And so the boy grew in knowledge and wisdom, day by day, year by year, until, finally, there occurred an event in His life, which has since been the subject of greatest interest to all Christians and students of the New Testament, but which without the above explanation is not readily understood.

The Feast of the Passover occurred in its allotted time of the year—­April—­when Jesus was in his thirteenth year.  This feast was one of the most important in the Jewish calendar, and its observance was held as a most sacred duty by all Hebrews.  It was the feast set down for the remembrance and perpetuation of that most important event in the history of the Jewish people when the Angel of Death swept over all of Egypt’s land smiting the first-born child of every house of the natives, high and low, but sparing all the houses of the captive Hebrews who marked their door-sills with the sacrificial blood as a token of their faith.  This is no place to give the explanation of this apparently miraculous event, which students now know to be due to natural causes.  We merely mention it in passing.

The Law-givers of Israel had appointed the Feast of the Passover as a perpetual symbol of this event so important by the nation, and every self-respecting Jew felt obligated to take part in the observance and sacrament.  Every pious Jew made it a point to perform a pilgrimage to Jerusalem at the time of the Feast of the Passover, if he could in any way manage to do so.

At the time of the Passover celebration of which we are speaking, Jesus had just entered into His thirteenth year, which age entitled Him, under the ecclesiastical law, to the privilege of sitting with the adult men of His race at the Passover supper, and also to publicly join with the male congregation in the thanksgiving service in the synagogues.

And so, on this year, He accompanied His father and mother to Jerusalem and made His second visit to the Holy City.  It will be remembered that His first visit there was made when as an infant He was carried thither from Bethlehem in His mother’s arms in accordance with the Jewish law, and at which time an aged priest and an old prophetess had publicly acknowledged the divine nature of the child.

The father, mother and child—­the divine trinity of Human relationship—­traveled slowly over the highway that led from Nazareth to Jerusalem.  The father and mother were concerned with the details of the journey, mingled with pious thoughts concerning the sacred feast in which they were to take part.  But the boy’s mind was far away from the things that were occupying his parent’s thoughts.  He was thinking over the deep mystic truths which He had so readily absorbed during the past few years, and He was looking forward in delightful anticipation to His expected meeting with the older mystics in the temples and public places of Jerusalem.