284. LUKE 2:49: ALWAYS AT HOME

Luke 2:49: Always at Home

And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be in my Father's house?'97Luk_2:49 (R.V.).

Few passages in the Gospels exhibit more vividly the mysterious combination of the natural and supernatural, the Divine and human, in our Lord, than the brief narrative in St. Luke from which the text is taken, and which tells us all that we know of our Lord from His infancy to the commencement of His ministry. Though this single incident is the only instance in which the veil is lifted by which those thirty years or so of His life are covered, it is sufficient to cast a clear and bright light upon the whole of that period, and to reveal to us the spirit in which He was living; and it will be found also to illustrate the manner in which those who would fain be of service to God and to their fellows should prepare themselves for such tasks.

1. The first point that strikes us in the narrative is the evidence it affords of the perfect naturalness and simplicity by which our Lord's life at this period is marked. The picture of His tarrying behind in Jerusalem, Joseph and His mother not knowing of it, but going a day's journey, supposing Him to have been in the company, exhibits Him as living a free and trustful life, like other children, mixing with those of His own age, and in affectionate intercourse with His parents' kinsfolk and acquaintances. The perfect freedom from anxiety about the child shown by the conduct of Joseph and Mary at the outset implies an absence of any unusual strictness or formality in their relations with Him. It is a piece of child-life such as might have been seen in any other affectionate and pious Jewish household attending the feast at Jerusalem. Perhaps more suggestive still of the absence from our Lord's character, at this period, of any of those unnatural features which characterize apocryphal accounts of His childhood is the fact of Joseph and His mother seeking for Him, for three days, in every place but that in which He was at last found'97in the ordinary homes and haunts of children, as it would seem, and not in circles devoted to learning or pious meditation. His question, indeed, in answer to their remonstrance, implies that they might have known more of His character than this. '93Son,'94 said His mother, '93why hast thou thus dealt with us? behold, thy father and I sought thee sorrowing.'94 And He said unto them, '93How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be in my Father's house?'94

That Mary's thoughts were not at once directed to the Temple is a striking illustration of the absence'97if the word may be used for the purpose of contrast'97of unusual professions or pretensions in our Lord's ordinary conduct. His parents seem to have expected Him throughout to do as other children did, and to be found where other children were; and even when He gave them the explanation just quoted '93they understood not the saying which he spake unto them.'94 Nor did He even then pursue any special or unusual way of life. The fascination exercised over Him by His Father's house, and by this interview with the great teachers of the law, did not divert Him from the ordinary paths of a child's or a young man's life; but '93he went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject unto them'94; and He increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.

O happy pair of Nazareth,

Who saw the early light

Of Him who dawned upon the world

As dawns the day on night.

Within their home they saw the Child

That lived the perfect love,

A love like that which rules the heart

Of the great God above.

His childish voice and kindly tone,

His pure and patient face,

His tender mercies shown to all,

With never-ceasing grace;

The way He bore His youthful cross,

The reasons for His tears,

The kind of things which gave Him joy'97

Unchanged through growing years,'97

At home and in the playground throng,

They saw these heavenly ways,

And grew increasingly to speak

With words of reverent praise.

That simple, lovely, wondrous life

Betrayed itself from heaven;

He was the Child that should be born,

The Son that should be given.

He grew in stature and in praise,

By honest hearts adored,

Till in that home where He was born

His brothers called Him Lord.1 [Note: B. Waugh, in Hymns of Faith and Life, 95.]

2. How is the text to be translated? The Authorized Version is '93Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?'94 The Revisers have changed this into '93Wist ye not that I must be in my Father's house?'94 The Greek, taken literally, says, '93Wist ye not that I must be in the'97of my Father?'94 The Authorized Version supplies '93business'94; the Revised, '93house.'94 There is no noun in the Greek, and the article '93the'94 is in the plural. To translate it as literally as it can be translated, making of it an English sentence, the saying stands, '93Wist ye not that I must be in the things of my Father?'94 The plural article implies the English '93things'94; and the question is then, What things does He mean? The word might mean affairs or business. On the other hand we might translate, '93Wist ye not that I must be in my Father's?'94 Then, in almost all languages '93house'94 would be understood. We commonly say to one another, '93I am going down to my father's,'94 or '93I shall spend the evening at my brother's.'94 Everybody knows that we mean '93house,'94 and that is just how the Greek here runs.

