Luke 2:49

A DIVINE NECESSITY

‘Wist ye not that I must?’

Luke 2:49

Our thoughts go out to Him Who is the founder and pattern of our religion, and the use He made in His life on earth of His opportunities of worship in God’s special house of prayer. His first recorded words, indeed, were spoken in self-defence in the house of prayer. The force of the question is altogether independent of its ending. Whether we prefer, with the revisers, ‘In My Father’s house,’ or the Authorised Version, ‘About my Father’s business,’ in either case appeal is made to necessity. The boy Jesus is surprised that His mother should have sought Him in such anxiety when He had tarried behind in the Temple, and in anticipation of criticism as being wayward and troublesome urges that He had only been doing what He was obliged.

Both these points are worth our careful attention.

I. His character for obedience was established.—As they had trained Him, so He was, and even when His conduct seemed disobedient their general experience of Him ought to have prevented misjudgment.

II. Paramount as are the claims of the home and the narrower, more intimate circle, there are times when these must yield to something higher which the intellect fails to define, though the conscience cannot evade.

—Rev. Dr. C. R. Davey Biggs.