Read Luke 2:39-52
Questions from the Scripture text: According to what had Joseph and Mary performed all things (Luke 2:39)? Where did they go? What happened to the child there (Luke 2:40)? How often did Joseph and Mary keep the command to go up to Jerusalem for Passover (Luke 2:41)? What happened this particular time (Luke 2:42-43)? When did His parents discover the problem (Luke 2:44)? How long did it take to find Him (Luke 2:45-46)? What was He doing (verse 46b)? Who was astonished and why in Luke 2:47? Who was amazed and why in Luke 2:48? What did Jesus not understand in Luke 2:49? What did His parents not understand in Luke 2:50? Where did Jesus go in Luke 2:51? With whom? What did He do there? And what happened to Him there (Luke 2:52)?What a blessed earthly home the heavenly Father gave His Son!
Joseph and Mary were godly. So, for Christ—as necessary for us and for our salvation—“all things were performed according to the law of the Lord” (Luke 2:39), and they went up every year (as commanded in God’s law) for Passover (Luke 2:41).
But it is important to see that this Scripture specifically highlights “their city” (Luke 2:39) as the place where the Lord Jesus “grew and became strong in Spirit, filled with wisdom; and the grace of God was upon Him” (Luke 2:40). And it was specifically as Jesus went home with His parents and submitted Himself to them (Luke 2:51), that He “grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men” (Luke 2:52).
It was absolutely necessary that He attend upon the great moments of the public means of grace. But, it was especially day by day in the ordinary means of grace in Joseph and Mary’s home, and week by week in the ordinary means of grace in the Nazareth synagogue, that the God of heaven grew His Son on earth.
If this is how God has grown His only begotten Son (in His human nature), then we mustn’t wonder that this is how He grows those children whom He has adopted in the Son. Dear Christian, this is where your Father grows you, strengthens you in the Spirit, and grows you in wisdom and favor with God and men! Day by day, in the ordinary means of grace in your home. Week by week, in the ordinary means of grace in your local church!
(in fact, there are no more “high days” or “annual feasts” because we go weekly now into the holy of holies in glory).
And for those of us who are parents (or children), if in our perfectly righteous Savior’s formative years it was necessary that He have parents who led Him in and brought Him under the ordinary means of grace—how much more necessary it is for our children who share the sin and slowness of Joseph and Mary (and their own fathers and mothers—us!)?
Praise be to God for the ordinary means of grace. In Christ’s life. In our lives. In our children's lives.
How dedicated are you to daily means of grace at home? How dedicated to attendance upon the weekly means of grace in your local church? Who has appointed these for you?Suggested songs: ARP131 “My Heart Is Not Exalted, Lord” or TPH322 “Once in Royal David’s City”
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