Jesus was a child

JESUS WAS A CHILD
EDITED BY GLENN PEASE
Luke 2:40 And the child grew, and waxed strong,
filledwith wisdom: and the grace of God was upon
him.—Luke 2:40.
GreatTexts of the Bible
The Growth of the Child Jesus
1. There is greatsignificance in the fact, seldomappreciatedby common
believers or teachers of Christianity, that Jesus was once a child, with a child’s
thoughts, feelings, joys, griefs, and trials. Not only was He a man, and
therefore nothing human was alien to Him but sin, but He was also a child,
and no childish experience is unknown to Him or removed from His
sympathy. He became a child, as Irenæus beautifully observes, that He might
be the Saviour of children. He has sanctifiedchildhood, as He has every other
age and experience of humanity, by passing through it. And the light and
sanctity of this Divine childhood still linger around every human child, as the
ideal of the artist hovers over the statue he has wrought, making it beautiful
by the reflectionof its pure and perfectbeauty.
2. The subject of the text is the growth of Jesus. “The child grew.” Manyread
this statementwithout perplexity; but in all ages ofthe Church reflective
minds have felt the difficulty of harmonizing the idea of progress with that of
Divinity. The difficulty is undeniably a real one and may not be ignored; yet

there would surely have been far more difficulty if Luke had said or implied
that the Child did not grow. The Incarnation is a mystery which transcends
our powers of explanation; but when once we have been told, and have
believed, that Jesus was born and that Jesus died, we have left ourselves no
excuse for doubting at the interval betweenthese two events must have been
filled up with years of normal human life.
3. First of all, then, we have the factstated. Apocryphal histories of the
infancy are full of marvellous tales;but none of these is trustworthy, and
nearly all are glaringly false. There are many blanks in the narratives we
possess, but it appears that after the presentationof Jesus in the Temple,
Josephand Mary returned to Bethlehem, where, before long, the Magifound
them living, not in the village inn where the Child was born, but in a private
house, as Matthew incidentally mentions. When the wise men had departed to
their unknown country, Jesus was carriedinto Egypt, whence, afterthe death
of Herod, He was brought back into Palestine, andplaced in one of the most
beautiful and retired villages of the northern province. In Nazareththe Child
grew up in quietude as a healthy, happy child, strong in body and in mind;
and men saw that grace, orrather, the beauty of God, the Divine beauty of
holiness, was upon Him. This brief, but most significant, memorial contains in
outline the story of twelve years, during which “the arm of the Lord” dwelt in
the lowly home which His heavenly Father had chosenas the most suitable of
all the homes then existent on the, earth.
4. Next, we see that His growth was natural. Think for a moment of the
difficulty of conceiving a childhood in which Deity and humanity should be
united, with no injustice done to either element. It is one of the evidences of
the truthfulness of the Gospelnarrative that it presents a perfectly natural
and harmonious life, neither impossible to man nor unworthy of God.

The moment we look outside our Gospels we see whathavoc the imagination
was bound to make in attempting to fill up the outline by the invention of
details. The Apocryphal Gospels ofthe infancy endeavourto assertthe union
of Divine powerwith human childhood by a series ofgrotesque miracles. One
day the child Jesus cures a serpent’s bite by blowing on it, and kills the
serpent by the same means; another day He tames a whole den of lions, and
leads them dry-foot across Jordan;another day He makes birds out of clay
and claps His hands and they fly away. St. Luke, on the contrary, while ever
ready to recordmiracle in its proper place, takes pains to describe the holy
childhood as a simple and natural growth alike of body and of mind, in due
subjection to the restraints of home, free from precocityand yet not without
strange intuitions, prophetic intimations of an unusual future, perplexing at
the time but full of meaning in the light of later days.
Did angels hover o’erHis head
What time, as Holy Scriptures saith,
Subject and dutiful He led
His boyhood’s life at Nazareth?
Was there an aureole round His hair,
A mystic symbol and a sign,
To prove to every dweller there,

Who saw Him, that He was divine?
Did He in childish joyance sweet,
Join other children in their play,
And with soft salutationgreet
All who had passedHim in the way?
Did He within the Rabbi’s schools
Say “Aleph,” “Beth,” and “Gimel” mid
The Jewishlads, or use the tools
At Joseph’s bench as Josephdid?
And sometimes would He lay His head,
When tired, on Mary’s tender breast,

And share the meal her hand had spread,
And in her mother-love find rest?
We marvel—but we only know
That holy, harmless, undefiled,
In wisdom, as in stature, so
He grew as any mortal child.
All power, all glory hid away
In depths of such humility,
That thenceforth none might ever say
They had a lowlier lot than He!
And since the child of Nazareth
Set on it thus His sealand sign,

