Finding in the Temple

Jesus, at the age of twelve, accompanies Mary and Joseph, and a large group of their relatives and friends to Jerusalem on many pilgrimages, "according to the custom" – that is, Passover.

He to whom this misfortune has happened must seek Jesus with sorrow and tears of penance, and he will find Him again in the Temple (His Church), if he will reconcile himself to God by a good and contrite confession.

[8] Senior Church of England cleric F. W. Farrar also observes that "one of the numerous chambers which ran round the Court, and abutted on the actual building" might have been the location.

[9] The Sunday School Teacher of 1881 suggests that a valuable lesson may be learned in reflecting on "how, at the bidding of His parents, [Jesus] immediately accompanied them home, setting in His obedience a lovely example to all children".

The revelation of his mystery as the Son wholly dedicated to his Father's affairs proclaims the radical nature of the Gospel, in which even the closest of human relationships are challenged by the absolute demands of the Kingdom".

In late medieval depictions, the Doctors, often now carrying or consulting large volumes, may be given specifically Jewish features or dress, and are sometimes overtly anti-Semitic caricatures, like some of the figures in Albrecht Dürer's version in the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid.

From the High Renaissance onward, many painters showed a "close-up" of the scene, with Jesus closely surrounded by gesticulating scholars, as in Dürer's version of the subject.

[12] The Pre-Raphaelite painter William Holman Hunt painted a version called The Finding of the Saviour in the Temple, now at Birmingham, as one of a number of subjects from Jesus's life, for which he travelled to the Holy Land to study local details.