'How is it that ye sought Me?' That means: 'Did you not know where I
should be sure to be? What need was there to go up and down
Jerusalem looking for Me? You might have known there was only one
place where you would find Me. Wist ye not that I _must_ be
about My Father's business?' Now, the last words of this question
are in the Greek literally, as the margin of the Revised Version
tells us, 'in the things of My Father'; and that idiomatic form of
speech may either be taken to mean, as the Authorised Version does,
'about My Father's business,' or, with the Revised Version, 'in My
Father's house.' The latter seems the rendering most relevant in
this connection, where the folly of seeking is emphasised--the
certainty of His place is more to the point than that of His
occupation. But 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, 'to behold the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in His
Temple'?
Do people know where to find us? Is it unnecessary to go hunting for
us? Is there a place where it is certain that we shall be? It was so
with this child Jesus, and it should be so with all of us who
profess to be His followers.
All through Christ's life there runs, and occasionally there comes
into utterance, that sense of a divine necessity laid upon Him; and
here is its beginning, the very first time that the word occurs on
His lips, 'I must.' There is as divine and as real a necessity
shaping our lives because it lies upon and moulds our wills, if we
have the child's heart, and stand in the child's position. In Jesus
Christ the 'must' was not an external one, but He 'must be about His
Father's business,' because His whole inclination and will were
submitted to the Father's authority. And that is what will make any
life sweet, calm, noble. 'The love of Christ constraineth us.' There
is a necessity which presses upon men like iron fetters; there is a
necessity which wells up within a man as a fountain of life, and
does not so much drive as sweetly incline the will, so that it is
impossible for him to be other than a loving, obedient child.
Dear friend, have we felt the joyful grip of that necessity? Is it
impossible for me not to be doing God's will? Do I feel myself laid
hold of by a strong, loving hand that propels me, not unwillingly,
along the path? Does inclination coincide with obligation? If it
does, then no words can tell the freedom, the enlargement, the
calmness, the deep blessedness of such a life. But when these pull
in two different ways, as, alas! they often do, and I have to say,
'I must be about my Father's business, and I had rather be about my
own if I durst,' which is the condition of a great many so-called
Christian people--then the necessity is miserable; and slavery, not
freedom, is the characteristic of such Christianity. And there is a
great deal of such to-day.
And now one last word. On this sweet 'must,' and blessed compulsion
to be about the Father's business, there follows: