Luke 2:39-52 - Homiletics

The childhood and the waiting-time.

Before the age of twelve, nothing is told. In modern biographies, all kinds of traits, incidents, forecasts of the man in the child, are mentioned. The Apocryphal Gospels fall in with this custom. God's thoughts are not our thoughts. The child-life of "the Lord's Christ" is thoroughly simple. A bright-eyed boy, learning to read the Scriptures at his mother's knee, running out and in to shop and cottage, and joining sometimes in the innocent pastimes of the hillside, taking at night his little quilt from the ledge surrounding the wall of the house, and laying himself down in peace and sleeping,-such, we may conceive, was the life of the holy Child. Thoughtful, wise, gentle, yet full of a nameless "grace and truth;" for ( Luke 2:40 ) "he grew and waxed strong, filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was on him." The incident which alone breaks the silence is connected with his twelfth year, the completion of which was an important hour in Jewish history—the hour of transference from pupilage to a certain measure of responsibility. At that age Jesus, "a son of the Law," is taken by Joseph and Mary to Jerusalem. The journey, the caravans of pilgrims, the incidents of the way, the three nights' halting, and then the sight of Jerusalem with its temple shining in the sun,—we can imagine what all this must have been to the exquisitely sensitive soul of the Child! And the week's stay in the capital—what bursting of thoughts! what tides of inspiration! Let us dwell on the first recorded word of Jesus—his reply to his mother ( Luke 2:49 ), when she and Joseph found him among the doctors. Regard it as the word of sanctified boyhood—as the awakenment to the consciousness of

I. THE SUPREME RELATION . "My Father." We may infer, from the fiftieth verse, that now for the first time this word had passed from his lips. "Thy father and I," said Mary. Quietly but distinctly comes the intimation of the Fatherhood—an intimation in which we can trace the disengagement. "Nay, not he whom I have honored, and honor, as earthly parent, but he to whom I am truly bound—he who is, who only is, my Father." And a great, solemn hour it is when the feeling of a personal, individual relation to the Eternal dawns on the consciousness. In earliest years the child-nature is enfolded in others. The first crisis of the life is when it begins to realize that it cannot merely be led; that it has a place and calling of its own; that it must think and will, instead of only reflecting the thought and volition of those who have shaped its path. Here there is a parting of the ways—one way being towards a self-will, which has "torment" in it for the youth as for others, and which, unless corrected and disciplined by sharp experience, will bear the soul into hurtful alliances, will prove "a hewing out of broken cisterns which hold no water;" the other way being that of Divine grace, the acceptance of a higher rule and guidance, the learning of the great name Duty in the greater, the supporting Name of God, the response of the heart to a love and righteousness which asks its yes, the witness of the eternal Spirit with the human that the Boy is the Son of God. Who will not anxiously endeavor so to direct the mind, in the period when it is most susceptible of all right influences, as that the transition from childhood to youth shall be marked by a new glance upward, a loving and earnest "My Father"!

II. Further, NOTE THE SUPREME INTEREST OF THE LIFE . It matters not whether we read "about my Father's business" or "in my Father's house;" the idea is the same—that the irresistible attraction of the Son is the affairs which connect him with the Father. At twelve years of age the business was "hearing and asking questions." There is nothing forced or forward in the holy childhood. The "understanding and answers" are pronounced wonderful. But the Boy is only the "son of the Law;" he is not yet the Doctor. By-and-by he will be. Later on, he will be called to drink the bitter cup—to suffer and die. But everything in its right order. The life will evolve out of the principle that, in all, the Father's will is to rule, the Father's mind is to be read, the Father's kingdom is to be promoted. Here, surely, there is a suggestion as to the idea which should dominate in the education of the young. At home and at school, all culture, all training, should be associated with a higher reference; the boy, the girl, should feel that the life is among the heavenly Father's things. The sense of responsibility to him for the nature, and the opportunity of improving the nature, should be laid deep in the character. More than this, the generous instincts of youth should be supplied with a fitting aliment. Too often they run to seed because the intelligence was not enlisted in objects which formed a definite interest to the mind. Let young people be taken to their Father's house; let Church services recognize their place and part; let them be invited to a share in the hopes and the activities of Christ's cause. Plant them in the courts of the Lord, "in their Father's things."

