Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1666
Delivered on Lord’s-Day Morning, June 25, 1882
“And when they saw Him, they were amazed; and His mother said unto Him, Son, why have You thus dealt with us? Look, Your father and I have sought You sorrowing. And He said unto them, How is it that you sought Me? Know you not that I must be about My Father’s business?” Luke 2:48, 49.
THESE words are very interesting because they are the first recorded utterances of our Divine Lord. No doubt He said much that was very admirable while yet a Child, but the Holy Spirit has not seen fit to record anything except these two questions, as if to teach us that childhood should be retiring and modest—a stage of preparation rather than of observation. We hear little of a Holy Child, for modesty is a precious part of its character. We ought, therefore, to give all the more earnest heed to these words because they stand at the very forefront of our Lord’s teaching and are, in some respects, the announcement of His whole life.
Spoken, as they were, at 12 years of age, we may regard them as the last words of His childhood and the first words of His youth. He is just passing away from the time in which He could be called a child into that in which He becomes, in the eastern clime, where men ripen faster than here, a young Man, a son of the Law, fit to sit among the doctors in the temple and to be instructed by them. The early days of youth are very perilous, for then it is that the rest of life is often shaped. Happy, indeed, is he who so early begins with God and chooses as his business the service of the Lord! If all our youth had the same mind which was in Christ Jesus, what evidence we should have that the Spirit of God had been working upon our children and was now about to speak through our youth!
I suppose that these words must have come into Luke’s Gospel through Mary, herself. How, otherwise, could the evangelist have known that, “they understood not the saying which He spoke unto them,” or that Mary, “kept all these sayings in her heart”? Mary evidently narrates the words of the Holy Child, words which she had pondered again and again. She treasured up for us the gems which dropped from Jesus’ lips. She tells us that this saying, simple though it seems to be, was not fully understood either by herself or by His reputed father, Joseph. And yet, mark you, we are told, expressly, that Mary, “kept all these sayings in her heart.”
When you cannot put a Truth of God into your understandings, yet lay it up in your affections. If there is anything in God’s Word which is exceedingly difficult, do not, therefore, reject it, but rather preserve it for future study. In a father’s talk with his child there must be a good deal that the child cannot fully comprehend. If he is a wise child, he will seize upon the very thing he does not understand and treasure it for future use, expecting that light will spring out of it, by-and-by. Be not among those who say that they will limit their faith by their understanding! It is probable that you will have a narrow faith if it is so, or else you will have a wide conceit—for a proud conceit, alone, can make us believe that we are able to understand even one-tenth of what God has revealed!
No, I will go further! Although we may understand enough to be saved by the Truth, yet the full depth of the Truths of God are understood by no man and if, therefore, we make it the rule to limit our faith by our understanding, we shall have an extremely limited range of faith! No, let us treasure up these things! Let us highly prize these diamonds which can only be cut by diamonds! Let us not put them aside because they are difficult, for it may be one index of their genuineness that they are so. 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. Do you wonder that there should be much in Scripture which you cannot comprehend, when even the first words of Christ, when He is yet a boy, is not understood? No, not understood by those who had nursed Him, who had lived with Him the whole 12 years and, consequently, knew His mode of speech and the peculiarities of His youthful language! If even Mary and Joseph did
not understand, who am I, that I should forever be saying, “I must understand this or I will not receive it”? No, if we understand it not, yet will we keep all these sayings in our hearts, for we have this advantage—that the Holy Spirit is now given, by whose teaching we understand things which were hidden from the wisest saints of old!
Beloved Friends, how great and full of meaning was this first word which seems so simple! The longer you look into it, the more you will be astonished at its fullness. Only superficiality and ignorance will think it plain! The closest student will be the most astonished with the profundity of its meaning. Stier, to whom I am much indebted for thoughts upon this subject, calls this text, “the solitary flower out of the enclosed garden of thirty years.” What fragrance it exhales! 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 colors worthy of our admiring meditation.