(1) Both translations are linguistically correct, but the Greek phrase is most common in the sense of '93in my Father's house'94; and this is the translation of the Syriac, of the Fathers, and of most modern commentators. '93My Father's house'94 seems also most relevant in this connexion, where the folly of seeking is emphasized'97the certainty of His place is more to the point than that of His occupation.

(2) But, as Alford properly enough says, we must not exclude the wider sense which embraces all places and employment of '93my Father's.'94 The locality carried the occupation with it, for why must He be in the Father's house but to be about the Father's business, '93to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple'94?

At the same time it is not wise to attempt to combine both translations in one exposition. We shall find sufficient material here for two sermons. Then, if we take first the translation of the Revisers, we shall see that Jesus, by His question, '93Wist ye not that I must be in my Father's house?'94 claimed the freedom of a '93child of the law.'94 But freedom from parental control was at the same moment recognized as a greater obedience and deeper responsibility'97the responsibility of a Son to the Divine Father. And so from that moment He is to be found at home, not with earthly parents, but with the Father in heaven, whether in His Temple, where worship is wont to be made, or in the wider universe of His presence.

I

Freedom

1. In the question of the text Jesus claimed His full liberty. He could not deny Himself the right to act for Himself, to inquire for Himself, to make good His own independence. The hour has struck for Him when He must break through the limitations and restraints of His childhood, and must choose His own way of going about His Father's business. He has responsibilities towards that Father which He must fulfil, even though at the cost of some severance from the tender ties of home, yea, even at the cost of some pain to the mother whom He loves so dearly. Remember that, to a Jewish boy, reaching the age of twelve made an epoch, because He then became '93a son of the law,'94 and took upon himself the religious responsibilities which had hitherto devolved upon his parents.

When He had completed His twelfth year, on His thirteenth birthday, Jesus would be recognized as a young man, and called '93a son of the law.'94 For at this time every Hebrew lad had his fate put into his own hands, and became responsible for his own actions. Up to this time his parents were held to be responsible for him: now he had to answer for himself both to man and to God. On the morning of this day he put on for the first time the two phylacteries which every Jew wore when he prayed, one on the head, and the other on the left arm. These phylacteries were small square boxes made of parchment, which were attached to the arm and the forehead by long slender straps; in each box there were four tiny cells; and in each cell there was put a strip of vellum on which was written a passage from the books of Exodus and Deuteronomy (Exo_12:2-16 : and Deu_11:13-22; Deu_6:4-9). On this thirteenth birthday, before morning prayer, the lad put on, first, the phylactery for the left arm, saying: '93Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe, who hast sanctified us with Thy commandments, and enjoined us to put on phylacteries.'94 Then he put on the phylactery for the forehead, and uttered a similar thanksgiving. From this moment he was regarded as '93a son of the law,'94 or '93a son of the commandments'94; i.e. he was bound to keep all the commandments of God; bound, therefore, to be always about his Father's business, doing God's will in whatever he did; bound also to go up to Jerusalem at the annual Feasts, and to sit at the feet of the Temple doctors.1 [Note: Samuel Cox.]

2. Is this freedom which Christ claims the prerogative of His sole Sonship'97of His unique relation to the Father? Have we no part or lot in that demand? Surely that Sonship of His has been made ours. Into its prerogatives we are baptized. In Christ, by Christ, we too are endowed with peculiar responsibilities. We are given authority to become the sons of God. We have rights in the Father's house. In Him, in His body, each individual soul wins a higher value, a fuller freedom. Its freedom of development, its freedom of judgment, its freedom of thought, its freedom of action'97these are not lost or diminished; they are intensified, braced, enriched, by those who are born into that Spirit of liberty which bloweth, as the wind, where it listeth.

