03.11. The Word's First Word.
The Word’s First Word.
Luke 2:49. The silence which encompasses twenty-eight years of our Lord’s earthly life is once broken. Luke the evangelist, who gives us the most detailed record of the infancy, tells us the one authentic anecdote of the boy Jesus. Not until the age of twelve years was a Jewish boy required to enter into the full obedience of an Israelite, and to attend the Passover. After this age, he became a "son of the law." Doubtless it meant much to Jesus to go up to the Holy City and witness the impressive ceremonial of the most sacred of feasts.
After spending the usual time in Jerusalem, Joseph and Mary joined a Galilean caravan and set out for Nazareth. To their consternation, Jesus was lost. Making anxious inquiry, the distracted parents returned to Jerusalem. After three days--probably one for the outward journey, one for the return, and one for search in the city--they found Jesus in the temple "sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them, and asking them questions." We fear that some Christians have failed to appreciate this passage. There was nothing forward in Jesus’ attitude; he is not represented as assuming any authority or acting the part of teacher. F. W. Farrar contrasts the Gospel story with what we find in the Apocryphal Gospels and other books, where a forwardness and presumption is implied which would have awakened the displeasure of the Rabbis, whereas Jesus had won their admiration by his modesty and intelligence. "He was ’sitting’ at the feet of the Rabbis, ’hearing them,’ i. e., trying to learn all which they could teach; and ingenuously, but with consummate insight, ’answering’ the questions which they addressed to him." All the people who were present-apparently Rabbis and visitors alike-were "amazed at his understanding and answers," and Joseph and Mary too were astonished at the sight. The mother of our Lord let her natural anxiety manifest itself in a gentle rebuke, "Son, why hast thou dealt thus with us? behold, thy father and I sought thee sorrowing." The Father’s business-or house.
Jesus’ reply to his mother’s inquiry and expostulation is variously rendered. The Common Version puts it: "How is it that ye sought me? Wist ye not that I must he about my Father’s business?" In the Revised Version the second question runs: "Wist ye not that I must be in my Father’s house?" The literal meaning of the original Greek words is "in the things of my Father," and there is even yet some discussion as to which of the two famous English versions is preferable, though most scholars agree with the revisers.
"I must be about my Father’s business." The words would furnish an excellent life’s motto for the Christian. They give also a beautiful description of the life of him whose first recorded utterance we are considering, for it is written of him that he "went about doing good" and that he came to earth to do God’s will. We might like to think that as a boy of twelve Jesus had declared his life’s purpose and devotion as the common reading suggests. It is doubtless such thoughts which have made many cling to the words of King James’s Version even while they have been convinced that the revision gives a more probable view. The sentiment and associations of the familiar rendering are so beautiful that it seems a pity to have to depart from it.
It has to be confessed, however, that the translation of the Revised Version has so much in its favor, and so fits the context, that we are practically compelled to adopt it. When Mary had complained about having to seek her son sorrowing. Jesus’ appropriate remark was: "Seek me? Why did you need to seek me? Did you not know I must be here, in my Father’s house?" Mary should have come at once to the temple.
It has been suggested by some writers that we might retain both renderings, A.V. and R.V. alike, taking one as primary and the other as secondary. There is no doubt that both make sense, and give excellent lessons; but it seems "certain that only one of the meanings was in the mind of the artless Child from whose lips they fell," and that meaning is given in the Revised Version.
"Thy father"--"My Father."
It will be noted that, taking either version, the boy Jesus is represented as answering Mary’s reference to "thy father" by a declaration that it was God who was his Father. Mary of course, as Luke who records the story, knew that Jesus had no human father; but, as was quite natural, Joseph received the title as the reputed father, just as in Luke’s own narrative we have mention of "his parents" (Luke 2:41). Now, however, Jesus reveals his consciousness of a special and divine origin and mission. The question has often been discussed: When did Jesus first become conscious of his divinity and of the redemptive purpose of coming to earth? No final answer can be given; for, in the absence of revelation, speculation is idle. But it is clear from his own words that at the age of twelve he was conscious that no man was his father but that he stood in a unique relationship to God.
It is surely most significant that in his first recorded utterance Jesus spoke of God as his Father, and that in the last sentence spoken prior to his death on the cross he also did so. "Father," he prayed, "into thy hands I commend my spirit,’ and having said this, he gave up the ghost." Pre-eminently Jesus came from heaven to earth to show men the Father and to bring them back to the Father. Fittingly, then, the first and the last of his recorded utterances should contain his greatest word. Between these was given the revelation of the character of God in the words and deeds of a perfect life. The example of Jesus.
Other thoughts inevitably associated with the incident are worthy of mention. We see Jesus’ early love for and knowledge of the Scriptures. He later declared that man lives not by bread alone but by every word of God. He met all enemies--Satan, human foes and death itself--with weapons from the arsenal of the word. Again, his love for the temple, which he twice called his Father’s house, is evident. In his careful attendance on religious services--in temple and synagogue--our Lord furnished an example to his disciples. Lastly, we have the beautiful record which says that, after his acknowledgment of God alone as his Father, he went down to Nazareth with Joseph and Mary "and was subject unto them." He was divine and yet human, so high and yet so lowly, beyond the greatest of earth in dignity and yet willing humbly and obediently to return to the peasant home and labor at the carpenter’s bench. Well might we say, with Irenaeus of old: "He passed through every age, having been an infant to sanctify infants; a little one among the little ones, sanctifying the little ones; among the youths a youth." He left us an example, that we should follow his steps.