And when they saw him they were amazed and his mother said to him, Child, why hast thou dealt thus with us? behold, thy father and I have sought thee distressed.
Joseph and Mary find the twelve-year-old Jesus in the temple after three days of searching, and His mother speaks first. Her few words raise large questions. What did she call Him? Why did she give Joseph the place of His Father? Why had they not looked here first?
Behind "Son" here lies a Greek word meaning "child." It is a warm, family word. No other passage in the Bible uses it of Jesus.
There is one use of the word teknon (child) worth noting, because it bears on the person of the Lord. We use it in the same affectionate way ourselves: "My child, go and do such-and-such" (see Matthew 9:2; Matthew 21:28). His mother speaks to the Lord this way in Luke 2:48: "Child, why have you treated us so?" But no other passage applies this word to Him. Perhaps it is not used of Him because He was never less than "God over all." It would be inconsistent to use a word that implies life and nature derived from another.
Mary's question is not neutral. One writer looks first at the three lost days, then at what her words reveal.
For three days He was lost to them. May this not be a reminder of the three days He was thought lost by His disciples? Here the human weakness of Mary comes to light. She was nervously anxious. Her words have an accusing tone. Her greatest mistake was to name Joseph as "your Father." … He corrects His fallible mother, who had said, "your Father and I." His Father, He declares, is the One whose house He had entered. It is the first self-witness to His Deity.
Commentators differ on how far to press this. Another writer sees the same two details but will not call them failures. He traces them to natural feeling, and to her deep love for her Child.
Two things stand out in her words to Jesus. The first is the implied reproach in them. The second is that she includes Joseph with herself: "your father." We need not mark these things as failures, though we cannot doubt that they sprang from purely natural feelings and relationships. On the other hand, it is just as clear that the manner of her speech came out of her intense affection for her perfect Child.
Her distress was real. But the Lord's answer turned her question back on the search itself.
He could not accept any reproof. His two questions were gentle reproofs in return. What was the reason they had sought Him? If God's will had been their concern, it would have led them straight to Him. Did they not realise that He would occupy Himself with His Father's interests? … Most children at that age would have only slight interest in the temple, or in the learning of the teachers of the law. But did they not expect Him to have a vital interest in it? This should have been the first place they looked for Him.
So why was He in the temple? One writer points to a claim that outweighed every other. He cites the Lord's reply in older wording — "about my Father's business," where the ESV reads "in my Father's house."
Our blessed Lord was devoted to the glory of God and to the interests of His house. This devotion lifted Him above every natural claim that anyone might urge against Him. So when Mary found Him in the temple and asked why He had treated them so, He replied, "Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be about my Father's business?" The Father's claim was absolute in His soul. He had come to do His Father's will, and that claim shut out every other. Acknowledging it always was His unceasing delight. It was His daily food.
That higher claim did not cancel the lower one. He went home with Joseph and Mary and lived under their authority.
From early youth our Lord had the consciousness of being the Son of God above all earthly claims. But exactly as grace acknowledges the law, so the eternal Son acknowledges His human place as the child of Mary. He declared and proved that in His own consciousness He was truly the Son of the Father, and that He must therefore be about His Father's business. It was neither open to Him nor possible for Him to set aside His Father's will. That will was the first object before His heart. Yet with all this devotion as Son of God, and though His parents did not understand what He said, He went down with them to Nazareth and was in subjection to them.
- The word. Mary calls Him by the tender family word for "child" — the only place in the Bible where it is used of Him.
- The slip. In "your father and I" she gives Joseph a place that belongs to another. His reply corrects her.
- The search. They searched everywhere but the temple. Had God's will been their concern, they would have gone there first.
- The claim. One claim was absolute in Him: His Father's will. It lifted Him above every natural tie.
- The return. The same claim sent Him home to Nazareth in subjection. The higher relationship never cancelled the lower duty.
And he said to them, Why [is it] that ye have sought me? did ye not know that I ought to be [occupied] in my Father's business?
Luke gives us one scene from the childhood of Jesus: a boy of twelve, left behind in Jerusalem and found three days later among the teachers in the temple. His reply to His mother is the first thing Luke records Him saying, and it raises the question that shapes the whole Gospel: whose Son is He?
One writer sets His first recorded words beside His last.
He came, not to do His own will, but the will of Him who sent Him. His "Father's business" is His first recorded saying (see Luke 2:49). "It is finished" fell last from His blessed lips, before He bowed His head and gave up His spirit (see John 19:30).
Mary's words in the previous verse carry a reproach. He answers with questions of His own.
