Luke 2:51
And he went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject unto them: but his mother kept all these sayings in her heart. And he went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject unto them: but his mother kept all these sayings in her heart.
After His first Passover visit to Jerusalem at twelve years old and His talk with the doctors in the temple, He went down with Joseph and Mary and made His home with them at Nazareth. There He was subject unto them in willing obedience to all their requirements, not seeking to control His own time or follow His own will. He rendered this obedience although He knew He was the Son of God, equal with God and Commander of heaven, whose divine power remained hidden and veiled in humanity. He remained in that obscurity and subjection for the eighteen years until He was thirty, growing in wisdom and favor with God and men while faithfully working with His hands as a carpenter to help bear the burdens of His poor humble household. His mother kept all these sayings in her heart, carefully treasuring His words and spirit and the events of the visit to ponder in the future, knowing that when He spoke of His Father He meant Jehovah.
Passover Visit and Return
Luke 2:51 belongs to the boyhood Passover visit, when at twelve years old Jesus made His first visit to Jerusalem in keeping with the custom of taking a Hebrew boy to the feast when he reached the required age. There He talked with the doctors in the temple, and afterward He went back down with Mary and Joseph to Nazareth and lived subject to them. He worked with Joseph and learned the trade of a carpenter, a builder, and His earthly trade was significant because He was a character-builder and all His labors were perfect. His answer about being about His Father's business flashed divinity through humanity with a lighted countenance, yet neither His parents nor the doctors understood those words, solemn awe fell upon them, and His mother kept all these sayings in her heart.
On the journey home Joseph and Mary halted for rest and discovered that Jesus was missing from their company. His absence had brought them sorrow and made them feel their responsibility for Him. His question about being occupied with His Father's business mildly reproved them for losing sight of His mission, although His divine mission was already His first concern even as He returned and remained respectfully subject to their parental care. His time away and separation from them gently reminded them not to regard Him merely as their own child and not to take for granted the sacred trust of raising the Son of God, but to remember His sacred mission and the great responsibility and blessing of caring for Him. His divinity was veiled in humanity and in an ordinary human life. Mary did not fully comprehend His words, but she understood much of their meaning and kept them in her heart to ponder later.
The feast held deep significance for the Son of God and was more than empty ceremony to Him. The Passover was meant to lead His parents to consider its solemn meaning and the prophecies concerning Jesus. For many, however, it had become mere form and ceremony.
He went down with them and made His home in Nazareth for thirty years, living there unhonored and unknown. His early life there was quiet and unrecognized as He walked in retirement among ordinary peasants and laborers and ordinary people. Nazareth was among a people proverbial for wickedness and counted the worst in Palestine, a town thought unable to produce any good thing. He began His great work of uplifting and regenerating the human soul there amid moral darkness and misery, setting His feet on the paths the poor and neglected must tread. He chose that lowly place over places of renown to pour contempt on human pride of place, station, honor and fame, to live out a pure human character as one who left heaven and took humanity. He thereby took away excuse for sin and for rough, hard, discourteous character from followers compelled to live in lowly places, and demonstrated that any hard and lowly place, when it is the post of duty, can be made honorable by fidelity. His quiet life is an example of avoiding evil influences and the company of those who do not live rightly, and of guarding oneself humbly from harmful surroundings rather than assuming one is too strong to be affected.
Submission to His Parents
After the teaching in the temple He went down with Mary and Joseph to Nazareth and was subject unto them in willing obedience to all their requirements. He did not seek to control His own time or follow His own will, and He obeyed even when a task did not suit His feelings. His mother laid away His words, His spirit, His obedience, and the events to ponder over in the future.
His subjection was rendered although He knew He was the Son of God with a special relation to His heavenly Father and His Father's work. He who obeyed was the Commander of heaven, equal with God and Lord of the commandments. When He spoke of being about His Father's business divinity flashed through humanity with light and glory on His countenance, and solemn awe fell upon those who heard. Yet His divine power remained hidden and veiled in humanity as He accepted the ordinary duties of family life and helped bear its burdens.
He remained subject to parental control in obscurity and humiliation until thirty years of age, for the eighteen years before His public ministry. He faithfully carried out a son's duties, hiding in His heart the great things brought to His mind by the temple service. He waited submissively without haste for the appointed time to begin His work.
That earthly relation as a submissive son ended when the time came to go about His Father's business and begin His public work. He who had been submissive became her divine Lord. Mary then had no special claim, no special rights, and no elevation to His level by motherhood, and her only hope in common with all mankind was to believe Him as Redeemer of the world and yield Him implicit obedience, with no assurance of her future from relationship alone. Human love for family is sacred but must not become idolatrous love that lets ties of relationship draw hearts from God and from service, and no personal consideration or human sympathy was to direct His divine mission.
His submission was consistent with real growth from the manger to Calvary, growing in wisdom and favor with God and people. At each stage of His development He was perfect, living with the natural grace of a sinless life, kept free from sin. In childhood He did only the works of an obedient child, obeying the will and wishes of His parents in all things corresponding to the ability of a child, honoring them and carrying out their wishes in helpful ways. This subjection to His parents was His missionary work in the home life, and through this right course of action His wisdom and ability constantly increased.
Mary Treasuring His Words
His mother kept all these sayings in her heart, carefully marking and treasuring His words, His spirit, His obedience, and the events surrounding the temple visit. She laid them away to remember and reflect on and to ponder over in the future, though she did not yet fully understand them. After He went down with them to Nazareth and was subject unto them, she kept these things as matters for abiding reflection on their significance.