Mr. Frederic Harrison, with whom, as a fellow-teacher at the Working Men's College, Ruskin had become acquainted, was often at Denmark Hill in these years, and has thus described the father and the son:'97

'93John James Ruskin, the father, certainly seemed to me a man of rare force of character; shrewd, practical, generous, with pure ideals both in art and life. With unbounded trust in the genius of his son, he felt deeply how much the son had yet to learn. I heard the father ask an Oxford tutor if he could not '91put John in the way of some scientific study of Political Economy.' '91John! John!' I have heard him cry out, '91what nonsense you are talking!' when John was off on one of his magnificent paradoxes, unintelligible as Pindar to the sober, Scotch merchant.'85 There were moments when the father seemed the stronger in sense, breadth, and hold on realities. And when John was turned of forty, the father still seemed something of his tutor, his guide, his support. The relations between John Ruskin and his parents were among the most beautiful things that dwell in my memory.'85 This man, well past middle life, in all the renown of his principal works, who, for a score of years, had been one of the chief forces in the literature of our century, continued to show an almost child-like docility towards his father and his mother, respecting their complaints and remonstrances, and gracefully submitting to be corrected by their worldly wisdom and larger experience. The consciousness of his own public mission and the boundless love and duty that he owed to his parents could not be expressed in a way more beautiful. One could almost imagine it was in the spirit of the youthful Christ when He said to His mother, '91Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?' '941 [Note: E. T. Cook, The Life of Ruskin, i. 482.]

In the world of practical affairs the mother of Phillips Brooks showed herself eminently sane and wise. Her home circle was itself a means of liberal education. Experience had instilled into her a strong respect for the individuality of her children. They must be left free to shape their own lives, to follow their own destiny. She would force no confidence that was not freely and spontaneously given. She studied her opportunities of approach to them. This is how she speaks to an anxious mother who sought her counsel as to the training of her sons: '93There is an age when it is not well to follow or question your boys too closely. The period of which I speak appears to be one in which the boy dies and the man is born; his individuality rises up before him and he is dazed and almost overwhelmed by his first consciousness of himself. I have always believed that it was then that the Creator was speaking with my sons, and that it was good for their souls to be left alone with Him, while I, their mother, stood trembling, praying and waiting, knowing that when the man was developed from the boy, I should have my sons again, and there would be a deeper sympathy than ever between us.'94 And so it came about that in later years the sympathy between Phillips Brooks and his mother became more strong and complete than ever. '93The happiest part of my happy life,'94 said the great preacher, '93has been my mother.'94 When on his visit to England he was commanded to preach before Queen Victoria, some one asked him if he felt at all afraid. '93No,'94 he replied, smiling, '93I have preached before my mother.'941 [Note: J. Gregory, Phillips Brooks, 44.]

II

Responsibility

With the knowledge of His freedom there came also the conviction to Jesus that His first opportunity of obedience to His Father was now before Him, and that it must be instantly attended to, without reference to any other claims upon Him, such, for instance, as returning to Nazareth with His parents. Hitherto, in His quiet Nazareth home, neither such knowledge nor opportunity had presented itself. To do His mother's will and to please Joseph, His foster-father, was the full extent of His will and duty. That He did these well and truly goes without saying. Since coming to Jerusalem to attend the feast of Passover, a new crisis had come to Him, and He did not suffer that opportunity to recede from His obedient heart, but embraced it at once, and gave Himself up with calm and determined enthusiasm to attend to it.

