The visit of Jesus to Jerusalem when He was twelve years of age is the only recorded incident in His life from infancy to His baptism at the age of thirty, yet it throws a flood of light on the scene, and makes us feel as well acquainted with the youth of Jesus as we possibly could by means of any ordinary biography.
Increasing in Wisdom
Verse 40 tells us that: "The child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon Him." (Luke 2:40)
Those who have the Revised Version will me by the marginal reading that, according to the literal Greek text, "[He] grew and waxed strong, becoming full of wisdom." (Luke 2:40)
He was in no respect different from other children, except in submission to authority, to those immediately over Him, and to the Word of God.
He was not born with all the wisdom which He afterwards exhibited, any more than He was born with a man's stature and strength. There are those who would have us believe that all men are born with all the wisdom that they will ever have, and that education consists merely in drawing it out of them,--an idea as absurd as it is dishonoring to God.
But while comparatively few believe that piece of nonsense, very many seem to think that it is true of Jesus Christ,--that He differed from everybody else, in that He never had to learn anything. The Scripture tells us that: "Jesus increased in wisdom and stature." (Luke 2:52)
No one would think of such a thing as a child born into the world six feet tall; but that would not be nearly so marvelous as a child born into the world with a man's wisdom. The latter would be a monstrosity indeed.
At twelve years of age the Jewish child becomes a man ecclesiastically. No synagogue can be formed unless there were ten men, no matter how many women and children there way be. While this was not necessarily the case in the time of Jesus, the custom has probably arisen from the fact that it was at that age that the males first presented themselves in the temple before the Lord, according to the requirement of the law. "Three times in the year all your males shall appear before the Lord God." (Exodus 23:17)
After this time Jesus undoubtedly went up to Jerusalem every year, but this is especially mentioned because it was the first occurrence.
A Lesson for Parents
The feast was over, and the people were on their way home. Joseph and Mary missed Jesus from their side, but gave themselves no concern over the matter, supposing Him to be with some of their acquaintances. But when after a day's journey they saw nothing of Him, they began to be alarmed, and, not finding Him with any of their friends in the company, they returned to Jerusalem, where another day was spent in search. To His mother's reproving words, "Son, why have you thus dealt with us? behold, your father and I have sought you sorrowing;" (Luke 2:48)
He replied, "How is it that you sought me?" (Luke 2:49)
Surely in these words and in this record we have a lesson for parents. It was most certainly recorded for their learning. The lesson to be learned is that parents should know where their children are. "How is it that you sought me?" (Luke 2:49)
Sure enough; if they had been mindful of their duty in the first instance, they would not have needed to seek Him. That He was in no danger, and exposed to no special temptation, was not due to their care. The place for every child is with its parents, and every hour of the day and night the parents should know where it is, supposing or even knowing that a child is with "kinsfolk and acquaintance," does not relieve parents of their responsibility.
Many a child has been ruined, or has at least acquired habits that required much discipline to overcome, by making what we supposed to be the most innocent visits. Parents cannot be too jealous in their watchfulness as to their children's associates. Nobody can take the place of the parent, and nobody should be expected to while the parent is alive.
Nobody else can be expected to have the same watchful interest in the child that the parent has. No right-minded person will resent such watchfulness on the part of the parent, and no true parent will begrudge the time and trouble. Too much trouble to look so closely after children? Ah! how few parents understand that they themselves are the chief gainers by their care for their children.
In bringing up children in a proper manner, the parents get most valuable discipline, and learn far more than the children do. The parent who does not learn more from his child than his child does from him, does not do his duty, or is very dull. Keep watch of the children! You need the discipline as much as they do.
The Wisdom of a Child
"They found Him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them and asking them questions. And all that heard Him were astonished at His understanding and answers." (Luke 2:46-47)
It is not uncommon to see a representation of this, entitled, "Jesus disputing with the doctors."
