We now proceed to the solitary circumstance in the Child-life of Jesus which is given in the Gospels. He had been growing for twelve years in strength and in spirit, and the Lord loved him. The Child in Nazareth redeemed in God's eyes all the world. It was the one absorbing interest in the Divine outlook upon our race. And now he is taken by his pious parents to the Passover Feast in Jerusalem. It is his second visit to the temple; this time he comes himself; the first time, as we have seen, he was presented. The following points deserve attention in this narrative.

I. THE PARENTAL CARE EXERCISED OVER JESUS. The pious pair, Joseph and Mary, went, as we are told, every year to Jerusalem to the Passover. And they had given the holy Child committed to their charge such advantages as Nazareth afforded. The home school especially, not to speak of synagogue services, to which he was doubtless regularly taken, evidenced their interest in the welfare of the Child. No sooner, therefore, has he reached the age of twelve, at which time little ones were deemed able to become "children of the Law," than he is taken up by them to see the Passover at Jerusalem. Their pious, consistent life was an excellent preparation for the solemnities of the great feast. Jesus came face to face with the ceremonies after experiencing most tender home care. And the history before us affords ample evidence of the parental consideration. If it was not perfect parental care, this is only to allow that neither Joseph nor Mary was sinless. Indeed, one of the German preachers bases an admirable discourse on parental duty upon this history, finding in it six separate hints upon it. But let us pause a moment over the care with which they must have explained to him all the ritual. Doubtless he saw more in it than they did, but he must have received gratefully their help in the circumstances. To them the Passover spoke of a great deliverance afforded to their fathers; to him it spoke of a great sacrifice yet to come. His insight must have been a deeper thing than they could then appreciate. And now let us pass to the oversight of which the parents were guilty. Their care was great, but it was not absolutely perfect. In the bustle of preparation for the home-going, the parents started with the caravan under the impression that he must be in the company of the boys who were in considerable numbers attached to the procession. They' should have made sure, and not left such a Child to the chances of travelling. We have no right to impute the separation of Jesus from his parents to any lack of dutifulness on his part, but solely to an oversight on theirs. What were all their bits of baggage and their acquaintances in comparison with the safe custody of "the holy Child"? And in consistency with this view, it has been suggested that underneath Mary's apparent expostulation and reproof there is a latent confession of her fault, which she and Joseph tried to atone for in their diligent search for the missing Boy.

II. THE LONELY BOY TURNED INSTINCTIVELY TO THE TEMPLE. The seven days of the Passover Feast had been a rare feast to Jesus. The priests and ritual and all the varied life which thronged the temple court must have been a revelation to him. He brought the consciousness of a Jew instructed in the Law to bear upon the temple and its services. We must look into his mind through the Old Testament. We there find the idea of God's Fatherhood in relation to his people several times referred to (Deuteronomy 14:1, 2; Hosea 11:1; Jeremiah 31:9, 20; Psalm 103:13, etc.). To the little thoughtful Boy, therefore, the temple was regarded as the home of him who was a Father to all who trusted in him. And this general idea of fatherhood became specialized in his deep, reverential musings, and he could not but feel towards God as no Jew had ever felt before. Whether he had as a Child the further revelation yet made to him of his peculiar relation to God as the Only Begotten, or reached this in the progress of the years, is what we cannot be certain of. At all events, the temple was the Father's house. To it the lonely Lad turned. He felt drawn to God irresistibly, now that his earthly guardians had gone away. "When father and mother forsake me," he could say, "the Lord will take me up." The orphan Child, so to speak, turned to the temple, as to his real home.

