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:
