize it is twenty-one. The first six numbers sequentially – representing the days of work – add up to a completed work cycle. The work ends on the twenty-first.
End of the Time of Trouble
Understand that he worked for twenty-one years, and in that 21st Year, He completed the work cycle, which also ended His time of suffering. There are other examples where the 21st represents an end to the time of trouble.
On the last day of God’s seven-day Spring festival, the 21st of the month of Nisan, God carried out his final judgment against the Egyptians. He drowned Pharaoh and his entire army in the Red Sea as they were pursuing the Israelites to make them slaves again.
The last day of God’s annual Fall Feast of Tabernacles, which occurs every year on the 21st day of the seventh Hebrew month, pictures Christ’s 1,000-year reign on earth.
This was a reference to the end of Israel’s wilderness journey after committing their twenty-one sins in the wilderness. The time of distress in the wilderness for the nation of Israel was at an end, and Joshua was about to lead them into the Promised Land.
The work finishes, and the trouble ends in the 21st year.
Declare With Faith And Understanding Over Our Lives: “It Is The 21st Year!”
Read previous posts from this series:
Next: #6: The Maturity of 21
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