Mary and Joseph Find Jesus in the Templeby CBPepper
2:49Luke 2:49
And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?
At twelve, on His first childhood visit to Jerusalem for the Passover, Jesus stayed behind when Joseph and Mary started home and was found on the third day in the temple among the teachers, hearing them and asking questions with surpassing wisdom. By My Father He meant God His heavenly Father, not Joseph, thus declaring His divine sonship and His unique relation as the Son of God. His Father's business was the work He came to earth to do, the redemption and salvation of humanity by revealing God, giving light, and fulfilling His mission as the sacrifice for sin, which He had already taken up among the teachers. His questions gently turned back Mary's reproof, for had they remembered His mission they would have known to find Him at His duty in the temple, and His answer struck the keynote of His whole life of putting His Father's will above every other claim. That devotion is the pattern for all believers, who are to live everywhere in the Lord's service, making everything subordinate to glorifying God and saving sinners, letting no earthly tie turn them from duty to God.
Passover Visit at Twelve
The words belong to the Passover visit to Jerusalem after He had reached the customary age of twelve, when a Hebrew boy was regarded as a son of the law and was given special religious instruction. The setting was the annual pilgrimage, when worshipers traveled from Galilee and other parts of Palestine to Jerusalem for the feast. For Jesus it was His first childhood visit to Jerusalem to see the temple, made with Joseph and Mary for the Passover.
During that visit He watched the white-robed priests in their solemn ministry and witnessed the impressive rites of the paschal service. Unlike merely formal observers, He saw their meaning more clearly day by day, for its ceremonies concerned His own life and helped awaken His understanding of His mission and His Father's work. Every act was bound up with His own life, and as He silently and absorbedly studied out a great problem new impulses awakened within Him. The mystery of His mission opened to Him, and the work He was to accomplish for the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the appointed heirs of the promises of the covenant, began to dawn upon His mind.
His early life had been shaped by instruction in the truths of Scripture at home in Nazareth, preparing Him for this moment. Afterward He made His home in Nazareth for thirty years, living there unhonored and unknown in a town proverbial for wickedness and considered the worst of the people of Palestine, from which it was thought a wonder if any good thing could come. He, the mighty Worker to uplift and regenerate the whole human soul, commenced His great work there amid moral darkness and misery by becoming a citizen of that place, thus setting His feet upon the paths the poor and neglected souls must tread. Having left the courts of heaven and taken humanity upon Himself to live out a pure human character among those far down in the scale of popularity and morality, He poured contempt upon human pride of place, station, honor, and fame. He might have made His home in places of renown but did not, lest His followers compelled to live in lowly places should frame an excuse for their sins and for their rough, hard, discourteous characters, and He thereby demonstrated that any place, however hard and lowly, if it is the post of duty, can be made honorable by fidelity.
Lost and Found Teaching
After the Passover feast Joseph and Mary started for home toward Galilee while Jesus remained behind in Jerusalem, separated from them for three days until they found Him on the third day in the temple. His answer to Mary's sorrowful rebuke was a pointed question justifying His course in staying where duty placed Him.
Mary and Joseph searched sorrowing among kinsfolk and acquaintances and travelers and in every place along the way before they found Him. They found Him sitting among the doctors and rabbis and wise men and lawyers, hearing them and asking questions in the posture of a learner.
His discreet questions and answers proved superior wisdom and penetration and mature judgment, and all who heard were astonished at His understanding. Each question held light that flashed into darkened and confused minds, imparting new thoughts concerning the Messiah. His questions upon Isaiah's prophecies directed hearers to the true mission of the Messiah at His first coming in humiliation rather than the earthly exaltation many expected, and to promises centered in Himself.
As He answered His mother He pointed upward and lifted hand and eyes to heaven, with heaven's expressive light in His countenance. From the time they found Him in the temple His course of action was a mystery even to His parents, though He lived as one set apart finding happiness in communion with God and Scripture and prayer. Through childhood and youth He lived under the supervision of men professing to be God's chosen messengers, yet He steadfastly followed the clear light He had from His Father and not the counsel of priests and rulers when they tried to make themselves His advisers and press their own plans and suggestions upon Him to shape His course after their order.
The three days He was lost to them prepared Joseph and Mary for the later sorrow of His death for the sins of the world. Then also He would be lost to them for three days before revealing Himself again to strengthen their faith in Him as Redeemer and their Advocate with the Father.