Both Joseph and Mary were speechless as soon as the Holy Child let them see how full of folly their conduct had been and how much they had misunderstood Him and hurt Him. They had treated Him as if He had taken the Passover much too seriously. They found fault with Him for His devotion to His Father's business, and they uttered aloud their complaint and grievance with Him before the whole temple. They said it till the astonished doctors heard them, that He should have been home in Nazareth by this time, and back at His proper work, The lamb had been slain, they said, and its blood had been sprinkled on them and on Him for another year,'97let Him come away home then, like all His kinsfolk and acquaintances. And if we will only look well, we shall see ourselves in all that as in a glass. For we are Joseph and Mary over again in all that. We also treat our Redeemer as if He had been religious over-much in the dreadful business of our redemption. We treat Him and His redemption of our souls as if He had taken us and our sins far too much to heart; almost as if He had been a martyr by mistake. They did Him the first wrong that week to suppose that He was in that home-hurrying company; and then they still more wronged and wounded Him by the places in which they sought Him; but above all, by their not seeking Him first in His Father's house and about His Father's business.1 [Note: A. Whyte, The Walk, Conversation, and Character of Jesus Christ our Lord, 64.]

I should like to speak for a moment to the young, about those feelings of capacity, and that conviction of being called to high duty, by which many are stirred in secret'97feelings which too seldom find their justification in the facts of after life. If such thoughts are made known to other people, they are often smiled at as mere childish dreamings, or are chided as the evil fruit and sickly food of vanity, rather than the outcome of a heavenly impulse. But however crude and mixed with idle vanity these musings may be, they are the smoking flax which God will never quench, and which wise men will try to fan into a flame. We cannot possibly be wrong in thinking that we were sent into the world to be nobler and more useful than are most of those we see around. The sad thing is, not that such thoughts are common, but that they are so easily and generally lost. Some of the most degraded people now living, and thousands of miserable seekers after pleasure and pelf, once had these thoughts and feelings, and in sanest moments they know that it is their shame and sin that none of these great thoughts have been transmuted into deeds. Some have lost their aspirations because too indolent to cultivate and use their talents. Some gave themselves to pleasures which developed into vices. Some surrendered their hearts to the love of money, and, because determined to be rich, fell into a snare and became avaricious, deceitful and dishonest; then, ceasing to respect themselves, they sank into deserved contempt. Others in their impatient thirst for distinction wasted their strength in the pursuit of quickly won successes, cheap applause, and instant recognition; instead of resolving to do good work, and show themselves approved to God, content to leave their honours and rewards to Him. This last named cause of failure is probably one of the least contemptible, and therefore one of the most frequent and fatal of the forms under which temptation assails the young and ardent. Just as eager but inexperienced mountain climbers often weary themselves by hastening up the nearest slopes and peaks, and fail to win the true summit because the day is too far spent before the right path is found, so many noble and aspiring souls miss the attainment of true greatness, not through idleness or mean designs, but through headstrong haste to reach the goal without treading all the intermediate steps.1 [Note: T. V. Tymms, The Private Relationships of Christ, 59.]

1. Here, then, is a life which has already found its principle. Every life which has any value or any force finds a ruling principle or purpose which steadily guides it. It may be a principle of enjoyment, or of selfishness, or of ambition, or of usefulness; but whichever it is, it directs the energies. There are, indeed, lives more or less without any such principle at all, but they are feeble things; they drift rather than live, they aim at nothing and accomplish nothing. To take a wrong line strongly and consistently is almost better than such empty weakness.

Of the purpose he set before himself when beginning to study art he once said to me: '93From the very first I determined to do the very best possible to me; I did not hope to make a name, or think much about climbing to the top of the tree, I merely set myself to do the utmost I could, and I think I may say I have never relaxed; to this steady endeavour I owe everything. Hard work, and keeping the definite object of my life in view, has given me whatever position I now have. And I may add, what I think is an encouragement to others, that very few have begun life with fewer advantages, either of health, wealth or position, or any exceptional intellect. Any success I may have had is due entirely to steadiness of purpose.'942 [Note: George Frederic Watts, i. 17.]