III. Once more, OBSERVE THE SUPREME NECESSITY OF THE SPIRIT OF THE LIFE IN THE BOY JESUS . "Why hast thou thus dealt with us?" asks his mother reproachfully. "How is it that ye sought me?" is the rejoinder; "wist ye not that I must be where and as you find me?" We note the surprise in the answer. It is the flashing forth of a something, a secret, in the childhood which the mother had not noticed, so simple, so obedient, had the Child been. To the Boy, so full of the glories and solemnities of the Father's house, it seemed strange that they had not recognized whose he was—that they had not understood the obligation inlaid in the life itself. And when the constraint of God's love is acknowledged, when the soul awakes to the vision of the Father and the Father's business,—the spell of Christ's "I must " is irresistible. We come on it again and again in the course of the ministry. It was the law of the spirit of the life. And the same law operates in every one who is of the truth. In that sweet bondage stands the soul's perfect freedom: "I must work the works of him that sent me;" "I must be about my Father's business." Then, in perfect naturalness, yet with marvellous boldness, comes forth the first self-revelation of the Lord. Joseph and Mary understood it not. How often is the young heart, aroused and astir in consequence of a higher call, misunderstood, misjudged! Mary did not comprehend, but she sympathized; she loved and prayed. Type of the true mother, "whose eyes are homes of silent prayer." The sense of the higher sonship only enforces the obligations of the lower. In the higher love all other loves endure. "This is love," says St. John, "that we walk after his commandments"—after "the first commandment with promise, Honour thy father and mother." There is nothing lovelier in the human life of Christ than the renewed acceptance of the restraints of home. "He went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject unto them"—to them, with the narrow round of their daily care and concerns; and he with the great thoughts glowing in his breast, and the kingdom of his Father opening to his gaze. Mark:

1 . What self-repression belonged to the time in Nazareth! We see the Son taking the place in the carpenter's house a few years later than the visit to the temple; Joseph apparently is removed by death from the headship of the house. Is it beyond the probabilities of the case that he performed the part—always a touching one—of the eldest son and brother supporting the mother to whom he is subject, and guiding the younger members of the family? Nothing is left undone, and he who thus learned obedience to duty leaves an example which serves as a beacon-light both to youth and age.

2 . How this time consecrates labor and poverty! He wrought at the common things; in them he could see his Father's things, and do all as part of his Father's business. The truth receives a new radiance that "work is the girdle of manliness." Faber sings truly—

"Labour is sweet, for thou hast toiled;

And care is light, for thou hast cared.

Let not our works with self be soiled,

Nor in unsimple ways ensnared."

3. How emphatic is the lesson on the fruitfulness of silence suggested by this time! Between twelve years of age and thirty the Son of God was content to wait. The public life lasted for three years; he waited for thirty years. A great disproportion, we might say; but God's ways are not our ways. All the while he was growing in wisdom. As his bodily strength was compacted and matured, so was his mental; for in all things he was made like to his brethren, He studied his Father's Word and his Father's works. Nature disclosed to him her hidden meanings and beauties; he thought, he prayed., he lived, by the Father. The results of the long silence were evidenced in the exquisite parables of later years, in the wisdom which none could resist, in the authority which separated his doctrine from that of the scribes. The accumulated capital was great; when he went forth in the power of the Spirit he only drew the interest. Are we not, in these days, in too great haste both to be wise and to be rich? Do we not speak too soon as well as speak too much? Carlyle only apprehends the significance of Nazareth when he reminds us that in silence all great thought and work are done. We need more than "flashes of silence." Think, think of Jesus silent so long. Stier exclaims, "Oh what gracious words may have issued from his lips during those eighteen years which are not recorded! But the words which, by the Father's ordination, he was to testify to the world were sealed up till his hour was come. Then, one after another, bursts forth each as it were a deeper stream from the long pent-up fountains of eternal wisdom and truth!"