Expository Thoughts On Luke – Luke 2:41-52 - John Charles Ryle

JESUS AND HIS PARENTS AT THE PASSOVER

These verses should always be deeply interesting to a reader of the Bible. They record the only facts which we know about our Lord Jesus Christ during the first thirty years of His life on earth, after His infancy. How many things a Christian would like to know about the events of those thirty years, and the daily history of the house at Nazareth! But we need not doubt that there is wisdom in the silence of Scripture on the subject. If it had been good for us to know more, more would have been revealed.

Let us first, draw from the passage a lesson for all married people. We have it in the conduct of Joseph and Mary, here described. We are told that “they went to Jerusalem every year, at the feast of the passover.” They regularly honored God’s appointed ordinances and they honored them together. The distance from Nazareth to Jerusalem was great. The journey, to poor people without any means of conveyance, was, doubtless, troublesome and fatiguing. To leave house and home for some two weeks was no slight expense. But God had given Israel a command, and Joseph and Mary strictly obeyed it. God had appointed an ordinance for their spiritual good, and they regularly kept it. And all that they did concerning the passover they did together. When they went up to the feast, they always went up side by side.

So ought it to be with all Christian husbands and wives. They ought to help one another in spiritual things, and to encourage one another in the service of God. Marriage, unquestionably, is not a sacrament, as the Romish Church vainly asserts. But marriage is a state of life which has the greatest effect on the souls of those who enter into it. It helps them upwards or downwards. It leads them nearer to heaven or nearer to hell. We all depend much on the company we keep. Our characters are insensibly molded by those with whom we pass our time. To none does this apply so much as to married people. Husbands and wives are continually doing either good or harm to one another’s souls.

Let all who are married, or think of being married, ponder these things well. Let them take example from the conduct of Joseph and Mary, and resolve to do likewise. Let them pray together, and read the Bible together, and go to the house of God together, and talk to one another about spiritual matters. Above all, let them beware of throwing obstacles and discouragements in one another’s way about means of grace. Blessed are those husbands who say to their wives as Elkanah did to Hannah, “Do all that is in your heart.” Happy are those wives who say to their husbands as Leah and Rachel did to Jacob, “Whatever God has said unto you, do.” (1 Sam. 1:23; Gen. 31:16.)

Let us, secondly, draw from the passage, an example for all young people. We have it in the conduct of our Lord Jesus Christ, when He was left by Himself in Jerusalem at the age of twelve years. For four days He was out of sight of Mary and Joseph. For three days they “sought him sorrowing,” not knowing what had befallen Him. Who can imagine the anxiety of such a mother at losing such a child? And where did they find Him at last? Not idling His time away, or getting into mischief, as many boys of twelve years old do. Not in vain and unprofitable company. They found him in the temple of God–sitting in the midst” of the Jewish teachers, “hearing” what they had to say, and “asking questions” about things He wished to be explained.

So ought it to be with the younger members of Christian families. They ought to be steady and trustworthy behind the backs of their parents, as well as before their faces. They ought to seek the company of the wise and prudent, and to use every opportunity of getting spiritual knowledge, before the cares of life come on them, and while their memories are fresh and strong.

Let Christian boys and girls ponder these things well, and take example from the conduct of Jesus at the age of only twelve years. Let them remember, that if they are old enough to do wrong, they are also old enough to do right; and that if able to read story-books and to talk, they are also able to read their Bibles and pray. Let them remember, that they are accountable to God, even while they are yet young, and that it is written that God “heard the voice of a BOY.” (Gen. 21:17.) Happy indeed are those families in which the children “seek the Lord early,” and cost their parents no tears. Happy are those parents who can say of their boys and girls, when absent from them, “I can trust my children that they will not wilfully run into sin.”

Let us, in the last place, draw from this passage, an example for all true Christians. We have it in the solemn words which our Lord addressed to His mother Mary, when she said to Him, “Son, why have you dealt with us thus?” “Know you not,” was the reply, “that I must be about my father’s business?” A mild reproof was evidently implied in that reply. It was meant to remind His mother that He was no common person, and had come into the world to do no common work. It was a hint that she was insensibly forgetting that He had come into the world in no ordinary way, and that she could not expect Him to be ever dwelling quietly at Nazareth. It was a solemn remembrancer that, as God, He had a Father in heaven, and that this heavenly Father’s work demanded His first attention.

The expression is one that ought to sink down deeply into the hearts of all Christ’s people. It should supply them with a mark at which they should aim in daily life, and a test by which they should try their habits and conversation. It should quicken them when they begin to be slothful. It should check them when they feel inclined to go back to the world. “Are we about our Father’s business? Are we walking in the steps of Jesus Christ?” Such questions will often prove very humbling, and make us ashamed of ourselves. But such questions are eminently useful to our souls. Never is a Church in so healthy a condition as when its believing members aim high, and strive in all things to be like Christ.

John Charles Ryle