Joseph and Mary were amazed. Mary reproached Him for having been absent from them all this time. But He could not accept any reproof. He answered with two questions that were reproofs to them, though gentle. What was the reason they had sought Him? If they had been exercised as to the will of God, they would have been unerringly led to Him. … The temple should have been the first place they looked for Him, for it was His first chance to ask the learned men about matters of vital importance.
Mary had spoken of Joseph as His father. His answer replaces that word with another.
Here the human weakness of Mary comes to light. She was nervously anxious. Her words have an accusing tone. The greatest mistake she made was mentioning Joseph as "your father." But how wonderful the answer of the twelve-year-old boy! He is astonished that they should have sought Him; He came to seek them. He is astonished that they did not know that He had to be about His Father's business. What an answer it is! These are His first words recorded in the Gospels. He corrects His fallible mother, who had said, "your father and I." His Father, He declares, is the One in whose house He had gone. It is the first self-witness to His Deity.
The ESV reads "in my Father's house." Older versions read "about my Father's business." Commentators differ over which is right. One held that the second is the plain sense.
In Luke 2:49 they translate "I must be in my Father's house," putting the evident sense "about my Father's business" in the margin.
Another writer gives the literal sense, then points to what the boy did next.
The literal meaning is, "Did you not know that I must be in the things of My Father?" His Father's 'things' were the very atmosphere in which He lived. Yet see Him, the Lord of Glory, return with His parents to that humble home; and there He "was submissive to them."
Here Jesus claims a place above His family. The next verse has Him go home under their authority.
From His early youth our Lord had the consciousness of being the Son of God above all earthly claims. But just as grace acknowledges the law, so the eternal Son acknowledges His human place as the child of Mary. He asserted and proved that in His own consciousness He was really the Son of the Father. So He must be about His Father's business. It was not open to Him, nor possible for Him, to set aside His Father's will. This was the first object before His heart. He was devoted as the Son of God, and His parents did not understand what He said. Still, He comes down with them "to Nazareth and was submissive to them."
Luke says His parents did not understand Him. That was not the end of the matter.
When Jesus, at the age of twelve, said to His parents, "Did you not know that I must be about My Father's business," it must have been a riddle to them. As it says, "They did not understand the saying that He spoke to them." But "His mother treasured up all these things in her heart." The time came when she received, with His disciples, the gift of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of sonship. Then she would be able to cry with all His own, "Abba, Father," and enter into the meaning of what Jesus had said so long before.
- First words. His first recorded saying is about His Father's business. His last, on the cross, is "It is finished" — one purpose begun and finished.
- First Father. Mary said "your father and I." He answered "My Father" — His first witness to His own Deity.
- First business. The phrase literally means being "in the things of My Father" — not a task He picked up, but the air He lived in.
- First place, not the only place. Knowing Himself the Son of God did not loosen the claims of home. He went back to Nazareth and was subject to Joseph and Mary.
- First lesson kept. His parents did not understand Him. Mary kept the words until the Spirit of sonship taught her to say "Abba, Father" for herself.
And they understood not the thing that he said to them.
Luke gives us one glimpse into Jesus' boyhood. It ends oddly. The two people closest to Him miss what He has just said. The words were simple, and the speaker was their own child. So what was in that saying? And why was being close to Jesus not enough to grasp it?
His answer in the temple was not an excuse for staying behind. It was a statement about who He is and what He came for.
In answering His mother, Jesus declared that He knew His own divine relationship. He also announced that He had come to do His Father's will. Mary had said of Joseph to Jesus, "Your father." The answer was that He had remained in Jerusalem because, as He said, "I must be about My Father's business." His Father's will was to be the supreme law of His life, and it was His joy to acknowledge it. In acknowledging it He answered Mary's question in full and removed the open reproach she had made. No wonder they "did not understand the saying that He spoke to them."
(The writers quote an older translation: "about my Father's business." The ESV reads "in my Father's house.")
Their failure was not slow wits. He had spoken of something they had no share in — a relationship that only became theirs after the cross.
His mother rebuked Him for the anxiety they had felt because of Him. He answered her, and this is His first recorded sentence: "Did you not know that I must be about my Father's business?" But they did not understand the saying. No; for He spoke of His delight in a relationship they could not yet know. But "the grace of God was upon Him." He could call God His Father. In the same way, after He had accomplished redemption, He told Mary Magdalene to pass on the knowledge of that same relationship to His disciples: "His Father and their Father." (See John 20:17.) Blessed redemption!
Mary had just spoken of Joseph as His father. His reply set that aside, and it exposed how little they expected of Him.
Joseph and Mary were amazed. Mary reproached Him for having been absent from them all this time. But He could not accept any reproof. He answered with two questions that were reproofs to them, though gentle. What was the reason they had sought Him? If they had been concerned about the will of God, it would have led them straight to Him. Did they not realise that He would occupy Himself with His Father's interests? Mary had said, "Your father and I," but He set this aside with His words, "My Father's business." Did they expect Him to care only for the company of other children at such a time, and to have no interest in the temple, the very centre of Israel's interests? This should have been the first place they looked for Him.
