9 'My Father's Business'

IF EVENTS TOOK some such course as just described in that little village of Nazareth, what about the Babe Himself as He awoke upon Mary's breast? What has the Scripture to tell us about His experience of life? Very little in words; a great deal in illumination.

       After the emptying of the Son of God it was of course necessary that He should again become full. A baby could not do the work of God: that was for a full grown man. The Scriptures tell us that at the age of twelve years Jesus was being filled with wisdom, and that at thirty He was full of truth. Whence came this filling, that was to make Him the image of the Invisible God?

       When a citizen of one country moves to another he often sends on in advance the furniture and luggage that he used in his old place of abode to his new home, that he may be surrounded again by his own belongings. When a child is to be born, long before its actual birth busy fingers have been filling the bottom drawer with the clothes the little one will need when it appears. The parents make all provision for the long-expected treasure of their hearts.

       So when the Son of God moved from Heaven to earth He had sent on the thoughts of His mind before Him, that when He awoke He should find His own spiritual

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furniture around Him. When the Almighty Father sent His Son to be born of a Virgin, He had before that birth filled the bottom drawer with all the truth that His Son would require. The last little garments were contained in Matthew 1 and Luke 1 and 2.

       The Word of God had through the centuries been sent down upon the earth book by book, truth by truth. The past, present and future of the Son of God was therein contained, so that the mind which had emptied itself upon that fearful morning might find its own thoughts awaiting it in its new home. Thirty years it took to complete the transference but at the end of that time Jesus of Nazareth had absorbed the wisdom which He had had as Son of God in Heaven, and was filled with all the fulness of God. The facts and history of the past which had been His by knowledge and experience were now to be His by faith: He, like us, was to walk, not by sight but by faith: He, like us, was to be dependent upon the written Word of God and the grace of the Holy Spirit, that He might be an example to His brethren who should also live by faith. During His earthly ministry His constant appeal was to the Written Word of God; after His Resurrection He explains His victory to Cleopas and the other by a reference to the description of His earthly life sent on before in Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms. The Greek of Luke 18:31 reads 'and all things that are written through the prophets to (or for) the Son of Man'. The Old Testament was written primarily not for us but for the Son of God who should find His life in believing every word that had proceeded from His Father, and been spoken by the Son of God through the prophets to Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Mary. It was as if by means of the Scriptures the mind of the Son of God slowly penetrated the heart of the Son of Man until the identification was complete.

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       It was the tragedy of His early life that, while He was filling up with the wisdom which came by faith, Joseph and Mary were leaking out what faith they had had. At the age of twelve the boy Jesus felt compelled to make a protest at the treatment He was receiving in His home. As He was to say sorrowfully in later life, a prophet is not without honour save in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own home.

       The time had come in His experience when He realised that the prophecies and visions which had immediately preceded and followed His birth were but echoes of the prophecies uttered centuries before by Isaiah and the other prophets. The staggering fact, made known so directly to Mary and Joseph, Elizabeth and Zacharias, that He was the Son of the Highest, had entered His mind and heart.

       What a tremendous shock it must have been to the son of the carpenter of Nazareth to realise for the first time that He was God the Creator! Those who are born again find it difficult to realise that they too are Sons of God: but what of Him who was the Only-Begotten Son of God? How could humanity sustain the unbelievable grandeur of Deity; how could flesh face the awful responsibilities of God? We know not how much more of the truth had as yet burst upon Him, but we are given a clear statement of His understanding of His divine nature.

       It was of course the custom of all Hebrew parents to watch eagerly for any signs of spirituality in their children. Those who showed promise in this way were naturally sent at an early age to the Bible School in Jerusalem that as the pupil of one or other of the great Rabbis they might learn the Hebrew language in which God's Word was written—unintelligible to the ordinary Jew, who spoke Aramaic or Koine. So Saul was sent that long journey from Tarsus that he might sit at the feet of

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Gamaliel, who sat in Moses' seat, and be taught the Word of God. Great sacrifices were made by parents of such children to give them every advantage of education. Hannah had deprived herself of her son's companionship at an early age that he might serve the Lord in His Temple. She felt that the son so divinely given should be given back to the Giver.

       It is almost incredible, yet a fact, that no such thought seems to have entered the minds of Mary and Joseph concerning Jesus. So utterly had their faith died that they had no higher destiny for Him than that He should carry on 'his father's business' in Nazareth. Against this wet blanket of unbelief the boy Jesus had fought in vain. In the village, in His home, everywhere, He was known as Joseph's son: but He knew full well His Father's real name; it was Jehovah.

       At the age of twelve or thirteen it was customary for a Jewish youth to take his own spiritual stand, as one who was now bound to obey the Law and be responsible to God. And this Jesus did in such a drastic fashion as might be calculated to jerk His family into recognition of the truth.

       When Mary and Joseph returned home to Nazareth, for that was their home, Jesus tarried in the House of God, for that was His Home! In doing this without telling them He caused them great anxiety and agony of mind. They looked for Him everywhere but in the right place, so dull was their spiritual perception. As He said to them, 'How was it that you didn't know where to look for me? Where would you naturally look for a child but in his father's house? Why did you call Joseph my father when you know quite well that my Father is not Joseph but Jehovah?' We read that so completely had they lost grip that they could not even understand what He meant! Mary and Joseph had both forgotten the words of Gabriel;

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twelve years had been enough to dull their memory of that extraordinary occurrence. Mary had taken the first steps on the path that twenty years after was to lead her and her family to feel that Jesus was mad, and to try to interfere with His ministry—and to earn the rebuke that the strangers around Him were nearer to Him in spirit than His own mother. How sad that amongst the women who followed Him from Galilee, and ministered to Him, the name of His own mother should not appear.

       Can we measure the fight of faith in the young mind of Jesus, as against all discouragement around Him He held on to the Word of God? How dear to Him must have been Isaiah 9:6-7; 7:14; 49:1-3; and the words of Gabriel and of the shepherds! Jesus of Nazareth founded His life, as Jehoshapat had done, upon faith in the words of the prophets. He built His life upon the rock. Mary kept many words in her heart, but out of the abundance of the heart the mouth should speak; and Mary's mouth spoke lies, which overwhelmed the truth within her heart and led her into unbelief. From henceforth to Mary, Jesus' father was Joseph; had she not said so in the very Temple of God before the priests of God? How necessary to Jesus was Isaiah 53:1-3! There He found the explanation not only of His own peculiar experience, but of His neighbours' blindness. He was to grow up without saying or doing anything to attract attention; to be deprived of all that man would look for in the Son of God. As He found Himself entering into the actual experience of rejection and unbelief, whilst His heart might be broken, His faith would be strengthened and His mind at rest. And so He returned to Nazareth to spend the next eighteen years in obscurity and the daily round of a tradesman's life!

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