III. HE BECAME A HOLY LEARNER THERE. Not only was the temple the scene of the sacrifices; it was also the place of learning for those interested in the Law. Schools were established within the sacred precincts where the scribes discoursed to such pupils as chose to sit at their feet. The method seems to have been by dialogue - the question and answer which once were so prized. Here the Boy believed he would get light about the will of the great Father who dwelt there, and who had given his people the Law. As a faithful Son, he wished to get all possible light about his Father's business, and so he frequented the schools. He was a "model catechumen," as a suggestive writer on this whole passage calls him. Although he must have seen through the shallowness of some of his teachers, and had doubtless deeper insight than any, he was content to sit at their feet and get all the good from them he could. It was an instance, surely, of great diligence in embracing every opportunity of improvement which came his way. He wanted to learn all he could while he had the chance. And most naturally did his answers and questions astonish the doctors. They had never had such an apt scholar before. His insight led them along lines they never had traveled hitherto. And as for the Father's business, it at least embraces such elements as these:

1. The understanding of the terms of access to his presence. The significance of the ritual which was celebrated in the temple, the meaning of sacrifice, of bloodshedding, of incense, and of approach by the appointed priests into the Divine presence, - all this belonged to the Father's business.

2. The understanding of the meaning of his commandments. The Law as the expression of the Father's will, and read consequently in the light of love.

3. How far the knowledge of the Father was to be extended. The kingdom of God in its universal range, as distinct from a narrow nationality, - this was part of the Father's business. Hence the lingering of the holy Learner about the temple schools. His apt answers would procure him lodging and food during the season of separation his parents. Having put God first, all these things were added unto him (Matthew from Matthew 6:33).

IV. HIS RECOVERY BY THE ANXIOUS MOTHER. Joseph and Mary, on discovering at the end of the first day's march the absence of the Child, set out for Jerusalem to find him. They doubtless inquire all the way back, and then they go hither and thither through the city, and at last think of the temple. There, in the midst of the doctors, he is found and recovered by Mary. Her words are apparent rebuke, but really confession upon her part of the oversight. She had never before had any reason for fault-finding; it comes all the more surprisingly upon her now. Jesus defends himself on the ground that he was looking after his Father's business. In other words, he insists on putting God first, before Mary or Joseph. We get an insight into what godliness is. It means making God's business supreme. God claims first place, and this is what the Boy Jesus gave him. The Revised Version translates the words," Wist ye not that I must be in my Father's house?" This would simply refer to their folly in not first seeking him there. The Authorized Version is as near the Greek, and of wider import. But Mary and Joseph did not understand his meaning. These are the first recorded words of Jesus; and how they harmonize with the last, when on the cross he said, "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit"!

V. HIS OBEDIENCE AND DEVELOPMENT. He has got all the doctors can meanwhile give to him. It would not have been profitable for him to have remained longer in their schools, and to have merely witnessed their powers of disputation. He is to have collision with them soon enough. Besides, he will be safer out of their reach in the quiet of the northern home. And so he recognizes in his mother's call the voice of his Father in heaven, and in the privacy of Nazareth his Father's business. He has to wait as well as work. Hence without a murmur he goes away with them and is subject unto them. But this subjection and reverence did not hinder, but really helped, his development. "He increased in wisdom and in stature, and in favor with God and man." As a person under parental authority, he found his reward in wisdom, and became beloved of all around him as well as of the Lord above. It was a beautiful example to set us of being subject under God to parents and superiors. His growth in wisdom was also so considerate. He would take wisdom as others have to get it, gradually, and pass from the known to the knowledge of the unknown. And God's favor will rest as well as man's favor upon all who follow in the footsteps of his Divine Son in this beautiful subjection. There is no truth more important at the present time than this of realizing our development in due subjection. - R.M.E.

The following description refers to ceremonies now practised: — "A few days ago I attended a very interesting service in a Jewish synagogue. A boy just twelve years old was brought by his father to be admitted as a member of the synagogue; there were present the parents of the boy, his brothers and sisters, his friends, and some few strangers. After several ceremonies had been performed, the priests read a portion of the law in Hebrew; the boy then stepped forward to the desk or platform, near the centre of the building, and read from a roll of parchment, in a clear distinct voice, a short psalm. A pause ensued, and then the old man addressed the boy in a few brief sentences, telling him that he had attained to years of discretion, and knew the difference between right and wrong, great responsibility rested on him; that it was his duty to follow the good and shun the evil; that it became him to show that the instruction he had received had not been given in vain; that he must diligently practise that which he knew to be right; be obedient to his parents, kind and affectionate to his brothers and sisters, charitable to those who needed his help, and faithful to the religion he had been instructed in. Then, placing his hand on the boy's head, he prayed earnestly that the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, would bless the lad, would preserve him from danger and from sin, and make him a wise and good man, if he should be spared to enjoy length of days; or, if his life should be short, that he might be admitted to the presence of God in heaven."

