---

We are grateful that the Spirit of God has given us this first word of our Lord Jesus, and we love it none the less because it is a deep word. We are not surprised that even as a child the Son of God should give forth mysterious sayings. Stier, to whom I am much indebted for thoughts upon this subject, calls this text "the solitary floweret out of the enclosed garden of thirty years." What fragrance it exhales I It is a bud, but how lovely! It is not the utterance of His ripe manhood, but the question of His youth; yet this half-opened bud discovers delicious sweets and delightful colours worthy of our admiring meditation. We might call these questions of Jesus the prophecy of His character, and the programme of His life. In this our text He set before His mother all that He came into the world to do; revealing His high and lofty nature, and disclosing His glorious errand. This verse is one of those which Luther would call his little Bibles, with the whole gospel compressed into it.

I. Here we see THE HOLY CHILD'S PERCEPTION.

1. He evidently perceived most clearly His high relationship.

2. He perceived the constraints of this relationship. Here we have the first appearing of an imperious "must" which swayed the Saviour all along. We find it written of Him that "He must need go through Samaria," and He Himself said, "I must preach the kingdom of God"; and again to Zaccheus, "I must abide in thy house"; and again, "I must work the works of Him that sent his." "The Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders." "The Son of Man must be lifted up." "It behoved Christ to suffer." As a Son He must learn obedience by the things which He suffered. This Firstborn among many brethren must feel all the drawings of His sonship — the sacred instincts of the holy nature, therefore He must be about His Father's business. Now I put this to you again, for I want to be practical all along: Do you and I feel this Divine "must" as we ought? Is necessity laid upon us, yea, woe laid upon us unless we serve our Divine Father? Do we ever feel a hungering and a thirsting after Him, so that we must draw nigh to Him, and must come to His house, and approach His feet, and must speak with Him, and must hear His voice, and must behold Him face to face? We are not truly subdued to the son-spirit unless it be so; but when our sonship shall have become our master idea, then shall this Divine necessity be felt by us also, impelling us to seek our Father's face. As the sparks fly upward to the central fire, so must we draw nigh unto God, our Father and our all.

3. He perceived the forgetfulness of Mary and Joseph, and He wondered.

4. He perceived that He Himself personally had a work to do.

II. THE HOLY CHILD'S HOME. Where should Jesus be but in His Father's dwelling-place?

1. His Father was worshipped there.

2. There His Father's work went on.

3. There His Father's name was taught.

III. THE HOLY CHILD'S OCCUPATION.He spent His time in learning and inquiring. "How I pant to be doing good," says some young man. You are right, but you must not be impatient. Go you among the teachers, and learn a bit. You cannot teach yet, for you do not know: go and learn before you think of teaching. Hot spirits think that they are not serving God when they are learning; but in this they err. Beloved, Mary at Jesus' feet was commended rather than Martha, cumbered with much service. "But," says one, "we ought not to be always hearing sermons." No, I do not know that any of you are. "We ought to get to work at once," cries another. Certainly you ought, after you have first learned what the work is: but if everybody that is converted begins to teach we shall soon have a mass of heresies, and many raw and undigested dogmas taught which will rather do damage than good. Run, messenger, run! The King's business requireth haste. Nay, rather stop a little. Have you any tidings to tell?

1. Learn your message, and then run as fast as you please.

2. This Holy Child is about His Father's business, for He is engrossed in it. lids whole heart is in the hearing and asking questions. There is a force, to my mind, in the Greek, which is lost in the translation, which drags in the word "about." There is nothing parallel to that word in the Greek, which is, "Wist ye not that I must be in My Father's?" The way to worship God is to get heartily into it.

3. The Holy Child declares that He was under a necessity to be in it. "I must be." He could not help Himself. Other things did not interest the Holy Child, but this thing absorbed Him. You know the story of Alexander, that when the Persian ambassadors came to his father's court, little Alexander asked them many questions, but they were not at all such as boys generally think of. He did not ask them to describe to him the throne of ivory, nor the hanging gardens of Babylon, nor anything as to the gorgeous apparel of the king; but he asked what weapons the Persians used in battle, in what form they marched, and how far it was to their country; for the boy Alexander felt the man Alexander within him, and he had presentiments that he was the man who would conquer Persia, and show them another way of fighting that would make them turn their backs before him. It is a singular parallel to the case of the Child Jesus, who is taken up with nothing but what is His Father's; because it was for Him to do His Father's work, and to live for His Father's glory, and to execute His Father's purpose even to the last.

IV. Let us, lastly, learn This HOLY CHILD'S SPECIAL LESSON TO THOSE. OF US WHO ARE SEEKERS.

1. DO I address any children of God who have test sight of Christ? Mark, dearly beloved ones, if you and I want to find our Lord we know where He is. Do we not? He is at His Father's. Let us go unto His Father's: let us go to our Father and His Father, and let us speak with God, and ask Him where Jesus is if we have lost His company.

2. One more word, and that is to sinners who are seeking Christ. It will all come right if you will just think of this —

(1) that Jesus Christ is not far away; He is in His Father's house, and that is everywhere;

(2) that He is always about His Father's business, and that is, saving sinners.

(C. H. Spurgeon.)

---

---

KJV: And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?

WEB: He said to them, "Why were you looking for me? Didn't you know that I must be in my Father's house?"