July 19 Daily Devotional

Luke 2

Nazareth of Galilee, we remember, is the place where Joseph and Mary had lived. Just how Old Jesus was when the holy family returned from Egypt we cannot say. Of his boyhood very little is known. No doubt very early his mother taught her son to pray and the principles of the faith of the fathers. In the synagogue of Nazareth, so it seems, he became very familiar with Moses and the prophets.

Every year Joseph and Mary went to Jerusalem to celebrate the great feast of Passover. This feast reminded Israel of the wonderful way in which God had led his people out of the slavery of Egypt. Jesus was now twelve years old. At that age a Jewish boy became what was called “a son of the law,” that is, he was now expected to do all the things written in the Law, which included attending the feast of the Passover. The distance from Nazareth to Jerusalem was about eighty-five miles. The boy joined his parents and other people of his town, who went to the holy city to take part in the celebration.

The festival lasted a week. It seems Jesus enjoyed the services and the instruction of the priests and scribes. He began to realize that God was his Father. When the celebration was over, the people of Nazareth started to go home. The boy Jesus tarried in Jerusalem, but Joseph and Mary did not know this. They supposed that he was with their friends and relatives. After a day’s journey they became concerned about the boy and tried to find him. When they could not find him, they returned to Jerusalem and continued their search for him. Finally after three days they found the child Jesus, not in the streets playing with other boys or admiring the sights of the big city, but sitting in the temple among the wise teachers. He was listening to their discussions and asking them questions; and all that heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers.

Of course Joseph and Mary were surprised to find the boy in the temple. Mary said to him, “Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? Behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing. And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business? And they understood not the saying which he spoke unto them. And he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was subject. unto them: but his mother kept all these sayings in her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.” So he spent the years of his youth in his humble home at Nazareth, until thirty years old, when his ministry in Israel began.