When God the Father answered Jesus, "I have glorified and I will glorify again," the frightened people said, "This is thunder." And when God spoke to the prophet Elijah in Horeb, He spoke in a quiet and "thin" voice.

What was the voice of Jesus? Sometimes quiet, sometimes strong, sometimes scary, but always penetrating to the marrow of the bones and fascinating. At this voice the barren fig tree withered; from this voice flowers grew among the rubbish and thorns. The voice of the Son of God is the same as the voice of the Father.

The silence of Jesus is the longest chapter in the history of His life on earth. He filled thirty whole years with His silence.

He wanted to fulfill all righteousness of the law, as He had said to John in the Jordan, "Leave it now, for thus it behooves us to fulfill all righteousness." In the East, there was a law according to which no one was supposed to teach people until they were thirty years old. And Jesus wanted to fulfill this truth, and therefore He was silent until His thirtieth birthday.

This is a lesson for the verbose West, which it needs like bread. After all, in the West there is no such restriction, and even young men under twenty are eager to become teachers, judges and writers. And when the unwise and inexperienced begin to teach the people, there is no reason to expect good. In the East, people develop faster than in the West, and they reach maturity, both physically and spiritually, more quickly. It is known that in Arabia and India it is allowed to marry at the age of twelve. But instead of leaving in force in the West the Eastern norm prohibiting teaching people until the age of thirty, or even raising the age limit accordingly, it was completely abolished. And thus in the West the word of the Gospel came true: children will be your judges.

Only once in these thirty years did the Lord Jesus break His silence. When He was twelve years old, at the feast of the Passover in Jerusalem, He dwelt in the temple among the teachers and elders, listening to them and asking them questions. And all those who heard Him were amazed at His understanding and His answers. For three days His Mother, the Most Holy Virgin, searched for Him with Joseph, until at last she found Him in the temple. Why did you seek Me? "Or did you not know that I must be in the things that belong to My Father?" And they did not understand this. And He went with them, and came to Nazareth; and he was in subjection to them, and increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.

Why this interruption of the silence of Jesus at the age of twelve, Theodoulos? And why is this brilliant scene described in the temple, before the teachers of the law and the Jewish elders, which has no visible connection with His subsequent teaching ministry? And why did the Evangelist Luke write this down?

Thus pleased God the Father, Who provided for His Son Jesus and saw far into the future. The Heavenly Father foresaw that the eternal persecutors and denigraters of His Son would spread lies about Jesus, that He went to India and there learned from the yogis and fakirs their wisdom, as well as the ability to perform miracles. Or have you, Theodoulos, not seen among the great slanderous literature directed against Jesus a book called "Jesus in India," or "Jesus among the Indian Yogis," or "Jesus in Tibet," and so on? The goal of the traitors and slanderers of the Judas tempering is quite clear: to prove that Jesus Christ did not say anything new, did not do anything original, which was not said before Him and was done in India. According to them, He is not the Messiah, not the Savior of the world, not the incarnate God, but a disciple of India and one of the countless Indian philosophers and yogis.

In order to neutralize such fabrications and slander in advance, and so that Christians would not be confused when they heard them, by God's Providence, the twelve-year-old Jesus appeared in the temple of Jerusalem before the Jewish teachers and elders, in order to amaze them all with His wisdom. And, equally, by God's Providence, this scene was recorded by the Evangelist Luke in his Gospel. This means that Jesus in His twelve years was in Nazareth, in His lineage and His house, and even then He was wise and all-wise, not needing any India to teach His understanding. But wasn't He in India before? This is unrealistic. After all, what could a child under the age of twelve do in India, where monasteries did not accept children? In addition, it is clear from Luke's account that Jesus went to Jerusalem with his parents for the feast of the Passover until the age of twelve.

And that even later, from the age of twelve to thirty, Jesus did not visit a foreign land, this is again evident from the words of the Gospel. In the first place, it is evident that Mary and Joseph were very anxious about Him and could not bear to be separated from Him even for two or three days. And the Mother said to Him, "Child! What have you done to us? That is, why did You separate Yourself from us for a few days? Behold, Thy father and I have sought Thee with great sorrow.

Caring and gentle Mother!

Would such caring parents have allowed Jesus to go to India and they would not have gone with Him, if they had to go? They fled with Him to Egypt from the bloody Herod and lived with Him in Egypt.

And secondly, the divinely inspired evangelist writes that after this appearance of Jesus in Jerusalem, He went with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them, and grew in wisdom, stature, and love for God and people.

Consequently, until His thirtieth birthday, He remained obedient to His Mother and Elder Joseph, working as a carpenter craftsman and remaining silent.