Being misunderstood did not change how He lived with them.
So from early youth our Lord was conscious of being the Son of God, above all earthly claims… In His own consciousness He was truly the Son of the Father; He said so and proved it. So He must be about His Father's business. It was not open to Him, nor possible for Him, to set aside His Father's will. This was the first object before His heart. But He was devoted as Son of God, and His parents did not understand what He said. Despite both, He goes down with them "to Nazareth and was in subjection to them." Meanwhile His mother keeps all these sayings, little understood, in her heart.
Mary did not drop what she could not explain. She stored it, and that storing was itself the road to understanding.
Understanding is of the heart (Matt. 13:15). It was in her heart that Mary kept the deep sayings about the Christ, and in secret she kept pondering them so that she might eventually understand (Luke 2:19, 51).
Writers point to the moment when the puzzle opened for her.
When Jesus, at the age of twelve, said to His parents, "Did you not know that I must be about My Father's business," it must have been a riddle to them. As it says, "They did not understand the saying that He spoke to them." But "His mother kept all these sayings in her heart." The time came when she received, with His disciples, the gift of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of sonship. Then she could cry with all His own, "Abba, Father," and enter into the meaning of what Jesus had said so long before.
- Spoken — His first recorded words declare His own relationship to His Father and the will He came to do.
- Missed — they did not understand because He spoke of a relationship they had no part in yet. The words were plain; the standing was not theirs.
- Corrected — Mary said "your father and I"; He answered "My Father." His gentle reproof met both their search and their low expectation of Him.
- Obeyed — the misunderstanding changed nothing: He went down to Nazareth and stayed subject to them.
- Kept — Mary stored the sayings in her heart and pondered them. When the Spirit of sonship came, she could say "Abba, Father" and see what He had meant.
And he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and he was in subjection to them. And his mother kept all these things in her heart.
At twelve years old, Jesus had just told Joseph and Mary that He must be about His Father's business. Then He walked home with them and took the place of an ordinary child. The verse holds together two things that seem impossible to hold at once. He knew exactly who He was. He also submitted fully to a mother and father who did not understand Him.
His obedience did not hide His glory. It showed it. He lost nothing by going down to Nazareth.
Still, "He went down with them and came to Nazareth and was submissive to them." What majesty in His whole life! His being God secured His perfection as a child and as a man here on earth. He always had the blessed consciousness of His relationship to His Father. He was an obedient child, yet He was also conscious of a glory that had nothing in itself to do with being under human parents. He belonged to Mary and even Joseph; in another sense He was not theirs.
The same verse shows Him in two relationships at once — to His Father, and to His parents.
At the same time He returns with His parents. He obeys them as dutifully as if He were only a spotless human child — their child. The Son of the Father He was, as really as the Son of man. "He came to Nazareth and was submissive to them." He is the divine person, and yet the perfect man, perfect in every relationship that suited such a person.
The journey to Nazareth did not cancel His answer in the temple. It carried it out. For Him, daily duty and devotion to God were never two separate things.
His reply to Mary in the temple throws a flood of light on all the years between His first Passover and His baptism. By that reply He had clearly defined His position. He was here to be "about His Father's business." So when He was subject to Joseph and Mary, He was doing His Father's will just as much as when He stayed behind in Jerusalem. There was not, and there could not be, any split between His daily life and what people call the more sacred duties.
A few words cover many years at Nazareth. What He did there sets a standard for every child.
Then He went down with them to Nazareth and was "submissive to them." Yes, "submissive to them." Words of deep and mighty meaning. In this way He gave the recognition of parental authority, and submission to it, a wonderful dignity. His own word, in 2 Timothy 3, condemns disobedience to parents. Here He sets the perfect example of the opposite. The lowly grace seen at Bethlehem only grows brighter at Nazareth. So the childhood of Jesus is no less a model for His people than His manhood is.
His obedience was never mechanical. He measured each relationship by what the moment required before God.
He knew when to accept the claims of His mother when she made them. He knew when to refuse them, even though she made them. And He knew when to honour them when she had not asked (Luke 2:51; Luke 8:21; John 19:27).
One more thing marks these years: He never pushed Himself forward.
In the end of the chapter the Lord was in perfect submission — Son of God — but entirely subject. He does nothing at all until called out — what a lesson for us (verse 51).
After this verse the record goes quiet until His baptism. Only one thing is told us about those years.