Father and His Business
When the boy spoke of His Father He meant Jehovah, the God of heaven, and not Joseph who was His earthly father in the home at Nazareth. By that word He distinguished God as His true Father and made known His unique relation and divine origin as Son of God with no human father. In doing so He presented God as a loving and merciful heavenly Father, not a cruel despot driving men by compulsion.
The business of that Father was the work He had come into this world to perform, the very work in which He was then engaged among the teachers in the temple. At twelve years old He already knew He had been called to it and had taken it up in willing, loving obedience, showing that faithful service is the work of a son. Sitting among the doctors, hearing them and asking discreet questions and giving answers that proved superior wisdom, penetration and mature judgment, He was giving light to darkened minds.
That work was the great work of redemption, the salvation of humanity made subordinate to nothing else. It laid upon Him through childhood, youth and manhood the awful weight of responsibility for men, knowing that unless there was a decided change in the principles and purposes of the human race all would be lost. It was character-building and giving light, revealing God and explaining His word to Israel's leaders and opening new meaning in the sacrifices and offerings. It was to make others sons of God and to fulfill Isaiah 53 as the great sacrifice for sin.
To be about that business meant to keep faithful watch over every faculty so that Satan could gain no advantage. It meant in all His actions to live as the Son of God dwelling among men as the representative of the Father. It meant to lose no opportunity to work for others, and to labor to the full extent of ability to become intellectually qualified to be a co-worker with God, a lesson He taught to youth and to those of mature age.
Gentle Reproof to Parents
His two questions gently and modestly turned Mary's reproof and blame back upon the parents themselves. Had they remembered His duty and mission they would have known where to find Him, in the temple attending to that duty, engaged in the work entrusted to Him by His heavenly Father. If they had not lost Him they would not have needed to search for Him. His answer was both a pointed question and a justification of His course at twelve years old, remaining in Jerusalem while Joseph and Mary started home.
While He was occupied with His Father's work among the doctors, they had neglected the sacred trust and responsible charge entrusted to them to keep track of Him. They let talk and visiting and matters of no special importance engross them, became absorbed in other matters and forgot Him, so that they left Jerusalem without Him. If they had been mindful of their duty and kept Him in mind, they would not have left without Him nor needed to search.
His words reminded them of the high responsibility of caring for the Son of God entrusted to their care, not merely their own child. They taught them the importance of His divine mission and showed that He did not claim Joseph as father. They warned them against becoming indifferent to the sacred mission and blessing of His presence and against losing sight of Him and blaming Him. By understanding the prophecies and the solemn meaning of the Passover and the significance of the events surrounding His birth and youth, they could have recognized their responsibility toward Him.
The incident warns His followers that neglecting watchfulness and prayer can lose the sense of His presence and peace. Recovering it may require anxious searching.
Divine Sonship Revealed
Even as a child and boy He knew God as His Father and understood His unique relation to Him as Son of God with no human father, and at twelve He understood the work entrusted to Him and His duty to attend to it. His answer in the temple expressed that being there among the teachers belonged to that work, and that His life was devoted to the work He had come into the world to do. He was beginning to understand His relation to His heavenly Father and His responsibility for the Father's work, including the revelation of Christ to the world and responsibility for the salvation of humanity. His words taught that He did not claim Joseph as father but distinguished God as His true Father.
On that first opening of the mystery of His mission He realized He was indeed the Son of God and that a special work lay before Him. He felt the burden of His Messiahship and felt bound to do the work His Father had given Him. He declared He must be about God's work and had been doing the work for which His Father had sent Him into the world, asking the teachers questions about promises centered in Himself. When His mother questioned Him about the sorrow His absence had caused, He answered by pointing upward to God.
As He spoke divinity flashed through humanity and light and glory from heaven illuminated His countenance like an angel's face with heaven's expressive light. He lifted His eyes and hand to heaven, and with the light of divinity shining from His face He answered in a most solemn manner. His divine identity shone through His human appearance, and a solemn awe fell upon the hearers. Yet neither His parents nor the doctors understood His words, which were a mystery to them, though His questions and answers gave light to their darkened minds.
Joseph and Mary wondered at His appearance and at the light on His face. Mary in large measure understood its import that He spoke of God, not Joseph, as His Father. She laid the saying away in her heart to ponder and profit by in the future, remembered it afterward, and never forgot it. She better understood its wonderful meaning in later years.