Joseph and Mary did not understand His saying about being about His Father's business. When He so answered with divinity flashing through humanity in light and glory on His countenance, solemn awe fell upon His parents and upon the doctors. Yet Mary in great measure understood the import of His words and profited by them. She knew that when He spoke of His Father He meant Jehovah and not His earthly father Joseph.
She understood the significance of what she witnessed and treasured the sayings and events. She kept ever before her the divine Fatherhood of her Son. His constant inclination to the right gratified His parents, and they instructed Him in accordance with the sacred character of His mission.
Work and Obscurity at Nazareth
He made his home in Nazareth in the house of a peasant, a poor man, with parents who were lowly and poor and with few luxuries on the table in a humble household. Joseph his earthly father was a carpenter, and his mother was a pure, pious virgin poor in earthly riches. As soon as he was old enough he learned the trade of a carpenter, a builder, and worked with his hands with Joseph in the shop and at the bench. Faithfully and cheerfully he did his part to help support the family and bear its burdens for nearly thirty years, laboring as a perfect workman who took great pains in common tasks and did not use his divine power to make his labor easier.
His early years were useful years spent helping his mother at home and working at the carpenter's bench under parental discipline. That service in the home and at the bench fulfilled his commission from God just as truly as his later public ministry. His subjection to his parents was his missionary work in the home life, and even in childhood he constantly ministered to others and spoke words of comfort and tenderness to young and old. His early life was quiet and simple, without extravagance, display, outward show, or pomp, and unrecognized as he walked among ordinary peasants and laborers. He rejected the schools of his day and was educated directly from Heaven-appointed sources.
His mother was his first human teacher, teaching him heavenly things from her lips and from the scrolls of the prophets, while his Father in heaven continually taught him through Scripture, nature, and life experience. From an early age he formed his character and acted for himself. His subjection and toil show that labor is not degradation but honor and dignity. The Prince of heaven laid aside his kingly crown to live a life of toil and enter into sympathy with humanity, and by earning his living through hard physical work he honored physical labor and taught its dignity by his practical life.
That example teaches diligence in labor and provision for those entrusted to care, and gives encouragement and strength to every person in performing the commonplace duties of life.
Pattern for Family Life
He gives a perfect pattern of deference and respect to age and of filial obedience as a loving son, returning with Mary and Joseph to Nazareth and living willingly subject to all their requirements after revealing His divine mission in the temple. His obedience is left as an example for childhood, youth, and manhood, teaching children and youth to honor and respect their parents and to cooperate with them willingly, cheerfully, and from right motives. Obedience is an element of true greatness, shown when He who knew His special relation to His heavenly Father still accepted the ordinary duties of family life and helped bear its daily burdens. His mother treasured these sayings, His words, His spirit, His obedience, and the events surrounding the visit, understanding their significance and keeping them in her heart.
True education is to study His pure, holy, undefiled life in submission, to follow in His footsteps, to act as He acted, and to maintain the great principles He maintained. His character is the standard and the brightest example the world has seen for youth and students, rather than the greatest and most learned men who know not God. That education teaches most success in the service of God and reverence and worship to God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ alone.
Children are to follow Him not by devoting time to amusement or easy indulgence but by studying the Word of God and growing in knowledge of its truths. They are to delight in the beautiful things of nature and to draw lessons from household affection and from familiar natural things to teach others about God. Like Him as a child they are to be pleasant, truthful, kind, patient, and obedient in all words and actions, loving to obey those who have charge over them and never making them sorry by wrongdoing. They are to be the Lord's own, happy and cheerful and obedient, a precious comfort to all in the home, praying to Him and telling Him their troubles so that they do right and make everyone in the house happy. His example as an obedient child working at the simple trade of a carpenter shows that ordinary duties can be done faithfully and cheerfully for Him, that faithfulness in small responsibilities prepares for greater ones, and that everyday duties like washing dishes and sweeping floors are to be done promptly, without waiting to be told, with fidelity as a pleasure and not a burden.
Parents are to show tender loving care rather than ruling with an iron rod and unjust harshness, with fathers showing tender love through care for their children. Mothers are to feel the sacredness of their mission, to honor God by faithful performance of duty and right principles of temperance rather than vying with wealthy neighbors in appearance, and to deal gently with little ones as God's property and sacred charge to be taught purity rather than indulged or idolized. Young children are best kept in the Christian home as helpers, where study hours ended they help parents and older members help the younger, learning to follow Him, to help His mother with home duties, and to drink in the gladness of His life. His useful early years helping at home and working at the carpenter's bench under parental discipline fulfilled His commission just as truly as His later public ministry. Parents are to present before their children on the Sabbath, to make it the best day of the seven, Christ as a babe in Bethlehem who became a child obedient to father and mother and a youth industrious in helping to support the family, one who knows the trials, temptations, weariness, joys and happiness of youth.
His humility did not consist in a low estimate of His own character and qualifications, but in adapting Himself to fallen humanity in order to raise them up with Him to a higher life. His life therefore calls disciples to humility and self-sacrifice for the good of others instead of striving to exalt self above others, with diligence in labor and provision for those entrusted to care. His filial love in daily toil, by which for nearly thirty years He helped bear the burdens of His home, continued even in His final agony in care for His mother, teaching thoughtful care and tender sympathy and provision for parents. His early life in Nazareth was quiet, retired, and unrecognized among ordinary peasants and laborers, teaching humble guarding against evil influences and the company of those who do not live rightly rather than assuming strength to be unaffected. That obedient, humble home life, learning a trade and working with His own hands in simple garb as a common laborer, prepared Him to go forth to His mission as a genuine medical missionary exerting a blessing, transforming influence on all He contacted.