(Biblical Things not Generally Known.)

Every year they went up to Jerusalem. Very pleasant must their journey have been. Very different was it from the journeys we make in this Western isle. No wide road led from Nazareth to Jerusalem. The eighty miles of ground that stretched between the village and the city was only crossed by narrow paths. The journey had to be made on foot. Here and there would be a mule carrying some one too feeble to walk the whole distance. Each village on the route would furnish its little cluster of pilgrims, and as the new-comers mingled with those who were already in the pilgrim band, pleasant would be the greetings passing from one to another. We can picture them to ourselves as they wind through the valleys and at times cross the brow of a projecting hill. We can hear their voices raised in song, raised so that the hills resound, and the awakened echoes bid you think that the mountains are clapping their hands for joy. You perhaps have noticed in the Psalms as they are given in the Bible, here and there, the heading, "Song of Degrees." They are the psalms which the pilgrims sang at they stepped along — processional hymns we might call them. Turn to two of them (Psalm 121. and 122.) and see how wonderfully fitting are their words for that exulting singing which. . the pilgrims would encourage one another to give utterance to. "We can well imagine Psalm 122, being sung by the pilgrims when first the walls and palaces of the Holy City appeared in sight. The Gospel tells that when Jesus was twelve years old He was for the first time taken by His parents on pilgrimage to Jerusalem. You may be sure that He would take a boy's delight in the journey. It was one which would enable Him to open His eyes upon His Father's beautiful world, and to see beyond the blue mountains which always seemed so mysterious in the distance as He looked upon them from the vale of Nazareth. We may be sure that He would be on the look-out with all a boy's eagerness, for the first view of the distant towers of the Holy City. He would enjoy, too, the companionship of the other pilgrim-boys. There were, as the story itself tells us, many of His kinsfolk among the pilgrim band, and He would pass from one group to another, and be welcomed by all whom He approached. When the solemn days at Jerusalem were ended, the company of pilgrims started back for their homes. The Child Jesus tarried behind in Jerusalem. You all know how Joseph and Mary sought Him. I will not now ask you to contemplate the scene in the Temple portico, where He was at length discovered. It is a scene of great beauty, and one on which the thoughts of Christian teachers and Christian artists have reverently pondered ever since it has been described on the Gospel page. But the story of our Lord's pilgrimage is one on which our thoughts may well rest, one which we may well take to our homes and ponder over. We have in it an example set which we should never lose sight of. When twelve years old, children were considered old enough to go with their parents to the great worship of the whole year at Jerusalem. The way of the pilgrimage was made glad with songs such as would stir the young heart. In our Christian services, too, we ought to think of children just as did the dwellers in the Holy Land, in their Jewish Services. Again, all life long we should be conscious that we are but sojourners and pilgrims upon earth. "Here we have no continuing city, but we seek one to come."

(H. N. Grimley, M. A.)