Who—till man’s sin hath marred it—saith
That childhood is not still divine!
The Evangelists recordno incidents of the childhood of Jesus whichseparate
it from the childhood of other of the children of men. The flight into Egypt is
the flight of parents with a child; the presence ofthe boy in the Temple is
marked by no abnormal sign, for it is a distorted imagination which has given
the unbiblical title to the scene—Christdisputing with the Doctors, orChrist
teaching in the Temple. But as the narrative of the Saviour’s ministry
proceeds, we are reminded again and again of the presence of children in the
multitudes that flockedabout Him. The signs and wonders which He wrought
were more than once through the lives of the young, and the suffering and
disease ofhumanity which form the background in the Gospels upon which
we see sketchedin lines of light the outline of the redeeming Son of Man are
shown in the persons of children, while the deeper life of humanity is disclosed
in the tenderness of parents.1 [Note:H. E. Scudder, Childhood in Literature,
48.]
Luke the Evangelistspeaksofthe growth of the Son of Mary as he might have
done of that of Samuel, the son of Hannah, or as Froude might of Martin
Luther, the son of Margaret. It was gradual and natural, in body and mind, in
its physical, mental, and spiritual characteristics. Everyglimpse we get of the
child, the boy, and the man, reveals the same full humanness. Neither boy nor
man is abnormal. Nothing is artificial, mechanical, external: all is vital,
natural, and inward. The mystery of His Origin and Nature notwithstanding,
we must say, with Principal; Fairbairn, “the supernatural in Jesus did not
exist for Jesus, but! for the world.”2 [Note:J. Clifford, The Dawnof
Manhood, 35.]

The words recall, and are meant to recall, three others childhoods:
(1) First, the childhood of John the Baptist. Of him too St. Luke has told us
that “the child grew and waxedstrong in spirit”; and still earlier he has
related that many were led to ask, “Whatmanner of child shall this be? And
the hand of the Lord was with him.” The parallel betweenthe two children
nearly of the same age is purposely workedout—the pious parent’s, the
annunciation by the angel, the naming before birth, the prophecies of
greatness,the long period of silent preparation for a unique mission. In each
case the childhood was natural, the development slow and gradual, not forced
and premature. In eachcase “the child grew and waxed strong in spirit.”
(2) And in drawing these pictures St. Luke had his models in the past. Look at
Samson’s birth and childhood. His birth is announced beforehand by an
angel, with the promise that “he shall begin to save Israel out of the hands of
the Philistines”—words with which we may compare the language of the
hymn in St. Luke, “that we should be savedfrom our enemies, and from the
hand of all that hate us.” Samsonwas to be “a Nazirite unto God from the
womb,” even as the Baptist was to “drink neither wine nor strong drink,” but
was to be “filled with the Holy Ghost even from his mother’s womb.” And of
Samsontoo it is written, “The child grew, and the Lord blessedhim, and the
spirit of the Lord began to move him.” Those were wild times, and it was wild
work which Samsonhad before him, and he was not always faithful in his
doing of it. But his childhood was a strong and natural childhood, with its
occasionalintimations of a destiny.
(3) And if Samson’s childhood is a forecastofSt. John’s no less clearlyis
Samuel’s gentler childhood the prefiguration of our Lord’s. Here, again, we
have the child promised beforehand, and dedicated before birth. In eachcase
“the handmaid” of the Lord utters her “Magnificat.”“Hannahprayed and

said, My heart rejoiceth in the Lord”; and “Marysaid, My souldoth magnify
the Lord.” A difference we find in early training; for the child Samuel is given
to the service of the sanctuary as a child. But in similar terms we read of his
quiet growth: “The child Samuel grew before the Lord”; and again, “The
child Samuel grew on, and was in favour with the Lord and also with men.”
Then comes the story of the voice of God in the house of God, itself a notable
parallel to the Gospelof to-day; and then the words come once againthat tell
of holy growth—forthis crisis did not suddenly bring the fulness of ripe
knowledge ofGod and of life—“Samuelgrew, and the Lord was with him, and
did let none of his words fall to the ground.”1 [Note:J. A. Robinson, Unity in
Christ, 157.]
5. We have seenthat the growthof Jesus was natural. But the question
remains, How could that growthtake place without sin? There are two
conceivable kinds of development; one development through antagonism,
through error, from stage to stage of less and less deficiency. This is our
development; but it is such because evil has gaineda lodgment in our nature,
and we can attain perfection only through contestwith it. But there is another
kind of development conceivable, the development of a perfect nature limited
by time. Such a nature will always be potentially that which it will become;i.e.
everything which it will be is already there, but the development of it is
successive, according to time; perfect at eachseveralstage, but eachstage
more finished than the last. The plant is perfect as the greenshootabove the
earth, it is all it canbe then; it is more perfect as the creature adorned with
leaves and branches, and it is all it canbe then; it reaches its full perfection
when the bud breaks into flower. But it has been as perfect as it can be at
every stage of its existence;it has had no struggle, no retrogression;it has
realized in an entirely normal and natural way, at eachsuccessivestepof its
life, exactly and fully that which a plant should be. Such was the development
of Christ. He was the perfect child, the perfect boy, the perfectyouth, the
perfect flowerof manhood. Every stage ofhuman life was lived in finished
purity, and yet no stage was abnormally developed; there was nothing out of
characterin His life. He did not think the thoughts of a youth when a child, or