Lifelong Devotion Foreshadowed
His answer struck the keynote and guiding purpose that shaped His whole life and ministry, that He must devote Himself to His Father's work and be free to do God's will. Spoken in His youth in the school of the rabbis when His mother questioned Him after He was found among the doctors in the temple, it meant He brought all His own wishes and desires into strict subjection to His mission and glorified His life by making everything in it subordinate to His Father's will and to the great work of redemption He came to accomplish. With reverence and clear purpose He declared He must be occupied with His Father's work, and divinity flashing through humanity in His countenance made Joseph and Mary wonder, while Mary remembered the saying afterward. That devotion expressed His carrying the awful weight of responsibility for the salvation of men, knowing that unless there was a decided change in the principles and purposes of the human race all would be lost, a burden that rested on Him through childhood, youth, and manhood.
Being about His Father's business means carrying out the work of redemption took precedence over every other claim. Even in boyhood and youth He knew His life-work was to serve His Father, putting His own wishes and earthly family claims beneath the mission entrusted to Him, with His Father's will as the one law of His life. He must be free to do God's will, and earthly ties must not turn Him from His mission, so that Mary's kinship gave her no special authority over His divine mission or spiritual standing before Him. His example thus makes that devotion a model for followers, who are to subordinate earthly interests, social claims, and affections to the work God gives them and to make the work of redemption and God's claims paramount with the same devotion and self-sacrifice.
That devotion defined a life of constant self-sacrifice, counting no sacrifice too great and no toil too hard. Having no home except as friends provided, He lived the life of the poorest and walked and worked unrecognized and unhonored among the needy and suffering, patiently and cheerfully ministering to them as a messenger of life and peace. He walked alone through childhood, youth, and manhood, daily meeting trials and temptations and contact with evil, yet without failing or becoming discouraged. As the appointed time came, He steadfastly went to Jerusalem to give Himself for the sins of humanity, refusing to turn aside to save Himself.
He proved He had heard the call and taken up His lifework at twelve years old. Serving His Father at the head of humanity, He stands as the Pattern of what every son should and may be, revealing the obedience God requires and living the commandments of God. His words express willing, loving obedience rendered in love with willingness and freedom, showing that serving God faithfully is the work of a son and that in God's service there is perfect freedom. They prove that God's claims cannot be evaded without eternal loss and set the highest standard by which all who would be sons and daughters of God must prove themselves coworkers with Christ and God and the heavenly angels.
That devotion was consistent with obedience to earthly parents. After answering His mother in the temple courts with heaven's expressive light in His countenance and with divinity shining through humanity, lifting His eyes and hand to heaven to declare His duty, He placed His hand in His mother's hand and went with them in obedience, returning to Nazareth where He was subject to them. Though He realized He was indeed the Son of God with a special work before Him and did not lose the realization of His future work to labor to save the lost and make others sons of God, He did not exalt His divine character or use it as a reason to escape temporal care and labor, but worked at the carpenter's trade as an obedient son in all requirements. He lived without sin from infancy to manhood, found happiness in communion with God, Scripture and prayer, kept faithful watch over every faculty so Satan could gain no advantage, lost no opportunity to work for others, and for eighteen years before His public ministry constantly ministered comfort and tenderness to young and old while waiting for the appointed time.
Being about the Father's business therefore includes toiling at the carpenter's bench just as much as working miracles for the multitude. Even while a humble, unrecognized, neglected and despised artisan, He held His commission and authority from the Sovereign of heaven and had angels as His attendants, yet concealed this secret from the world and attached no high-sounding titles to His name, but lived the royal law of God. By beginning His work in the humble trade of craftsmen who toil for daily bread, He consecrated common labor to give inspiration to the world of toilers. His example shows that education includes both learning and useful physical work, developing the whole person by putting abilities and energy to practical use and laboring to the full extent of ability to become intellectually qualified to be co-workers with God.
Pattern for Believers
The saying sets the object before all Christians to do the work Christ did while on earth, living with an abiding sense wherever they go and whatever they do that they are in the service of the Lord. To be about the Father's business is to minister without selfish motives or self-exaltation to a world full of the weak, the helpless and the ignorant who need to be ministered unto. It means doing right just where one is, giving the whole soul to the work there, waking up and striving rather than suspending labor, calling on the Lord for help to succeed, and growing in wisdom in relation to God. It means becoming not merely a consumer of grace but a provider and a living channel of light, finding happiness in exercising the energies of the soul in behalf of perishing mortals, taking a qualified place among workers in the various activities of life, and refusing to be a drone in the hive of workers.