2. We may call this principle of life a sense of responsibility. The word is perhaps stiff and abstract, and yet I think it helps us to part of the truth. '93I must be about my Father's business,'94 or, if we take the R.V., '93in my Father's house'94; it comes to nearly the same thing. '93I must be.'94 He is not His own. He belongs to His Father. He owes to Him His life and its powers. How it reminds us of what He said afterwards to others'97that except a man become as a child he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God; and of what St. John said about Him'97that He brought those who believed on Him to become sons of God! Responsibility, then, answerableness to another for His life and His use of it, but that other His Heavenly Father, whom it was the joy of His loving heart to serve'97there is the principle and purpose which we find at the heart of Him at twelve years old; it will go with Him through life. It will be there still when with dying lips He will cry, '93It is finished!'94'97finished, the work God gave Him to do; '93Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.'94

A few days before the first number of the War Cry was sent out to the world, General Booth gave a remarkable address at Darlington, which is recorded in this issue under the title of '93The Baptism of Fire,'94 and in which he said: '93I want to say something this morning that will help you in the personal conflicts of your daily experience, and in the great warfare you are waging with the principles and principalities and devilries around you. You are the soldiers of Salvation, and the responsibilities of the war are all upon your heads. Now there is in English law a curious fiction by which no man who once becomes a clergyman of the Church of England can ever cease to be one. If he goes into the greengrocery line he is still a reverend: if he goes to prison he is still a clergyman: and I suppose, nay, I am sure, he will go up to the judgment-bar to be dealt with in the light of all the solemn responsibilities implied in such a position. Now, although by cowardice, or unfaithfulness, or disobedience, or other infamous action, you may be deemed unworthy of your position and drummed out of God Almighty's Army'97covered with disgrace and infamy'97still the memories of your position and the responsibilities of what you might have accomplished in it, will cleave to you, and grow upon you, and haunt you, and harrow you for evermore. How important, then, for you to be faithful.'941 [Note: T. F. G. Coates, The Prophet of the Poor, 107.]

3. In the Son we are made free with the freedom of the Son. And, at certain special hours of our life, this freedom will assert itself. But then, let us be sure of this'97that this heightened freedom must heighten also the severe responsibility with which it is exercised. It is this that we are so apt to forget. '93Freedom,'94 '93liberty,'94'97the words sound to us as if they set us loose from responsibilities. Yet, claimed as they are by us, not in our individual capacity, but as children of God, as members of Christ's Body, they must be held in trust to the Father who gave them; in trust to the Son, '93the Head,'94 in whose name we act.

Boys and girls, and for that matter grown folks too, sometimes have curious notions of liberty. To be free they think is to be able to do just what one pleases. But true freedom is the power to do what we ought to do. A dead leaf falling from a bough has power to do just what it pleases, because it is dead, and no one cares how much it eddies or where it falls. But the big earth in travelling round the sun is very careful not to get outside its appointed path, for if it should wander even a little from the path which God has marked out it would upset all the life upon its surface. The earth is far freer than an autumn leaf. It gets its freedom from the sun. If we were only dead autumn leaves we could drift and eddy hither and thither and do anything we pleased: but being immortal souls, created in God's image, we have a mighty work to do and should keep the orbit which our Father's love has traced.1 [Note: C. E. Jefferson, My Fathers Business, 113.]

4. Always to the free man must the concerns of God be paramount. '93What doth the Lord require of thee?'94 is the first and last question. Still it cannot be denied in any thoughtful consideration of the subject that the concerns of men are the concerns of God. Our place is in a human world, and all our palpable relations are human relations. Our conceptions of duty can be framed only by the suggestions which our contact with men affords. But here we encounter the fact of individual responsibility. Life is serious. Each one must decide for himself, acting from the intuitions of his own soul, and in the light which comes from the circumstances by which he is surrounded. The seductive voices of ease or temporal advantage must be unheeded. Not even may public opinion in such exigencies control. The choice must be made under the behest of conscience. The voice of God is the only voice which may bid the soul be still and listen; and when the choice is made the interrogatory may be fearlessly put to all the world: '93Wist ye not that I must be in my Father's house?'94