feel the feelings of a man when a youth; but He grew freely, nobly, naturally,
unfolding all His powers without a struggle, in a completely healthy progress.
The work of an inferior artist arrives at a certainamount of perfection
through a series of failures, which teach him where he is wrong. By slow
correctionof error he is enabled to produce a tolerable picture. Such is our
development. The work of a man of genius is very different. He has seen,
before he touches pencil, the finished picture. His first sketchcontains the
germ of all. The picture is there; but the first sketchis inferior in finish to the
next stage, andthat to the completed picture. But his work is perfectin its
severalstages;not a line needs erasure, not a thought correction;it develops
into its last and noblest form without a single error. Such was Christ’s
development—an orderly, faultless, unbroken development, in which
humanity, freed from its unnatural companion, evil, went forward according,
to its realnature. It was the restorationof humanity to its original integrity, to
itself, as it existed in the idea of God.
6. St. Luke not only says that as a child Jesus grew, developing as other
children do, but he also tells us that He grew in every part of His personality.
(1) He grew in body: “waxedstrong”;(2) He grew in mind: “filled with
wisdom”;and (3) He grew in spirit: “the grace ofGod was upon him.”
Developmentought always to take place in all these three ways. Let us take a
little baby as our instance. First of all the baby begins to grow in body; it gets
bigger, it gets stronger;it has power overits little actions;it begins to walk—it
is a great;at time in the house when the baby begins to walk—andeverybody
says how it is growing. And so it goes on, growing in bulk and in strength. Its
clothes become too small for it. It grows onto boyhood or to girlhood; on to
manhood, to womanhood; to strength and grace and beauty.

Now that is a marvellous thing—that growth of body. But, by and by, people
begin to notice another kind of growth; something else is growing. This little
one begins to walk; it also begins to talk, to notice things, to remember, to like
and to dislike. Not only is the body growing, the mind is growing too.
Presentlythe little mind will be strong enoughto learn the alphabet, to begin
to write, to begin to cipher, to begin to play on the piano, later on it will be
strong enoughto go to school, to college, and will, in time, become a learned
man or woman.
Now that is a still more wonderful growth, for it will stop growing as a body,
but it will never stop growing as a mind. You may find that child at eighty still
growing, still growing, still learning, still advancing in wisdom. But, once
more, if you notice the little one very closely, you will see that, not only does it
grow in two ways—inbody and mind—but it grows also in another way; it
grows out of little faults into little virtues; out of little tricks of temper into
patience, into powerover itself; out of little selfishnesses into noble love. There
are dolls and toys of the mind and there are dolls and toys of the soul; and as
the body outgrows its clothes, and the mind outgrows its little mistakes, so
there is something which is the best thing in man—the soul—whichalso
grows;grows out of little faults and little wickednesses,and the unlovely
habits of selfishness,till, by and by, men see before them a grand and splendid
character.
i. Bodily Growth
“The child grew and waxed strong.”
The words are used of bodily development in size and strength. The
Authorized Version adds “in spirit,” but that addition does not belong to this

verse;it has been takenin by some copyist or commentator from the eightieth
verse of the first chapter, where it is used of St. John the Baptist.
I think I am safe in saying that this exactestofwriters would never have said
about the youth of our Lord what he does say, and says over again, unless he
had had before his mind’s eye the figure of a young man conspicuous among
His fellows for His stateliness and His strength. The sacredwriter tells us that
he had the most perfectunderstanding of the very beginnings of our Lord’s
life, because he had himself seen, and had interrogatedwith a view to his
gospel, the most trusty eye-witnessesofour Lord’s childhood and boyhood
and youth; till in this text we ourselves become as goodas eye-witnesses ofthe
laying of the first foundation stones of our Lord’s whole subsequent life and
characterand work. And the very first foundation-stone of them all was laid
in that body which the Holy Ghost prepared for our Lord as the
“instrumentum Deitatis”—the organand the instrument of His Godhead. You
may depend upon it that a writer like Luke would never have repeatedly
expressedhimself, as he has here repeatedly expressedhimself, about the
growth and the stature of our Lord’s body, if our Lord’s bodily presence had
been weak, as was the case, to some extent, with the Apostle Paul. In his
famous essayon“DecisionofCharacter,” JohnFosterhas a most striking
passageonthe matter in hand. Decisionofcharacter, the great essayist
argues, beyond all doubt, depends very much on the constitution of the body.
There is some quality in the bodily organizationof some men which increases,
if it does not create, both the stability of their resolutions and the energyof
their undertakings and endeavours. There is something in some men’s very
bodies, which, like the ligatures that the Olympic wrestlers bound on their
hands and on their arms, braces up the very powers of their mind. Men of a
strong moral characterwill, as a rule, be found to possesssomething
correspondinglystrong in their very bodies; just as massive engines demand
to have their stand takenon a firm foundation. “Accordingly,” says Foster, “it
will be found that those men who have been remarkable among their fellows
for the decisiveness oftheir characters, and for the success oftheir great
endeavours, have, as a rule, been the possessors ofgreatconstitutional
strength, till the body has become the inseparable companion and the fit co-