Nothing could be farther from the truth. Jesus was the manifestation of God; God is love; and: "Love does not behave itself unseemly." (1 Corinthians 13:5)
But it would be most unseemly for a child of twelve years to dispute with old men. He was listening attentively, and asking questions, not for the purpose of puzzling the doctors and showing His skill, but for the purpose of learning; and He was also modestly answering their questions. This would be becoming in any child. He was "sitting in the midst of the doctors," at their feet as a learner; and not standing as an instructor. "I [Paul] am verily a man which am a Jew, born in Tarsus, a city in Cilicia, yet brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, and taught according to the perfect manner of the law of the fathers, and was zealous toward God, as you all are this day." (Acts 22:3)
The people were amazed at His understanding and answers. Here again is where most readers of this narrative fail to learn the lesson that is intended for them. They take it for granted that Jesus was an anomaly, "an exceptionally forward child," and that no other child of twelve could be expected to know as much as He did. All this is a mistake.
It is no doubt true that very few, if any, other children have ever manifested the same wisdom and understanding at the age of twelve that Jesus did; but that does not signify that they could not. "He was made like unto His brethren, ... in all things," (Hebrews 2:17) in order that in all things His brethren might be made like unto Him. Not only in His suffering, but in every act of life. He was "leaving us an example, that you should follow in His steps." (1 Peter 2:21)
Jesus showed just the wisdom that any well-trained child ought to show. He was a child as well as a man in order that children as well as men may live and be saved by His life. His life perfected in a child today will make that child even such as He was.
All that heard Him were astonished, but they ought not to have been. That is, if the Word of God had been heeded by them as it should have been, such things would have been common; it would not have been thought an extraordinary occurrence.
It is a thousand pities and a burning shame that such wisdom is still so uncommon. If Christians had read this part of the record of the life of Jesus to profit, it would not be an uncommon thing for children to know as much of truth as most doctors of divinity do. And what then of the older people? Why, they would of course know correspondingly more.
God has revealed unto babes things that have been hid from the wise and prudent, and therefore we do often find children "wise beyond their years," as it is mistakenly said. No child is ever wise beyond his years, but thousands are less wise than they ought to be at any given age.
And whenever a child does manifest some degree of the wisdom and understanding that God designs that every child should have, most people who see him are so ill-advised as to talk and act as though he were a prodigy, until his wisdom is in danger of becoming foolishness.
The child that before was simple and natural, now supposing that he knew anything unusual becomes pert and selfconscious, and imagines that everybody in admiring him, or that if they are not they ought to be, and will take pains to attract attention to his supposed superior wisdom, which by that very act he loses.
It is most pitiful that most people, by their failure to understand how much a child ought to know, directly hinder the advancement of children in knowledge. There is need to learn of the Lord Jesus.
The Source of the Wisdom
The wonder exhibited by those who heard the child Jesus in the temple was the same as that afterward manifested by those who heard Him teach as a man. They said, "Whence has this man this wisdom, and these mighty works? Is not this the carpenter's son?" (Matthew 13:54-55)
And again, "Is not this the carpenter?" (Mark 6:3)
Yet He knew no more than any carpenter may know. He himself has told us the secret of His wisdom and power: "I do nothing of myself; but as my Father has taught me. I speak these things." (John 8:28) "The words that I speak unto you, I speak not of myself; but the Father that dwells in me, He does the works.
He has said, "If a man love me, he will keep my words; and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. ... Verily, verily I say unto you, he that believes on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father." (John 14:23,12) "For the Lord gives wisdom; out of His mouth comes knowledge and understanding." (Proverbs 2:6)
That was the Word that dwelt in Christ. Then: "Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom." (Colossians 3:16)
All that Jesus knew He learned from the Word of God. Bear in mind that at that time the Old Testament Scriptures were all that existed. But it was not by simply poring over the leaves of the Bible, that Jesus got His wisdom. That is the Word of God, yet the Word of God would not be diminished in the least if every Bible were sought out and burned. Men's knowledge of the Word would be interfered with, but the Word would abide just the same, unharmed.
