The Pulpit Commentary — Luke — Volume 1 — Section 58

Vers. 39-52.-The chi?dhood and the waiting-time. Before the age of twelve, nothing is told. In modern biographies, all kinds of traits, incidents, forecasts of the man in the child, a.re mentioned. The Apocryphal Gospels fall in with this custom. God's tbou~hts a.re not our thoughts. The child-life of "the Lord's Clirist" is thorouf.;:hly simple, A bright-eyed boy, learning to read the Scriptures at his mother's knee, running out and in to shop and cottage, e.n.d joining sometimes in the innocent pastimes of the hillside, taking e.t night his little quilt from the ledge snrrounding the wall of the house, and laying himself down. in peace and eleeping,- such, we may conceive, was the life of the holy Child. 'l'houghtful, wise, gentle, yet full of a nameless "grace and truth ; " for (ver. 40) " he grew and waxed strong, filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was on him." The incident which alone breaks the silence is connected with his twelfth year, the completion of which was an import.ant hour in Jewish history-the hour of transference from pupilage to a certain measure of responsibility. At that age Jesus, "a son of the Law," is taken by Joseph and Mary to Jerusalem. The jonmey, the caravans of pilgrims, the incidents of the way, the three nights' belting, and then the sight of Jerusalem with its temple shining in the sun,-we can imagine what all this must have been to the exquisitely sensitive soul of the Child! And the week's stay in the capital-what bursting of thoughts! what tides of inspiration! Let us dwell on the first recorded word of Jesus-his reply to bis mother (ver. 49), when she and Joseph found him among the doctors. Regard it as the word of sanctified boyhood-as the awakenment to the consciousness of (1) the supreme relation of the life; (2) the supreme interest of the life; (3) the supreme necessity of the life. L THE sUPBEHE RELATION. "My Father." We may infer, from the fiftieth verse, that now for the first time this word had passed from bis lips. " Thy father and I," said Mary. Quietly but distinctly comes the intimation of the Fatherhood-an intimat.ion in which we can trace the disengagement. "Nay, not he whom I have honoured, and honour, e.s earthly parent, but he to whom I am truly bound-he who is, who only is, my Father." And a great, solemn hour it is "'.hen the feeling o_f a personal, individual relation to the _Eternal dawns on the ~o;'lsc10usness_. !n earhe~t years the child-nature is enfolded m others. The fi)·st CrlSlS of the life 1s. wbe~. 1t begins to realize that it cR11not merely be led; that 1t has a place and calling ol its own·1 that it must think and will, instead of only reflecting the thought and volition of tb ose who have shaped its path. Here there is a parting of the ways--0ne way being towards a self-will, which has "torment II in it for the youth as for others, and which, unless corrected and di,ciplined by sharp experience, will bear the soul into hurtful alliances, will prove "a hewing ont of broken cisterns whi;h hold no water?" the other way being that of Divine gracA, the acceptance of a higher rule and gmdance, the learning of the great name Duty in the greater, the supporting Name of God, the response of the heart to a love and righteousness which asks its yes, the wit,)eijs of the eternal Spirit with the human that the Boy is the Son of God. Who will not anxiously endeavour so to direct the mind, in the period when it ii; most eu.sceptible of m. n. 1-62.) THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO BT. LUKE. 49