workerwith the mind.” It is an ancient proverb—“Mens sana in corpore
sano”—a soundmind in a sound body—a statelymind and characterin a
corresponding bodily stature.1 [Note:A. Whyte, The Walk, Conversation, and
Characterof Jesus Christ our Lord, 40.]
The human form is consideredto be the highestexpressionof beauty and
perfection for the following reasons. It is adapted to the greatestnumber of
uses, its powers within the limits of its strength being certainly, as far as the
hand is concerned, inexhaustible. The erectform rises upwards, indicative of
the aspiring mind, a characteristic not sharedby any other animal. The
beautiful head is poised on a splendid column, the neck, which is elevated
from the base line formed by the spread of the shoulders. The balanced
rotundity and flatness of the limbs; the lovely movements of the wrist and
marvellous structure of the hand, its powers, as has been already said,
apparently almostinexhaustible; the generalharmony of proportion, several
parts of the body being neither too short nor too long for beauty—these
compare to advantage with analogous parts of the lowercreation.1 [Note:
George Frederic Watts, iii. 8.]
It is a pain to think of children living in conditions where they cannotgrow in
body as they should. Why are their frames so shrunken, and their little faces
so pale and old-looking? Because theyhave no sufficient breathing-space in
life, and no proper food to eat. In one of our seaports a church organized free
suppers for poor lads one hard winter. At supper one night a superintendent
noticed a boy who was not eating anything, and when he askedhim why, the
boy said, “I have been boiler-scaling.”The superintendent, though he had
lived in the seaportall his life, had never heard of boiler-scaling before. Very
small boys are employed to go into the boilers of ships with a hammer to
strike down the scales ofrust that form there. They come out half-suffocated
with rust-dust and with a bronzed appearance. Forthis work they get a
miserable pittance of pay, though it is work that none but very small boys can
do. They usually take a candle, but the lad who was ill at supper had been sent

into a boiler which was so hot that the candle quickly melted, and he had to
have a small oil lamp. The lamp fumes and the boiler-heat and the dust made
the supper impossible, as you may wellimagine. I daresayit would be true
that the other conditions of that boy’s life were not much more favourable to
his growth. Thousands of children in this country, it is tragic to think, are
doomed not to grow in body as they should.2 [Note: T. R. Williams, Addresses
to Boys, Girls, and Young People, 46.]
ii. MentalGrowth
“Filled with wisdom.”
1. Sometimes the body grows and the mind remains a dwarf. After the mind
has reacheda certainpoint it may refuse to grow and want to stay where it is.
Big men and women sometimes have very small minds. They may be six feet
tall and weigh ever so many pounds, and still have a little bit of a mind. Their
aims may be low, and their ambitions small, and their sympathies narrow,
and their affections stunted, and their ideas puny. They are mental dwarfs.
Everybody who comes nearthem knows they are small. Their conversationis
thin, their dealings are petty. They are cross and crabbed, and unreasonable
and ugly, and very hard to get along with. They are hard to live with because
they are so small. We sometimes call such people childish, and I have heard
them calledbig babies. A little baby a few months old is the sweetestthing in
all the world, but a big baby is one of the most terrible of all living creatures.
2. It is not saidthat Jesus was filled with knowledge, orwith learning, or with
greattalents, or with greatpromise of greateloquence, though all that would
have been true, in the measure of His years. But wisdom is far better than all
these things takentogether. “Wisdomis the principal thing,” says the wise
man, “therefore getwisdom.” Knowledge is good;knowledge is absolutely

