WEEK 1
November 2 – Luke 2:41-52
In My Father’s House
In the culture we live in today, it may seem like Jesus was not obedient to His parents, or that His parents were negligent in His care. Of course, this cannot be true of Jesus, as He lived a sinless life (2 Corinthians 5:21). He stayed behind in the place He loved most. The place where His Heavenly Father resided, while His traveling party had left to go home.
Not much is revealed about this traveling group that Jesus’ family was a part of. This particular trip was to celebrate the Passover Festival which His parents attended yearly. Attendance was commanded by the Law (Deuteronomy 16:16) to attend the major feasts, and it was customary for large groups to make these pilgrimages together. There may have been miscommunication or just busyness in not realizing that He was not among them. When His parents departed to their homes with the group, they unknowingly left without Him, traveling a day’s journey before they discovered He wasn’t with them. So back they went and found Him sitting among the teachers in the temple, soaking it all in and asking questions. He displayed an unheard of knowledge and understanding of God’s word. Jesus was being obedient to His Heavenly Father, which always trumps obedience to our earthly fathers.
As far as I know, the first recorded words in scripture of Jesus during His time here on earth are here in the temple when He was twelve years old. His response to his parents when they wondered why He treated them this way, causing them to worry was this: And He said unto them, “How is it that ye sought me? Wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?” Luke 2:49
Everything about this boy, Jesus, was miraculous, and no one knew this better than His mother, who pondered this in her heart (vs. 51). She knew. After all, His very human existence came about through her because of her involvement in the impossible way He was divinely conceived.
In His first recorded words, He demonstrates His commitment to being in His Heavenly Father’s house and about His business. He is our example. It is absolutely necessary for us to meet with other believers, worshipping the God we love, praising Jesus and thanking Him for what He has done for us! It helps us with the doubts and struggles we all experience. We learn to bear one another’s burdens, and to love and exhort one another the way we should. It gives us a shared hope that we have a bright future beyond this cursed earth and our present circumstances (Hebrews 10:24-25).
Thank you, Father, for providing me with a body of believers who love and worship You and who do well with loving and caring for one another. May I not neglect meeting together with them.