You have, perhaps, seen a beautiful rose, soon after it has unfolded its blossom. You looked at it yesterday, as you passed it in the garden, or watered it in the window, and it was only a rosebud, a little knot of fragrant petals, wrapped up together and clinging to one another. You visit it to-day, and you find that during the night a change has taken place. The knot has untied itself, the petals have separated from one another, and now form, not a knot, but a little cup, in which are some drops of the morning dew, a cup more delicately tinted than the finest porcelain, and breathing forth delicious odours. The rose has just opened its breast to the sun. But how long a time has it taken to bring about this result! First, there was the planting the root, which lay under the soil all the winter, and showed no sign of life. But though it showed no sign of life, it was not dead. Nursed for a time by the warmth and moisture of the earth, it was bursting underground; and in the spring it pushed up a little green sprout, which very gradually became a stem, and the stem grew taller every day, and at length a bud formed as the crown of it. And the bud swelled and swelled day by day, and at length one morning you found it with its breast open as I have described. And all this was done quite secretly, without any noise to call attention to it. Now, in the Song of Solomon, our Lord, speaking of Himself by the mouth of the prophet, calls Himself "the Rose of Sharon." And in Isaiah it is foretold of Christ, "He shall grow up before Him" (i.e., before God) "as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground." And this opening of the rose is something like the opening of our Lord's human soul, when He reached the age of twelve. Up to that period the Gospel history is quite silent as to anything thought, or said, or done by Him. No doubt much was going on in His human mind; no doubt He had many thoughts and feelings, all of them holy, pure, and beautiful, the exact model of what a child's thoughts and feelings ought to be; but God has screened them from us, and not been pleased to tell us what they were. At twelve years old, however, the bud unfolds itself; our blessed Lord becomes fully conscious who He is; and we hear Him speaking and calling God His Father, and are allowed a glimpse into His mind and thoughts. And what beautiful fragrant thoughts they are! Do not estimate the importance of events, then, by the noise they make in the world. The events which startle us most are not always those of greatest consequence. Men often stare and gaze at that which is the least worthy of attention. What is it, think you, which interests the holy angels most? a great battle? a great triumph? the fall of a great city or a great empire? Rather it is the growth and progress of God's kingdom in the hearts of single persons — the battle against sin which this man is fighting in Christ's strength, the triumph over sin which that man is winning by Christ's grace; in a word, the inner life of men, the life of the immortal spirit — not that life which is acted in history, and related by historians. And the better and holier we become, the more shall we be interested in what interests God and holy angels.

(Dean Goulburn.)

The herdsmen of Nazareth were ignorant and poor; still they complied with the law, and at ]east once every year went up to Jerusalem after the custom of the feast. In the procession on one such occasion there was a family, the head of which was a plain, serious-looking middle-aged man, with whom the world has since become acquainted as Joseph. His wife, Mary, was then about twenty-seven years of age, gentle, modest, sweet-spoken, of fair complexion, with eyes of violetblue, and hair half brown, half gold. She rode a donkey. James, Joses, Simon, and Jude, full-grown sons of Joseph, walked with their father. A child of Mary, twelve years old, walked near her. It is not at all likely that the group attracted Special attention from their fellow-travellers. "The peace of the Lord be with you!" they would say in salute, and have return in kind. More than eighteen hundred years have passed since that obscure family made that pious pilgrimage. Could they come back and make it now, the singing, shouting, and worship that would go with them would be without end; not Solomon, in all his glory, nor Caesar, nor any, or all of the modern kings, would have such attendance. Let us single out the Boy, that we may try to see Him as He was — afoot like His brethren, small, growing, and therefore slender. His attire was simple: on His head a white handkerchief, held in place by a cord, one corner turned under at the forehead, the other corners loose. A tunic, also white, covered Him from neck to knees, girt at the waist. His arms and legs were bare; on his feet were sandals of the most primitive kind, being soles of ox-hide attached to the ankles by leathern straps. He carried a stick that was much taller than Himself. The old painters, called upon to render this childish figure on canvas, would have insisted upon distinguishing it with a nimbus at least; some of them would have filled the air over its head with cherubs; some would have had the tunic plunged into a pot of madder: the very courtierly amongst them would have blocked the way of both mother and son with monks and cardinals. The Boy's face comes to me very clearly. I imagine Him by the roadside on a rock which He has climbed, the better to see the procession winding picturesquely through the broken country. His head is raised in an effort at far sight. The light of an intensely brilliant sun is upon His countenance, which in general cast is oval and delicate. Under the folds of the handkerchief I see the forehead, covered by a mass of projecting sun-burned blond hair, which the wind has taken liberties with and tossed into tufts. The eyes are in shade, leaving a doubt whether they are in brown, or violet like His mother's; yet they are large and healthfully clear, and still retain the parallelism of arch between brow and upper lid, usually the characteristic of children and beautiful women. The nose is of regular inward curve, joined prettily to a short upper lip by nostrils just full enough to give definition to transparent shadows in the corners. The mouth is small, and open slightly, so that through the scarlet freshness of its lines I catch a glimpse of two white teeth. The cheeks are ruddy and round, and only a certain squareness of chin tells of years this side the day the Magi laid their treasures at His feet. Putting face and figure together, and mindful of the attitude of interest in what is passing before Him, the Lad as I see Him on the rock is handsome and attractive. When the journey shall have ended, and His mother made Him ready for the court of the Temple, He may justify a more worshipful description; we may then see in Him the promise of the Saviour of men in the comeliness of budding youth, His sad destiny yet far in the future.

(Author of "Ben Hur.")

There is inspiration in the silence of Scripture. The Holy Spirit records only this one incident in the life of Jesus from His infancy to the beginning of His ministry. He thus teaches that quietness and modesty are the best ornaments of youth. And by the special character of this one incident which He has chosen to record, He teaches that the first duty of children is to resort to God, in His House, and in His appointed means of religious instruction and grace; and the second, to be subject to parents and others who are over them in the Lord.

(Bishop Chris. Wordsworth.)

As soon as the Child Jesus was old enough to join in public worship, His parents took Him with them to the Temple. It was not enough to set Him a good example. They proposed to train Him in the right way. Whatever a child ought to do, his parents ought to see that he does do. If he likes to do it, so much the better. If he does not like to do it, so much the more need is there that his parents should make him do it. Prayer and praise and reverence and devotion, and obedience and right being and right doing in all things at home, and worship and attentive hearing in the House of God, are duties which parents ought to see that their children attend to. If the children fail in these things, the parents cannot count themselves free of responsibility of blame.

(H. C. Trumbull.)

Anna, Aser, Asher, Augustus, Cyrenius, David, Jesus, Joseph, Mary, Phanuel, SimeonBethlehem, Galilee, Jerusalem, Judea, Nazareth, Rome, SyriaFeast, Jerusalem, Parents, Passover, Yearly1. Augustus taxes all the Roman empire.
6. The nativity of Jesus.
8. An angel relates it to the shepherds, and many sing praises to God for it.
15. The shepherds glorify God.
21. Jesus is circumcised.
22. Mary purified.
25. Simeon and Anna prophesy of Jesus,
39. who increases in wisdom,
41. questions in the temple with the teachers,
51. and is obedient to his parents.

Luke 2:41

     5312   feasting
     5976   visiting
     7240   Jerusalem, history
     8629   worship, times

Luke 2:38-52

     2520   Christ, childhood

Luke 2:41-42

     5442   pilgrimage
     7406   Passover

Luke 2:41-43

     7469   temple, Herod's

Luke 2:41-44

     5590   travel

Luke 2:41-50

     5658   boys

Luke 2:41-51

     5379   law, Christ's attitude
     7241   Jerusalem, significance

December 25. "I Bring You Glad Tidings" (Luke ii. 10).
"I bring you glad tidings" (Luke ii. 10). A Christmas spirit should be a spirit of humanity. Beside that beautiful object lesson on the Manger, the Cradle, and the lowly little child, what Christian heart can ever wish to be proud? It is a spirit of joy. It is right that these should be glad tidings, for, "Behold, I bring you glad tidings of great joy which shall be to all people." It is a spirit of love. It should be the joy that comes from giving joy to others. The central fact of Christmas is …
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

Was, Is, is to Come
'... The babe lying in a manger...'--LUKE ii. 16. '... While He blessed them, He was parted from them, and carried up into heaven...'--LUKE xxiv. 51. 'This same Jesus... shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go...'--ACTS I. 11. These three fragments, which I have ventured to isolate and bring together, are all found in one author's writings. Luke's biography of Jesus stretches from the cradle in Bethlehem to the Ascension from Olivet. He narrates the Ascension twice, because it has two …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions Of Holy Scripture

The Boy in the Temple
'And He said unto them, How is it that ye sought Me! wist ye not that I must be about My Father's business?' --LUKE ii. 49. A number of spurious gospels have come down to us, which are full of stories, most of them absurd and some of them worse, about the infancy of Jesus Christ. Their puerilities bring out more distinctly the simplicity, the nobleness, the worthiness of this one solitary incident of His early days, which has been preserved for us. How has it been preserved? If you will look over …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions Of Holy Scripture

Simeon's Swan-Song
'Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace, according to Thy word: 30. For mine eyes have seen Thy salvation.'--LUKE ii. 29,30. That scene, when the old man took the Infant in his withered arms, is one of the most picturesque and striking in the Gospel narrative. Simeon's whole life appears, in its later years, to have been under the immediate direction of the Spirit of God. It is very remarkable to notice how, in the course of three consecutive verses, the operation of that divine Spirit …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions Of Holy Scripture

Shepherds and Angels
'And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them; and they were sore afraid. 10. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. 11. For unto you is born this day, in the city of David, a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. 12. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions Of Holy Scripture

The Angel's Message and Song
And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the LORD came upon them, and the glory of the LORD shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the LORD . And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe …
John Newton—Messiah Vol. 1

December the Nineteenth the Sun of Righteousness
"A light to lighten the Gentiles." --LUKE ii. 25-40. That was the wonder of wonders. Hitherto the light had been supposed to be for Israel alone; and now a heavenly splendour was to fall upon the Gentiles. Hitherto the light had been thought of as a lamp, illuming a single place; now it was to be a sun, shedding its glory upon a world. The "people that sat in darkness" are now to see "a great light." New regions are to be occupied; there is to be daybreak everywhere! "The Sun of Righteousness …
John Henry Jowett—My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year

December the Twenty-Fifth Christmas Cheer
"Good will toward men!" --LUKE ii. 8-20. The heavens are not filled with hostility. The sky does not express a frown. When I look up I do not contemplate a face of brass, but the face of infinite good will. Yet when I was a child, many a picture has made me think of God as suspicious, inhumanly watchful, always looking round the corner to catch me at the fall. That "eye," placed in the sky of many a picture, and placed there to represent God, filled my heart with a chilling fear. That God was …
John Henry Jowett—My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year

Religious Joy.
"And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord."--Luke ii. 10, 11. There are two principal lessons which we are taught on the great Festival which we this day celebrate, lowliness and joy. This surely is a day, of all others, in which is set before us the heavenly excellence and the acceptableness in God's sight of that state which …
John Henry Newman—Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII

The Wilderness: Temptation. Matthew 4:1-11. Mark 1:12, 13. Luke 4:1-13.
The University of Arabia: Jesus' naturalness--the Spirit's presence--intensity, Luke 2:45-51.--a true perspective--- the temptation's path--sin's path--John's grouping, 1 John 2:16.--the Spirit's plan--why--the devil's weakness--the Spirit's leading--a wilderness for every God-used man, Moses, Elijah, Paul. Earth's Ugliest, Deepest Scar: Jesus the only one led up to be tempted--the wilderness--its history, Genesis 13:10-13. 18:16-19:38.--Jesus really tempted--no wrong here in inner response--every …
S. D. Gordon—Quiet Talks about Jesus

Joy Born at Bethlehem
In our text we have before us the sermon of the first evangelist under the gospel dispensation. The preacher was an angel, and it was meet it should be so, for the grandest and last of all evangels will be proclaimed by an angel when he shall sound the trumpet of the resurrection, and the children of the regeneration shall rise into the fullness of their joy. The key-note of this angelic gospel is joy--"I bring unto you good tidings of great joy." Nature fears in the presence of God--the shepherds …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 17: 1871