necessary. Knowledge, however, oftenpuffs up; but never wisdom. Wisdom
always edifies. He grew in knowledge,you may be sure, every day. He passed
no day without learning something He did not know yesterday. He listened
and paid attention when old men spoke. He read every goodbook He could
lay His hands on. He went up as His customwas to the Synagogue every
Sabbath day. And then all that was turned on the spot into wisdom to Him,
like waterturned into wine.
How common a thing is all learning, and all knowledge, andall eloquence;
and how rare a thing is a little wisdom to direct them! How few men among
our greatmen are wise men! Really wise men. How few among our own
relations and friends are really wise men. If you have one wise man in your
family, or in the whole circle of your friendship, grapple that man to your
heart with a hook of gold.1 [Note: A. Whyte, The Walk, Conversation, and
Characterof Jesus Christ our Lord, 47.]
Let us distinguish wisdom from two things. From information first. It is one
thing to be well-informed, it is another thing to be wise. Many books read,
innumerable facts hived up in a capacious memory—this does not constitute
wisdom. Booksgive it not; sometimes the bitterest experience gives it not.
Many a heart-break may have come as the result of life-errors and life-
mistakes;and yet men may be no wiserthan before Before the same
temptations they fall againin the self-same waythey fell before. Where they
erred in youth they err still in age. A mournful truth! “Ever learning,” said St.
Paul, “and never able to come to a knowledge ofthe truth.”
Distinguish wisdom againfrom talent. Brilliancy of powers is not the wisdom
for which Solomonprayed. Wisdom is of the heart rather than the intellect:
the harvestof moral thoughtfulness, patiently reapedin through years. Two
things are required—earnestness andlove. First that rare thing earnestness—
the earnestnesswhichlooks on life practically. Some of the wisestof the race

have been men who have scarcelystirredbeyond home, read little, felt and
thought much. “Give me,” said Solomon, “a wise and understanding heart.” A
heart which ponders upon life, trying to understand its mystery, not in order
to talk about it like an orator, nor in order to theorize about it like a
philosopher; but in order to know how to live and how to die.1 [Note: F. W.
Robertson, Sermons, ii. 182.]
One of the most pleasing of the poems in Christina Rossetti’s “New Poems” is
that addressed“To Lalla,” the favourite name of her cousin Henrietta
Polydore. The latter was only three years old when the poem was written. The
lines incidentally point the moral that wisdom of the heart is better than
knowledge ofthe head. It is a trite moral, but rarely has it been better
expressedthan here.
Readon: if you knew it
You have cause to boast:
You are much the wiser
Though I know the most.2 [Note:Mackenzie Bell, Christina Rossetti, 21.]
3. There is a distinction to be observed betweenHis intellectual development
and ours. We, being defective in nature, are developed through error. By slow
correctionof mistakes, we arrive at intellectual, by slow correctionoffaults at
moral, excellence. Butit is quite possible to conceive the entirely natural
development of Christ’s perfectnature, limited by time; the development, as it
were, of a fountain into a river, perfectas the fountain, but not more than the

fountain as a child; perfectas the rivulet, but not more than the rivulet as a
boy; perfect as the stream, but not more than the streamas a youth; and
perfect as the majestic river as a man. At eachstage greaterthan at the last,
more developed, but as perfect as possible to nature at each;and as the water
of the fountain, rivulet, stream, and river is the same throughout, self-
supplied, perennial in its source and flowing, so was it with the nature of
Christ, and with His growth.
A simple-hearted Child was He,
And He was nothing more;
In summer days, like you and me,
He played about the door,
Or gathered, where the father toiled,
The shavings from the floor.
Sometimes He lay upon the grass,
The same as you and I,
And saw the hawks above Him pass

Like specks againstthe sky;
Or, clinging to the gate, He watched
The strangerpassing by.
A simple Child, and yet, I think,
The bird folk must have known,
The sparrow and the bobolink,
And claimed Him for their own,
And gatheredround Him fearlessly
When He was all alone.
The lark, the linnet, and the dove,
The chaffinch and the wren,

They must have known His watchful love,
And given their worship then;
They must have known and glorified
The Child who died for men.
And when the sun at break of day
Crept in upon His hair,
I think it must have left a ray
Of unseen glory there—
A kiss of love on that little brow
For the thorns that it must wear.
4. Can we discoverany of the means that were used in the development of His
mind? We know not if there were schools for children in those days, but the
parent, and especiallythe mother, was the natural instructor of the child in all
necessaryknowledge,as she is the nurse and provider for its physical wants.