When men begin all their works with the thought of God, acting for His sake and to fulfil His will, when they ask His blessing on themselves and their life, pray to Him for the objects they desire, and see Him in the event, whether it be according to their prayers or not, they will find everything that happens tend to confirm them in the truths about Him which live in their imagination, varied and unearthly as those truths may be. Then they are brought into His presence as a Living Person, and are able to hold converse with Him, and that with a directness and simplicity, with a confidence and intimacy, mutatis mutandis, which we use towards an earthly superior; so that it is doubtful whether we realize the company of our fellow men with greater keenness than these favoured minds are able to contemplate and adore the Unseen Incomprehensible Creator.1 [Note: J. H. Newman, Grammar of Assent.]

III

Home

Wherever the Son is and whatever He is doing He is at home with the Father, He is in the Father's house. What did He mean when He spoke of the Father's house?

1. Did He mean the Temple? '93My Father's house,'94 He says; these are the very words with which our Lord describes the Temple on another occasion. He rebukes people for turning the Father's house into a den of thieves. Christ's name for the Temple; Christ's name for the great central place of worship of the Jewish people, which had a sacredness that could not belong to any lesser place of worship; Christ's name for the Temple was '93my Father's house.'94 This makes the translation '93in my Father's house'94 the more natural thing for Him to say. For the surprise of His parents was to find Him there; and His surprise was that they should have expected Him to be anywhere else: '93Wist ye not that I must be in my Father's house?'94 But, further, we feel that the words are more natural, because they are more childlike. It is hardly the saying of a child that He must be about the concerns or affairs or businesses of His Father. And with changing thought, we have come to think of Jesus, the Divine child, as the perfectly human, perfectly natural child. The simple wonder of His heart seems sufficiently and inimitably expressed in the question, '93Wist ye not that I must be in my Father's house?'94

'93Wist ye not?'94'97He said in His deep distress at the unreasonable behaviour of Joseph and Mary that passover-week. It was the utter and inexcusable unreasonableness of His mother's behaviour to Him that so hurt and so humbled Him. A little consideration would surely have directed her steps straight to the Temple to seek for her Son there, and there alone. And having found Him in the Temple, a very little consideration would surely have restrained her from the precipitate words with which she assailed Him. If she had taken a little time to think of it the utter unreasonableness of her conduct could not but have struck her and made her ashamed of herself. To take the very lowest ground, it was not reasonable to think that the youthful Christ should hurry away from the passover ordinances at the earliest possible moment, and should spend His time gadding about up and down the city. It was but common sense and sound reason, as well as ordinary piety, in Him to do as He had done. '93The different magnitude of things is their reason to me,'94 says William Law. And it was because His Father's business was already beginning to be a matter of such immense magnitude to our Lord that He felt so acutely the unreasonableness and the injustice of His mother's treatment of that business and of Him that day. And in all that He teaches us also that if our mere reason were only but sound, if we but gave our wholly sane minds to the different magnitudes of things, that of itself would secure the salvation of our souls. Reason itself, He as good as says here, would never let us wander from the way of our salvation, nor would let us stop short of our Father's house, or ever leave it. Only be reasonable men, He as good as says to us, and you will end in being saved men.1 [Note: A. Whyte, The Walk, Conversation, and Character of Jesus Christ our Lord, 63.]

(1) The Temple was the place of learning. In the Temple there were some schools in which good and learned men taught the Scriptures to anybody who wished to learn. They sat upon a high seat, and any person, old or young, might enter and join the class sitting on the floor around the teachers. Jesus had found this school. He wanted, like all good children, to know more of the Scriptures. He thought He could not serve God in any better way than by learning from these good old men, who welcomed a young child to their school. And here His parents found Him, '93sitting in the midst of the doctors (teachers), both hearing them and asking them questions.'94