Following Christ carries that same devotion into practical dealings, acting faithfully in business for the Father and obeying His teaching in both the Old and New Testaments. It is illustrated by a husband who spent his life trying to save souls, serving his Master through self-denial and sacrifice and dying at his post. The answer spoken after being lost three days and found among the doctors in the temple asking questions that astonished His parents and started trains of thought never forgotten struck the note of His whole life and ministry. With divinity flashing through humanity in His countenance that made Joseph and Mary wonder and that Mary remembered afterward, everything was made subordinate to His great work of redemption which He came into the world to accomplish.
That subordination is the pattern required of all disciples in their mission to glorify God and cooperate with Him in saving sinners rather than serving or pleasing themselves, with devotion, self-denial, self-sacrificing spirit and subjection to the claims of the Word of God. Even in youth He made His Father's work the governing purpose of His life, placing His own wishes, desires and earthly family claims beneath His mission to work for the fallen race. His answer expresses complete devotion to God's work and makes that devotion the model for followers, who are to subordinate earthly interests, social claims and affections to the work God gives them and to place that work and the claims of redemption above every earthly interest and affection.
No earthly tie must turn believers from mission, for He must be free to do God's will and carry out redemption which took precedence over every other claim. After thirty years of submission to parental control the time came to do His heavenly Father's work, the earthly relation as submissive son ended, and He stood as divine Lord free from every personal consideration and earthly tie to do only His Father's will, with no family claim to direct His divine power or influence His mission to the world. At twelve this priority already appeared when He began His work in the temple by listening to Scripture and asking questions that brought new light to the teachers, knowing from what He saw there that He was to be the great sacrifice for sin fulfilling Isaiah 53, with His Father's claims taking precedence whenever they conflicted with His earthly parents' claims. He was to love, obey and honor His parents in everything that did not oppose His God-given duty, and so parents and other human authorities including rulers and governments cannot rightly override conscience or duty to God. Human and family love is sacred but must not become idolatrous, mar religious experience, or draw the heart from God's service, and kinship with Christ gives no special authority or spiritual standing, for even Mary's only hope like all others was to believe Him as Redeemer and yield Him implicit obedience.
At twelve, on His first childhood visit to Jerusalem for the Passover, Jesus stayed behind when Joseph and Mary started home and was found on the third day in the temple among the teachers, hearing them and asking questions with surpassing wisdom. By My Father He meant God His heavenly Father, not Joseph, thus declaring His divine sonship and His unique relation as the Son of God. His Father's business was the work He came to earth to do, the redemption and salvation of humanity by revealing God, giving light, and fulfilling His mission as the sacrifice for sin, which He had already taken up among the teachers. His questions gently turned back Mary's reproof, for had they remembered His mission they would have known to find Him at His duty in the temple, and His answer struck the keynote of His whole life of putting His Father's will above every other claim. That devotion is the pattern for all believers, who are to live everywhere in the Lord's service, making everything subordinate to glorifying God and saving sinners, letting no earthly tie turn them from duty to God.
Passover Visit at Twelve
The words belong to the Passover visit to Jerusalem after He had reached the customary age of twelve, when a Hebrew boy was regarded as a son of the law and was given special religious instruction. The setting was the annual pilgrimage, when worshipers traveled from Galilee and other parts of Palestine to Jerusalem for the feast. For Jesus it was His first childhood visit to Jerusalem to see the temple, made with Joseph and Mary for the Passover.
During that visit He watched the white-robed priests in their solemn ministry and witnessed the impressive rites of the paschal service. Unlike merely formal observers, He saw their meaning more clearly day by day, for its ceremonies concerned His own life and helped awaken His understanding of His mission and His Father's work. Every act was bound up with His own life, and as He silently and absorbedly studied out a great problem new impulses awakened within Him. The mystery of His mission opened to Him, and the work He was to accomplish for the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the appointed heirs of the promises of the covenant, began to dawn upon His mind.