What this Divine child learned from His human mother in those years of
sweetand loving dependence, what wise questions He asked, orwhat
wonderful sayings He uttered in that humble home, sayings which Mary, His
mother, laid up and pondered in her heart, we may never know, at leastin
this world; for the lips of inspiration are sealedexceptin a single instance. But
there were two oracles ofinstruction everopen, in which God spake to His
Son, and taught Him, preparatory to His speaking through Him to the world
He came to save. The first of these was the Scriptures of the Old Testament,
that “sincere milk of the word” by which all devout and holy minds have been
nourished, and have grown thereby. Jesus’intimate familiarity with the letter
of Scripture, shown by His frequent quotations from it, evince how carefully
He had studied the written Word—like the Psalmist, hiding it in His heart.
And His profound and sometimes startling penetration into its spirit shows a
deeper and more spiritual knowledge ofit, such as no Rabbi or mere human
expositorcould have imparted.
Besides this, there was that other not less sacredbook, orrevelation, of
nature, where God’s thoughts are written and embodied in the things that are
made. And of this book the child Jesus was a constantand diligent student.
The vale of Nazarethis described by travellers as one of the most beautiful
spots to be found in Palestine, or even in the world. St. Jerome rightly calls it
“the flowerof Galilee,” andcompares it to a rose opening its corolla. It does
not command a landscape like Bethlehem; the girdle of hills which enclosesit
makes it a calm retreat, the silence of which is, even in our day, broken by the
hammer and chiselof the artisan. The child Jesus grew up in the midst of a
thoroughly simple life, in which a soul like His might best develop its
harmonies. He had only to climb the surrounding heights to contemplate one
of the finest landscapes ofthe Holy Land. At His feetlay the plain of Jezreel,
tapestried with myriad flowers, eachone more beautiful than Solomonin all
his glory. Its boundaries were Taborand Carmel, whence echoedthe voice of
Elijah; Lebanon confronted Carmel, and the chain of Hermon joined its
snowysummits to the mountains of Moab; while afar off glimmered the Great
Sea, which, outlying all national barriers, seemedto open to Jesus that world
which He came to save.

Standing at Fuleh, and looking due north, you cansee, some six or seven miles
away, the green hills that embosom the village of Nazareth. How often from
the hidden village, when the sun was sinking westwards overCarmel, must
there have come to the top of the green hill overlooking the greatplain the
lone figure of a Young Man to look out over the greatsea of beauty, and
watchthe slowlydarkening plain, while Tabor, Hermon, Gilboa, Ebal, and
the hills of Samaria still glowedin the sunset.
Skylarks to-day sing their sweetestovergreenGalilee;a thousand wild herbs
load the evening airs with perfumes; the golden honeysuckles addtheir scent
to that of the myrtle bushes along the pathways; and a sky of surpassing blue
domes the whole wondrous scene. This village of the Nazarene is not even
mentioned in the Old Testament. Strange fact! Yet from it was to go forth one
still small Voice which was to shake the temples, wakenthe tombs, and bring
the pillars of empire to the ground.
It was here, on these grassyhills, that those wonderful Eyes drank in, through
three-and-twenty years, all that imagery of fruit and flower, of seedand
harvest time, all the secrets ofthe trees, which afterwards became the theme
of similitudes and parables. It was here the Masterprepared to manifest all
that infinite knowledge ofsouland sense, the pale reflection of which, as it is
found in the Evangelists, has come as a moonbeam over the troubled river of
the lives of men, silvering the turbid stream, lighting the gloomy headlands,
and shedding its benign rays far out upon the endless oceanin which the
fevered flood is at last to rest.1 [Note:Sir William Butler: An Autobiography,
374.]
These are the floweryfields, where first

The wisdom of the Christ was nursed;
Here first the wonder and surprise
Of Nature lit the sacredeyes:
Waters, and winds, and woodlands, here,
With earliestmusic charmed His ear,
For all His consciousyouth drew breath,
Among these hills of Nazareth.
The quiet hills, the skies above,
The faces round were bright with love;
He lost not, in the tranquil place,
One hint of wisdom or of grace;
Not unobserved, nor vague nor dim,

The secretofthe world to Him,
The prayer He heard which Nature saith
In the still glades by Nazareth.
Yet graver, with the growth of years,
The step, the face, the heart appears;
The burden of the world He knows,
The unloved Helper’s lonely woes
Till, when the summons bids Him rise
From that still place of placid skies,
Fearless, yetsorrowing unto death,
Jesus goesforth from Nazareth.1 [Note:G. A. Chadwick.]