It was in touch with the ancient wisdom, under the schooling of the authoritative voice of His Church, that He set His thoughts to work for themselves. He indeed asked questions. He set free His inquiring spirit, but He did it facing the fulness of the responsibility, bringing His inquiries into the light of the best learning, laying out His mind at the feet of them who sat in Moses' seat. And not only asking questions, but hearing also. He listened; He heard. Ah! young hearts, aglow with newfound powers, with new-won liberty, is that your case? How often, in the excitement of asking our first questions, have we forgotten that there is any need to hear at all what others are saying! How often, in the sudden discovery of our own independence, we seem to be cut loose from every bond that binds us to others; above all, that binds us to the past! The wonder of thinking for ourselves seems to dismiss, to put out of court, what others have thought. It appears to depose all old authorities. All men before us seem to us to have been dreaming until we arrived on the scene. Now at last the truth is out, and their day is over.1 [Note: H. S. Holland, Pleas and Claims, 185.]

It is observed'97so far as inquiry is able to look back at this distance of time'97that at his being a schoolboy he was an early questionist, quietly inquisitive, '93why this was, and that was not, to be remembered? Why this was granted, and that denied?'94 This being mixed with a remarkable modesty, and a sweet serene quietness of nature, and with them a quick apprehension of many perplexed parts of learning, imposed then on him as a scholar, made his master and others to believe him to have an inward, blessed, Divine light, and therefore to consider him to be a little wonder. For in that, children were less pregnant, less confident and more malleable, than in this wiser but not better age.2 [Note: Izaak Walton, Life of Richard Hooker.]

(2) The Temple was the place of teaching. Is it improper to say that even then He had something to teach the doctors? He both heard them and asked them questions. There would be no more impropriety in the questionings of a child than there would be in a modern Bible class. It was no doubt unusual for boys of His age to join in the conversation at such times, but it is evident that the doctors were not displeased by His intervention, and were surprised, not by the fact that He addressed them, but by the freshness and force of what He said. We cannot be wrong in thinking that the startling effect of His words would be due, not to any display of precocious learning, but to the simplicity and directness of His questions and answers.

In after years He taught often in the Temple. Many of the lessons Jesus taught during the period to which He referred when He said to those who came to apprehend Him, '93I was daily with you in the temple teaching'94 (Mar_14:49), are probably unrecorded, but there is in the New Testament quite a rich treasury of words that He uttered in the Temple at different periods.1 [Note: H. Thorne, Notable Sayings of the Great Teacher, 63.]

I will say no more of Irving's boyhood. He must have sat, often enough, in Ecclefechan Meeting-house along with me, but I never noticed or knew; and had not indeed heard of him till I went to Annan School, and Irving, perhaps two years before, had left for College. I must bid adieu also, to that poor Temple of my Childhood; to me more sacred at this moment than perhaps the biggest Cathedral then extant could have been. Rude, rustic, bare, no Temple in the world was more so; but there were sacred lambencies, tongues of authentic flame from Heaven, which kindled what was best in one, what has yet not gone out.2 [Note: Carlyle, Reminiscences, ii. 15.]

All other teachers' words become feeble by age, as their persons become ghostly, wrapped in thickening folds of oblivion; but the progress of the Church consists in absorbing more and more of Christ, in understanding Him better, and becoming more and more moulded by His influence.3 [Note: A. Maclaren, The Holy of Holies.]

(3) And the Temple was a place of worship. He called it on one memorable occasion a house of prayer. He spoke in one of His parables of two men who went up to the Temple to pray. And after the Ascension, Peter and John went up to the Temple to pray.

But a Christian place of worship is not a temple, it is a Father's house. That was what our Lord Himself felt about the Temple; He gave it a deeper, richer name'97'93my Father's house.'94 Nothing is more distinctive of New Testament religion than this phrase, nothing distinguishes New Testament from Old Testament conceptions of religion better than the difference that there is in a Father's house and a Temple. We come to God's house, if we are Christian men, to worship, not an awful and distant God, but One who is near and intimate and loving as a father. Not only is God's house a place of reverence, it is also a place of joy and gladness and shouting.