His early life had been shaped by instruction in the truths of Scripture at home in Nazareth, preparing Him for this moment. Afterward He made His home in Nazareth for thirty years, living there unhonored and unknown in a town proverbial for wickedness and considered the worst of the people of Palestine, from which it was thought a wonder if any good thing could come. He, the mighty Worker to uplift and regenerate the whole human soul, commenced His great work there amid moral darkness and misery by becoming a citizen of that place, thus setting His feet upon the paths the poor and neglected souls must tread. Having left the courts of heaven and taken humanity upon Himself to live out a pure human character among those far down in the scale of popularity and morality, He poured contempt upon human pride of place, station, honor, and fame. He might have made His home in places of renown but did not, lest His followers compelled to live in lowly places should frame an excuse for their sins and for their rough, hard, discourteous characters, and He thereby demonstrated that any place, however hard and lowly, if it is the post of duty, can be made honorable by fidelity.
Lost and Found Teaching
After the Passover feast Joseph and Mary started for home toward Galilee while Jesus remained behind in Jerusalem, separated from them for three days until they found Him on the third day in the temple. His answer to Mary's sorrowful rebuke was a pointed question justifying His course in staying where duty placed Him.
Mary and Joseph searched sorrowing among kinsfolk and acquaintances and travelers and in every place along the way before they found Him. They found Him sitting among the doctors and rabbis and wise men and lawyers, hearing them and asking questions in the posture of a learner.
His discreet questions and answers proved superior wisdom and penetration and mature judgment, and all who heard were astonished at His understanding. Each question held light that flashed into darkened and confused minds, imparting new thoughts concerning the Messiah. His questions upon Isaiah's prophecies directed hearers to the true mission of the Messiah at His first coming in humiliation rather than the earthly exaltation many expected, and to promises centered in Himself.
As He answered His mother He pointed upward and lifted hand and eyes to heaven, with heaven's expressive light in His countenance. From the time they found Him in the temple His course of action was a mystery even to His parents, though He lived as one set apart finding happiness in communion with God and Scripture and prayer. Through childhood and youth He lived under the supervision of men professing to be God's chosen messengers, yet He steadfastly followed the clear light He had from His Father and not the counsel of priests and rulers when they tried to make themselves His advisers and press their own plans and suggestions upon Him to shape His course after their order.
The three days He was lost to them prepared Joseph and Mary for the later sorrow of His death for the sins of the world. Then also He would be lost to them for three days before revealing Himself again to strengthen their faith in Him as Redeemer and their Advocate with the Father.
Father and His Business
When the boy spoke of His Father He meant Jehovah, the God of heaven, and not Joseph who was His earthly father in the home at Nazareth. By that word He distinguished God as His true Father and made known His unique relation and divine origin as Son of God with no human father. In doing so He presented God as a loving and merciful heavenly Father, not a cruel despot driving men by compulsion.
The business of that Father was the work He had come into this world to perform, the very work in which He was then engaged among the teachers in the temple. At twelve years old He already knew He had been called to it and had taken it up in willing, loving obedience, showing that faithful service is the work of a son. Sitting among the doctors, hearing them and asking discreet questions and giving answers that proved superior wisdom, penetration and mature judgment, He was giving light to darkened minds.
That work was the great work of redemption, the salvation of humanity made subordinate to nothing else. It laid upon Him through childhood, youth and manhood the awful weight of responsibility for men, knowing that unless there was a decided change in the principles and purposes of the human race all would be lost. It was character-building and giving light, revealing God and explaining His word to Israel's leaders and opening new meaning in the sacrifices and offerings. It was to make others sons of God and to fulfill Isaiah 53 as the great sacrifice for sin.
To be about that business meant to keep faithful watch over every faculty so that Satan could gain no advantage. It meant in all His actions to live as the Son of God dwelling among men as the representative of the Father. It meant to lose no opportunity to work for others, and to labor to the full extent of ability to become intellectually qualified to be a co-worker with God, a lesson He taught to youth and to those of mature age.
Gentle Reproof to Parents
His two questions gently and modestly turned Mary's reproof and blame back upon the parents themselves. Had they remembered His duty and mission they would have known where to find Him, in the temple attending to that duty, engaged in the work entrusted to Him by His heavenly Father. If they had not lost Him they would not have needed to search for Him. His answer was both a pointed question and a justification of His course at twelve years old, remaining in Jerusalem while Joseph and Mary started home.
While He was occupied with His Father's work among the doctors, they had neglected the sacred trust and responsible charge entrusted to them to keep track of Him. They let talk and visiting and matters of no special importance engross them, became absorbed in other matters and forgot Him, so that they left Jerusalem without Him. If they had been mindful of their duty and kept Him in mind, they would not have left without Him nor needed to search.