iii. Spiritual Growth
“The grace of Godwas upon him.”
1. This word goes beyond all we have yet considered. It says that in these silent
years the boy Jesus lived towardGod; that within the life of home and school
and play there was another life; that the child lookedup to a Father in
heaven, and by most simple faith brought Him into the midst of the scenesHe
saw and the duties He did. That word spokento earthly parents in the Temple
is a mysterious saying, to be laid up with many another in Mary’s heart, to be
read in the light of events long afterwards, and perchance to be mysterious
even then. To us the most remarkable and revealing thing about it is the
simple, devout familiarity with which He uses the Father’s name, His manner
of taking God for granted and of assuming His relation to Him. “Wistye not
that I must be in my Father’s house?” This is no strange, sudden break from
all His past, no discoveryof His mission. His life hitherto has been leading
Him to this hour. In the hills of NazarethHe had found a house of God where
He held communion with Him; the poor synagogue ofNazarethwas to Him
His Father’s house before He saw the great Temple at Jerusalem. In the home
of Nazareth He found Him near. Every duty of that lowly life bound Him to
the Father. Those silentyears were doubtless rich in experiences which are
not written down, which were not told to any, but which were forming and
confirming the faith in which He was to live and work and die.
Christ’s pure quiet life in Nazarethwas the greatestfactin His whole great
career. It was this life that gave significance to His death.
Nazarethstands for the home life. It contains the greaterpart of His great
career. By far the greaternumber of years was spent here. Here were more
praying for others and over the life plan, more communing with the Father,

more battling with temptation and narrow prejudice and ignorance than in
the few years of public service.
Nazarethstands for that intensely human life of Jesus lived in dependence
upon God’s grace exactlyas other men must live. It was lived in a simple
home that would seemvery narrow and meagre in its appointments and
conveniences to most of us. He was one of a large family living in a small
house, with the touch of elbows very close, andwith all the possible small,
half-good-natured frictions that such close, almostcrowded, touchis apt to
give rise to.
He workedwith His hands and bodily strength most of the waking hours,
doing carpentering jobs for the small trade of the village, dealing with
exacting, whimsicalcustomers, as well as those more easilysuited.
He was a son to His mother, an eldestson, too, and may be, rather likely, of a
widowedmother, who leanedupon her firstborn in piecing out the small
funds, and in the ceaselesscare ofthe younger children. He was brother to His
brothers and sisters, a real brother, the big brother of the little group. He was
a neighbour to His fellow villagers, and a fellow labourer with the other
craftsmen. In the midst of the little but very realand pressing problems of
home, the small talk and interests of the village life, He grew up, a perfectbit
of His surroundings, and lived during His matured years.
And who candoubt the simplicity and warmth and practicality and
unfailingness of His love as it was lived in that great Nazarethlife? We will
never know the full meaning of Jesus’word “pure,” and of His word “love,”
and of all His teaching, until we know His Nazareth life. The more we can
think into what it really was, the better can we graspthe meaning of His

public utterances. Nazarethis the double underscoring in red under every
sentence He spoke.
Those three years and odd of public life all grew up out of this Nazarethhome
life. They are the top of the hill; Nazarethis the base and bulk; Calvary the
top. Here every victory had already been won. The public life was built upon
the home life. Under the ministering to crowds, healing the sick, raising the
dead, and patient teaching of the multitudes, lay the greatstrong home life in
its purity. Calvary was built upon Nazareth.1 [Note:S. D. Gordon, Quiet
Talks on Home Ideals, 112.]
2. He grew in spirit by the exercise ofHis moral powers in resisting the
temptations arising from mere natural desire, which needed to be controlled
in Him as well as in all men. While the grace ofGod was upon Him and in
Him, to inspire and aid His goodendeavours, it did not supersede His own
free moral agency. The discipline of life came to Him, as it does to all, and
challengedHim to conflict; and He acquired moral strength and wisdom only
through experience and trial, by overcoming whatever foe or hindrance lay in
His path of holy obedience. And this was not an easyvictory, but involved
conflict, self-denial, and suffering. For we read that, “Thoughhe were a Son,
yet learnedhe obedience by the things which he suffered”; and that “he was
tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin”; which He could not be,
without a real conflictbetweendesire and will, betweenflesh and spirit. The
difference betweenHim and other men was not in His exemption from trial
and moral discipline, or in His impeccability or inability to do wrong, but in
the factthat in Him the spirit, or will, never succumbed to temptation, but
remained steadfastand sinless though continually solicited;while in others the
will is often overcome, and so weakenedin its power of resistance.The conflict
in Him was to retain His integrity, in others to recoverit. And the
indispensable help in this conflict, without which no wisdom and no virtue can
be established, was to detectthe first approaches andmanifold disguises of
moral evil, and a reinforcementof spiritual strength from the infinite Source