There is a power in public worship, in the utterance of common sorrows, needs, and hopes, in the prayer that is breathed and the praise that is sung in concert, not with the crowd that fills the sanctuary, but with the innumerable company of all lands and ages who have drunk of the same spring and gone strengthened on their way, which they strangely miss who teach that worship is a worn-out superstition, and that only in the clear light of law can men walk and be blest. While man sins and suffers, while there is blood-tinged sweat upon his brow, while there is weeping in his home and anguish in his heart, that voice can never lose its music which brings forth the comfort and inspiration of the gospel, which tells the sin-tormented spirit the tale of the infinite pity, and bids it lay its sobbing wretchedness to rest on the bosom of infinite love.1 [Note: J. Gregory, Phillips Brooks, 18.]

2. But the Temple was not His only place of learning, of teaching, or of prayer. He learned the Scriptures in Nazareth; He taught by the shore of the lake; He prayed on the mountaintop. Where does He find symbols whereby to speak of what goes on in the mind and before the face of His Father in heaven? Not in the Temple; not in its rites; not on its altars; not in its holy of holies; He finds them in the world and its lovely-lowly facts; on the roadside, in the field, in the vineyard, in the garden, in the house; in the family, and the commonest of its affairs'97the lighting of the lamp, the leavening of the meal, the neighbour's borrowing, the losing of the coin, the straying of the sheep. Even in the unlovely facts also of the world which He turns to holy use, such as the unjust judge, the false steward, the faithless labourers, He ignores the Temple. See how He drives the devils from the souls and bodies of men, as we the wolves from our sheepfolds! how before Him the diseases, scaly and spotted, hurry and flee! The world has for Him no chamber of terror. He walks to the door of the sepulchre, the sealed cellar of His Father's house, and calls forth its four days' dead. He rebukes the mourners, He stays the funeral, and gives back the departed children to their parents' arms. The roughest of its servants do not make Him wince; none of them are so arrogant as to disobey His word; He falls asleep in the midst of the storm that threatens to swallow His boat. All His life He was among His Father's things, either in heaven or in the world'97not only then when they found Him in the Temple at Jerusalem. He is still among His Father's things, everywhere about in the world, everywhere throughout the wide universe.

Among my kinsfolk and my friends

I sought for Christ, but found Him not;

The joy of earth in sadness ends,

The love of hearts is oft forgot.

Each hath his own familiar cares,

And others' burdens lightly bears!

I sought for Christ, but found Him not:

Sorrowing, O, whither shall I turn?

Lo! Zion's gates, yon hallowed spot,

Where praise and prayer like incense burn,

Back to Thy temple I'll repair,

Secure, with joy, to find Thee there.

I seek for Christ, but find Him not

Even there, as yet I hope to find;

This long day's march, life's pilgrim lot,

Rolls on, and He seems oft behind.

But I shall find whom here I love

In God's Jerusalem above.1 [Note: C. L. Ford.]

Always at Home

Literature

Holland (H. S.), Pleas and Claims for Christ, 173.

Jerdan (C.), Manna for Young Pilgrims, 308.

McClelland (T. C.), The Mind of Christ, 21.

MacDonald (G.), The Hope of the Gospel, 40.

Maclaren (A.), After the Resurrection, 193.

Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, xxviii. (1882), No.1666.

Talbot (E. S.), Some Aspects of Christian Truth, 208.

Thorne (H.), Notable Sayings of the Great Teacher, 63.

Tymms (T. V.), The Private Relationships of Christ, 55.

Wilberforce (B.), New (?) Theology, 38.

Christian World Pulpit, lvi. 292 (C. S. Horne); Ixxxii. 388 (J. E. Rattenbury).

Church of England Pulpit, xxix. 73.

Church Pulpit Year Book, 1910, p. 18.

Churchman's Pulpit: First Sunday after the Epiphany, iii. 439 (G. Prevost).

Expositor, 2nd Ser., viii. 17 (R. E. Wallis).

Autor: JAMES HASTINGS