His words reminded them of the high responsibility of caring for the Son of God entrusted to their care, not merely their own child. They taught them the importance of His divine mission and showed that He did not claim Joseph as father. They warned them against becoming indifferent to the sacred mission and blessing of His presence and against losing sight of Him and blaming Him. By understanding the prophecies and the solemn meaning of the Passover and the significance of the events surrounding His birth and youth, they could have recognized their responsibility toward Him.
The incident warns His followers that neglecting watchfulness and prayer can lose the sense of His presence and peace. Recovering it may require anxious searching.
Divine Sonship Revealed
Even as a child and boy He knew God as His Father and understood His unique relation to Him as Son of God with no human father, and at twelve He understood the work entrusted to Him and His duty to attend to it. His answer in the temple expressed that being there among the teachers belonged to that work, and that His life was devoted to the work He had come into the world to do. He was beginning to understand His relation to His heavenly Father and His responsibility for the Father's work, including the revelation of Christ to the world and responsibility for the salvation of humanity. His words taught that He did not claim Joseph as father but distinguished God as His true Father.
On that first opening of the mystery of His mission He realized He was indeed the Son of God and that a special work lay before Him. He felt the burden of His Messiahship and felt bound to do the work His Father had given Him. He declared He must be about God's work and had been doing the work for which His Father had sent Him into the world, asking the teachers questions about promises centered in Himself. When His mother questioned Him about the sorrow His absence had caused, He answered by pointing upward to God.
As He spoke divinity flashed through humanity and light and glory from heaven illuminated His countenance like an angel's face with heaven's expressive light. He lifted His eyes and hand to heaven, and with the light of divinity shining from His face He answered in a most solemn manner. His divine identity shone through His human appearance, and a solemn awe fell upon the hearers. Yet neither His parents nor the doctors understood His words, which were a mystery to them, though His questions and answers gave light to their darkened minds.
Joseph and Mary wondered at His appearance and at the light on His face. Mary in large measure understood its import that He spoke of God, not Joseph, as His Father. She laid the saying away in her heart to ponder and profit by in the future, remembered it afterward, and never forgot it. She better understood its wonderful meaning in later years.
Lifelong Devotion Foreshadowed
His answer struck the keynote and guiding purpose that shaped His whole life and ministry, that He must devote Himself to His Father's work and be free to do God's will. Spoken in His youth in the school of the rabbis when His mother questioned Him after He was found among the doctors in the temple, it meant He brought all His own wishes and desires into strict subjection to His mission and glorified His life by making everything in it subordinate to His Father's will and to the great work of redemption He came to accomplish. With reverence and clear purpose He declared He must be occupied with His Father's work, and divinity flashing through humanity in His countenance made Joseph and Mary wonder, while Mary remembered the saying afterward. That devotion expressed His carrying the awful weight of responsibility for the salvation of men, knowing that unless there was a decided change in the principles and purposes of the human race all would be lost, a burden that rested on Him through childhood, youth, and manhood.
Being about His Father's business means carrying out the work of redemption took precedence over every other claim. Even in boyhood and youth He knew His life-work was to serve His Father, putting His own wishes and earthly family claims beneath the mission entrusted to Him, with His Father's will as the one law of His life. He must be free to do God's will, and earthly ties must not turn Him from His mission, so that Mary's kinship gave her no special authority over His divine mission or spiritual standing before Him. His example thus makes that devotion a model for followers, who are to subordinate earthly interests, social claims, and affections to the work God gives them and to make the work of redemption and God's claims paramount with the same devotion and self-sacrifice.
That devotion defined a life of constant self-sacrifice, counting no sacrifice too great and no toil too hard. Having no home except as friends provided, He lived the life of the poorest and walked and worked unrecognized and unhonored among the needy and suffering, patiently and cheerfully ministering to them as a messenger of life and peace. He walked alone through childhood, youth, and manhood, daily meeting trials and temptations and contact with evil, yet without failing or becoming discouraged. As the appointed time came, He steadfastly went to Jerusalem to give Himself for the sins of humanity, refusing to turn aside to save Himself.
He proved He had heard the call and taken up His lifework at twelve years old. Serving His Father at the head of humanity, He stands as the Pattern of what every son should and may be, revealing the obedience God requires and living the commandments of God. His words express willing, loving obedience rendered in love with willingness and freedom, showing that serving God faithfully is the work of a son and that in God's service there is perfect freedom. They prove that God's claims cannot be evaded without eternal loss and set the highest standard by which all who would be sons and daughters of God must prove themselves coworkers with Christ and God and the heavenly angels.
