A Son Missing for Three Days

I realized yesterday that the story of the Savior staying in Jerusalem to teach the people there at the temple could be seen as a parallel to His time between death and resurrection, particularly from the perspective of Mary. We read that Mary and Joseph had come with their family to Jerusalem for Passover, and “when they had fulfilled the days, as they returned, the child Jesus tarried behind in Jerusalem; and Joseph and his mother knew not of it. But they, supposing him to have been in the company, went a day’s journey; and they sought him among their kinsfolk and acquaintance.” When they realized they didn’t have them, they went back to Jerusalem and “after three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, and they were hearing him, and asking him questions.” Mary said to him, “Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing.” He responded, “How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?” (Luke 2:41-49) Mary surely was in great anguish for those three days as they sought for her Son. It seems surprising that it took so long to find Him, but clearly He did not want to be found until He had completed the work His Father had required of Him. Those three days of sorrowing without her Son perhaps helped prepare her for what would happen over twenty years later when again He would be gone for three days after His suffering and death on the cross.

                Simeon had said to Mary when the infant was brought to the temple, “Yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also,” indicating the suffering that she would endure because of her son (Luke 2:35). Surely the most terrible fulfillment of that prophecy was when her Son died on the cross and for three days He was gone from Jerusalem. Just as had been the case when He was twelve, Mary surely sorrowed greatly for the disappearance of Jesus who again had gone on His Father’s business to His very death. And those three days between His death and His resurrection were in one sense filled with the same things as when He was twelve: He taught the gospel, only this time in the spirit world. President Joseph F. Smith described His works in that short time in these words: “The Son of God appeared, declaring liberty to the captives who had been faithful; And there he preached to them the everlasting gospel, the doctrine of the resurrection and the redemption of mankind from the fall, and from individual sins on conditions of repentance” (Doctrine and Covenants 138:18-19). He again preached the everlasting gospel as He ministered to the spirits of the dead just as He had taught the doctors of the law at the age of twelve. But ultimately, like the first time, Jesus returned to His loved ones after three days, and though we don’t have an account of it, surely He went back as a resurrected Being to His mother Mary to relieve her suffering. She learned again that being about His Father’s was the most important thing for Him to do and that no matter the cost, even to her, He would fulfill His mission from His Father. The joy for Mary must have been great when she found Him after those three days in Jerusalem. Similarly, after His three days in the Spirit World her joy must have overflowed when He appeared again in the flesh to her and others, triumphant over death.