The veil now drops for eighteen years. Scripture is silent about what took place in them, except that He was subject to His parents. "Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary?" (Mark 6:3) — these seem to be the words of careless, scornful unbelief. But I do not think these eighteen years were idle moments for the Blessed Lord. He was always about His Father's business.
She did not yet understand His words. She kept them anyway, and that keeping was the road to understanding.
It was in her heart that Mary kept the deep sayings about the Christ. In secret she kept pondering them, so that in time she might understand (Luke 2:19, 51).
- Descent. He went down to Nazareth. The One who knew He was the Son took a child's place, and His deity secured His perfection in it.
- Duty. Subjection to Joseph and Mary was not a pause from His Father's business — it was that business, lived out daily.
- Dignity. His obedience gave the honouring of parents a lasting dignity. His childhood is a model as much as His public ministry.
- Discretion. He knew when to accept a claim and when to refuse it, and He never pushed Himself forward.
- Deposit. Mary stored what she could not yet explain. Understanding came later to a heart that kept pondering.
And Jesus advanced in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and men.
Luke's account of Jesus' boyhood closes with a single sentence about growth. Then the record falls silent until He is thirty. That one sentence raises a hard question: how can the One who is God increase in anything?
Commentators take the increase at face value.
Luke gives us more of the reality of His childhood than the other Gospels. He was not made man fully formed like Adam.
Growth and perfection are not rivals here. He was complete at every age, and still growing at every age.
How can we reconcile such statements with His being God Himself, though man? Most clearly He was always perfect. But then He was the perfect Baby, and the perfect Youth, as we shall also find Him in due time to be the perfect Man. At any given moment He was absolutely perfect, and yet He grew.
Verse 40 says the child was filled with wisdom; verse 52 says He increased in it. One writer treats the second as no harder than the first.
"He increased in wisdom." Does this present any difficulty? Certainly no more than that "He was filled with wisdom." Both are true. Both are true of the same complex person who was God and man in one. He was truly God, but as truly man — in infancy, childhood, or maturity — and always consistent with what belongs to each stage of human life.
Another writer leaves the mystery standing, and finds in it the proof of real manhood.
As God He is all-wise. Yet as a child in this world He "grew and became strong in spirit, filled with wisdom; and the grace of God was upon Him" (Luke 2:40)... It is an unsearchable mystery that the source of all wisdom should, as Man, increase in wisdom. But this only brings out the perfection of His Manhood.
The ESV of verse 40 reads, "And the child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom. And the favor of God was upon him." The older wording quoted above adds "in spirit," and that word matters for the next point.
The words of verse 52 also bear on what He took up in becoming man.
Verse 52 of the same chapter says that "Jesus increased in wisdom." These words are difficult, if not impossible, to understand if He did not take a human spirit in becoming man. Wisdom belongs to the spirit rather than to soul or body.
That growth followed a natural order.
There was nothing of unnatural progress in Him: all was orderly increase. His wisdom kept pace with His stature, or age. He was the child first, then the man.
Other writings about His childhood tell a very different story.
There was nothing unnaturally advanced for His age — nothing like the silly stories told in the made-up Gospels — only absolute purity in every relationship.
The favour was no courtesy. It answered to what He was. And the human half of it did not last.
Also He increased in favour with God and man. This favour (or grace) was because of a character that fully deserved it. Each day of His life was a fresh occasion of delight to the heart of God the Father. Man too could not ignore it, and appreciated it — until He began to press the claims of God upon men. It was like Saul, who loved David until he realised that David, by his character and by God's will, was entitled to be the king of Israel (1 Sam. 16:21; 18:6-11).
The setting of this growth is Nazareth, and the shape of it is obedience to Joseph and Mary.
Then He went down with them to Nazareth and was "subject to them." Words of deep and mighty meaning. This gave wonderful dignity to recognizing parental authority and obeying it... So the childhood of Jesus is no less a model for His people than His manhood.
Scripture tells us almost nothing about those years. One detail survives.
Then for eighteen years God drops a veil over His life. All we know of that period is this, that when He came out men said, "Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary?" (Mark 6:3). So I conclude that this blessed Son of God, here in human form on earth, worked with His hands. Let no one think, then, that service or toil is a lowly thing to be avoided.
- Real — He was not made man fully formed like Adam. His growth in wisdom, body and favour was real growth, not a show of growth.
- Perfect — He was the perfect Baby, the perfect Youth, the perfect Man. He was perfect at every moment, and still growing.
- Orderly — His wisdom kept pace with His age. Nothing was unnatural, nothing was forced. The made-up childhood stories could not copy that.
- Deserved — the favour rested on a character that merited it. Every day was fresh delight to the Father. Human approval lasted only until He pressed God's claims.
- Hidden — Nazareth, obedience to His parents, a carpenter's work behind the veil. His childhood is as much a model for us as His manhood.