That devotion was consistent with obedience to earthly parents. After answering His mother in the temple courts with heaven's expressive light in His countenance and with divinity shining through humanity, lifting His eyes and hand to heaven to declare His duty, He placed His hand in His mother's hand and went with them in obedience, returning to Nazareth where He was subject to them. Though He realized He was indeed the Son of God with a special work before Him and did not lose the realization of His future work to labor to save the lost and make others sons of God, He did not exalt His divine character or use it as a reason to escape temporal care and labor, but worked at the carpenter's trade as an obedient son in all requirements. He lived without sin from infancy to manhood, found happiness in communion with God, Scripture and prayer, kept faithful watch over every faculty so Satan could gain no advantage, lost no opportunity to work for others, and for eighteen years before His public ministry constantly ministered comfort and tenderness to young and old while waiting for the appointed time.
Being about the Father's business therefore includes toiling at the carpenter's bench just as much as working miracles for the multitude. Even while a humble, unrecognized, neglected and despised artisan, He held His commission and authority from the Sovereign of heaven and had angels as His attendants, yet concealed this secret from the world and attached no high-sounding titles to His name, but lived the royal law of God. By beginning His work in the humble trade of craftsmen who toil for daily bread, He consecrated common labor to give inspiration to the world of toilers. His example shows that education includes both learning and useful physical work, developing the whole person by putting abilities and energy to practical use and laboring to the full extent of ability to become intellectually qualified to be co-workers with God.
Pattern for Believers
The saying sets the object before all Christians to do the work Christ did while on earth, living with an abiding sense wherever they go and whatever they do that they are in the service of the Lord. To be about the Father's business is to minister without selfish motives or self-exaltation to a world full of the weak, the helpless and the ignorant who need to be ministered unto. It means doing right just where one is, giving the whole soul to the work there, waking up and striving rather than suspending labor, calling on the Lord for help to succeed, and growing in wisdom in relation to God. It means becoming not merely a consumer of grace but a provider and a living channel of light, finding happiness in exercising the energies of the soul in behalf of perishing mortals, taking a qualified place among workers in the various activities of life, and refusing to be a drone in the hive of workers.
Following Christ carries that same devotion into practical dealings, acting faithfully in business for the Father and obeying His teaching in both the Old and New Testaments. It is illustrated by a husband who spent his life trying to save souls, serving his Master through self-denial and sacrifice and dying at his post. The answer spoken after being lost three days and found among the doctors in the temple asking questions that astonished His parents and started trains of thought never forgotten struck the note of His whole life and ministry. With divinity flashing through humanity in His countenance that made Joseph and Mary wonder and that Mary remembered afterward, everything was made subordinate to His great work of redemption which He came into the world to accomplish.
That subordination is the pattern required of all disciples in their mission to glorify God and cooperate with Him in saving sinners rather than serving or pleasing themselves, with devotion, self-denial, self-sacrificing spirit and subjection to the claims of the Word of God. Even in youth He made His Father's work the governing purpose of His life, placing His own wishes, desires and earthly family claims beneath His mission to work for the fallen race. His answer expresses complete devotion to God's work and makes that devotion the model for followers, who are to subordinate earthly interests, social claims and affections to the work God gives them and to place that work and the claims of redemption above every earthly interest and affection.
No earthly tie must turn believers from mission, for He must be free to do God's will and carry out redemption which took precedence over every other claim. After thirty years of submission to parental control the time came to do His heavenly Father's work, the earthly relation as submissive son ended, and He stood as divine Lord free from every personal consideration and earthly tie to do only His Father's will, with no family claim to direct His divine power or influence His mission to the world. At twelve this priority already appeared when He began His work in the temple by listening to Scripture and asking questions that brought new light to the teachers, knowing from what He saw there that He was to be the great sacrifice for sin fulfilling Isaiah 53, with His Father's claims taking precedence whenever they conflicted with His earthly parents' claims. He was to love, obey and honor His parents in everything that did not oppose His God-given duty, and so parents and other human authorities including rulers and governments cannot rightly override conscience or duty to God. Human and family love is sacred but must not become idolatrous, mar religious experience, or draw the heart from God's service, and kinship with Christ gives no special authority or spiritual standing, for even Mary's only hope like all others was to believe Him as Redeemer and yield Him implicit obedience.