The Word of God, which teaches wisdom is spread over the face of all nature. Every leaf of the forest helps to make God's great Book. Here Jesus learned, and it is from the Book that is open to the poorest, and is plain to the most unlettered, that Jesus taught the people.
Yet everything that may be learned in all creation, is epitomized in the Bible. Just because Christians have not appreciated the Bible, has there been so great a mass of "science falsely so called" accepted in the Church as true wisdom. No school that ignores God's written and living Word can ever make a scholar equal to the man who may never have studied in the schools, but who has lived by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.
The reason why the people were so astonished at the understanding of Jesus was that He held to the simple Word of God, while they knew nothing but the tradition of men. They were great sticklers to custom: He wished to know only what was right. The doctors dealt in imagination--the product of their own heads; Jesus held to facts--the infinite thoughts of God.
Truth is simple, and very easy to comprehend; it is only man's envelopment of it with speculation, that has made it seem obscure. The Word of God is light: "Your word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path." (Psalm 119:105)
And the opening of it gives light: "The entrance of your words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple." (Psalm 119:130)
On Christ rested "the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord; [Making] Him of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord." (Isaiah 11:2-3)
But the same Spirit is given freely to all who wish to receive in order to obey wisdom in seeking men, and begging them to accept her. "[She] cries without; she utters her voice in the streets; She cries in the chief place of concourse, in the openings ofthe gates; in the city she utters her words, saying, How long, you simple ones, will you love simplicity? and the scorners delight in their scoring, and fools hate knowledge? Turn at my reproof; behold, I will pour out my Spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you." (Proverbs 1:20-23)
Whoever will heed the reproofs of the Lord, and profit by them, will have wisdom that this world knows nothing about.
The Father's Business
"Wist you not that I must be about my Father's business?" (Luke 2:49)
Jesus said this when His parents found Him in the temple. "And He went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject unto them." (Luke 2:49)
Although He was but a child, He knew that He was a child of God, and He knew His Father's will. Yet He was not puffed up by His knowledge; of course not, because whoever has the wisdom that comes from above, and who knows that it comes from above, and not from himself, cannot become puffed up or elated over it.
People think it a strange thing that anybody should really know the will of the Lord, and what the Lord has for him to do, when the fact is that every child ought to know it.
What was the Father's business for the Child Jesus to attend to? It was to be subject to His parents. He did not neglect His Father's business in going down to Nazareth with Joseph and Mary, and being subject to them. "Children, obey your parents in all things; for this is well pleasing unto the Lord." (Colossians 3:30) "Children, obey your parents in the Lord; for this is right." (Ephesians 6:1)
Most people think that if they go about their Father's business, they must leave home, and engage in some "mission work." Well, Jesus was charged with the greatest mission ever committed to any being and He discharged it faithfully; and He was never more the Saviour of the world than when He was in Nazareth subject to His parents. There is a lesson here for old and young. "Whatsoever your hand finds to do, do it with your might." (Ecclesiastes 1:10) "And whatsoever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus." (Colossians 3:17)
This is to be about your Father's business.
Finally: the sum of all that may be learned in this narrative is found in this: "The Word became flesh." (John 1:14)
The Word was God, and God was manifest in the flesh; but this was simply for a light to the world, that the same might be manifest in all men. "The Word of God is living and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow." (Hebrews 4:12)
Take the Word as your guide, become full of it, eat it and assimilate it and thus it will become flesh, and you will not only know, but will do, the will of your Father which is in heaven.--Present Truth, January 4, 1900--Subtitle: The Child Jesus Visits Jerusalem--International Sunday School Lesson for January 14--Timeline: I-8 (First Passover Visit), 9 (Youth and Young Manhood)--Luke 2:41-52.