"Nunc Dimittis"
We shall note, this morning, first, that every believer may be assured of departing in peace; but that, secondly, some believers feel a special readiness to depart now: "Now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace;" and, thirdly, that there are words of encouragement to produce in us the like readiness: "according to thy word." There are words of Holy Writ which afford richest consolation in prospect of departure. I. First, then, let us start with the great general principle, which is full of comfort; …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 17: 1871

Christ About his Father's Business
But now I shall invite your attention, first, to the spirit of the Saviour, as breathed in these words, "Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?" and then, secondly, I shall exhort the children of God, with all the earnestness which I can command, with all the intensity of power which I can summon to the point, to labour after the same spirit, that they too may unfeignedly say, "Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business? " I. First, then note THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST. It was …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 3: 1857

The First Christmas Carol
Let us turn aside, having just thought of angels for a moment, to think rather of this song, than of the angels themselves. Their song was brief, but as Kitto excellently remarks, it was "well worthy of angels expressing the greatest and most blessed truths, in words so few, that they become to an acute apprehension, almost oppressive by the pregnant fulness of their meaning"--"Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, good will toward men." We shall, hoping to be assisted by the Holy Spirit, …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 4: 1858

Christ's Boyhood
LUKE ii. 52. And Jesus increased in wisdom, and in stature, and in favour both with God and man. I do not pretend to understand these words. I preach on them because the Church has appointed them for this day. And most fitly. At Christmas we think of our Lord's birth. What more reasonable, than that we should go on to think of our Lord's boyhood? To think of this aright, even if we do not altogether understand it, ought to help us to understand rightly the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ; …
Charles Kingsley—The Good News of God

The Christ Child (Christmas Day. )
LUKE ii. 7. And she brought forth her first-born Son, and wrapt him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger. Mother and child.--Think of it, my friends, on Christmas day. What more beautiful sight is there in the world? What more beautiful sight, and what more wonderful sight? What more beautiful? That man must be very far from the kingdom of God--he is not worthy to be called a man at all--whose heart has not been touched by the sight of his first child in its mother's bosom. The greatest …
Charles Kingsley—The Good News of God

Music (Christmas Day. )
LUKE ii. 13, 14. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. You have been just singing Christmas hymns; and my text speaks of the first Christmas hymn. Now what the words of that hymn meant; what Peace on earth and good-will towards man meant, I have often told you. To-day I want you, for once, to think of this--that it was a hymn; that these angels were singing, even as …
Charles Kingsley—The Good News of God

Of Having Confidence in God when Evil Words are Cast at Us
"My Son, stand fast and believe in Me. For what are words but words? They fly through the air, but they bruise no stone. If thou are guilty, think how thou wouldst gladly amend thyself; if thou knowest nothing against thyself, consider that thou wilt gladly bear this for God's sake. It is little enough that thou sometimes hast to bear hard words, for thou art not yet able to bear hard blows. And wherefore do such trivial matters go to thine heart, except that thou art yet carnal, and regardest …
Thomas A Kempis—Imitation of Christ

The Birth of Jesus.
(at Bethlehem of Judæa, b.c. 5.) ^C Luke II. 1-7. ^c 1 Now it came to pass in those days [the days of the birth of John the Baptist], there went out a decree [a law] from Cæsar Augustus [Octavius, or Augustus, Cæsar was the nephew of and successor to Julius Cæsar. He took the name Augustus in compliment to his own greatness; and our month August is named for him; its old name being Sextilis], that all the world should be enrolled. [This enrollment or census was the first step …
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel

Circumcision, Temple Service, and Naming of Jesus.
(the Temple at Jerusalem, b.c. 4) ^C Luke II. 21-39. ^c 21 And when eight days [Gen. xvii. 12] were fulfilled for circumcising him [The rite was doubtless performed by Joseph. By this rite Jesus was "made like unto his brethren" (Heb. ii. 16, 17); that is, he became a member of the covenant nation, and became a debtor to the law--Gal. v. 3] , his name was called JESUS [see Luke i. 59], which was so called by the angel before he was conceived in the womb. [Luke i. 31.] 22 And when the days of their …
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel

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