of all strength and wisdom. That charge so often made to His disciples
afterwards, “Watchand pray, lestye enter into temptation,” was drawn from
His own deep and life-long experience.
You are not to think of “grace”here in its ordinary evangelicalacceptation.
But there is no fear, surely, of your making that mistake. You think every day
and every hour of God’s grace to you as the chief of sinners. And though our
Lord thought without ceasing ofthe grace ofGod that had come to Him; it
was not the same kind of grace as that is which has come to you. The grace of
God has come to you bringing salvation. But the Saviour of men did not for
Himself need salvation. More than one kind of grace came to Him, first and
last. But not among them all the grace that has come so graciouslyto you. And
it breeds greatlight on the kind of grace that came to the Holy Child when we
turn from the fortieth verse of this chapterto the fifty-second verse, and there
read that He increasedin favour with God and man. The true sense here is the
same as when a voice came from heaven to the Jordan, and elsewhere, and
said: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am wellpleased.” “The good
pleasure of God was upon him,” that would be the best way to render the
text.1 [Note:A. Whyte, The Walk, Conversation, and Characterof Jesus
Christ our Lord, 47.]
The highest reaches we canattain here are but broken fragments of the full
Divine beauty. At the best we can only become dimly transfigured; only
faintly does the beauty of the Lord appearin us. The last design made by the
greatpainter, Albert Dürer, was a drawing showing Christ on His Cross. It
was all completed, except the face of the Divine Sufferer, when the artist was
summoned awayby death. At the end of the longestand holiest life we shall
have but a part of the picture of Christ wrought upon our soul. Our best
striving shall leave but a fragment of the matchless beauty. The glory of that
blessedFace we cannotreproduce. But when we go awayfrom our little
fragment of transfiguration we shall look a moment afterward upon the

Divine features, and, seeing Jesus as He is, shall be like Him.2 [Note:J. R.
Miller.]
3. This spiritual life, essentiallyin Him from His birth, had been naturally
developed in His consciousnessby means of external circumstances, and
through the growthof His intellect. The first gleams of the consciousnessof
His spiritual life may have arisen through the influence of His home and of
outward nature. A kindling influence then came upon His intellect in the
religious journey to Jerusalemand the sights He saw at the Feast, andreached
its culminating point in the conversationin the Temple.
Accompanying this dawning consciousnessofthe spiritual light and life which
dwelt within Him, there arose also in His mind the consciousnessofHis
redeeming mission. We seemto trace this in the words “my Father’s
business.” It does not appear, however, just to say that this idea was now fully
defined and grasped. We should be forcedthen to attribute more to Him than
would agree with perfectchildhood; but there is no unnaturalness in holding
that it now for the first time became a dim prophecy in His mind. It required
for its complete development that the sinfulness of the world should be
presentedto His growing knowledge as a thing external to Himself. Sin so
presentedmade Him conscious, by the instinctive repulsion which it caused
Him, of His own spotless holiness;and, by the infinite pity which He felt for
those enslavedby it, of His own infinite love for sinners; and out of these two
there rose the consciousness ofHis mission as the Redeemerof the race from
sin. This was the business which His Fatherhad given Him to do. Clearly and
more clearly from this day forth, for eighteenyears at Nazareth, it grew up
into its completed form, till He was ready to carry it out in the action of His
ministry.
I instance one single evidence of strength in the early years of Jesus:I find it
in that calm long waiting of thirty years before He beganHis work. And yet

all the evils He was to redress were there, provoking indignation, crying for
interference—the hollowness ofsociallife, the misinterpretations of Scripture,
the forms of worship and phraseologywhichhad hidden moral truth, the
injustice, the priestcraft, the cowardice, the hypocrisies:He had long seen
them all. All those years His soul burned within Him with a Divine zeal and
heavenly indignation. A mere man, a weak emotionalman of spasmodic
feeling, a hot enthusiast, would have spokenout at once, and at once been
crushed. He bided His own time (“Mine hour is not yet come”), matured His
energies, condensedthem by repression, and then went forth to speak, and do,
and suffer. This is strength; the power of a Divine silence;the strong will to
keepforce till it is wanted; the power to wait God’s time.1 [Note: F. W.
Robertson, Sermons, ii. 182.]
BIBLEHUB RESOURCES
Pulpit Commentary Homiletics
The Testimony Of Womanhood
Luke 2:36-38
W. Clarkson
From this interesting episode, without which the beautiful story of the infant
Savior in the temple would hardly be complete, we learn -
I. THAT THERE IS ROOM IN THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST FOR THE
SERVICE OF WOMAN-HOOD. It was wellthat the agedSimeon should
bear his testimony to the birth of the Savior;it was also wellthat this aged
and honorable prophetess should "likewisegive thanks." Woman as well as
man was to utter reverent joy on this supreme occasion. Woman, in the
person of Anna, might well rejoice;for in the kingdom of Christ there is
"neither male nor female;" all distinction of sex is unknown. Woman is as free

to enter that kingdom as man; she may reach as high a position, by personal
excellency, in it; she is as welcome to render holy service and fruitful
testimony; is as certain to reap the rewardof fidelity in the kingdom of heaven
to which it leads. Womenwere the most faithful attendants on our Lord
during his earthly ministry; they have been, since then, the most regular
worshippers and the most devoted workers in his Church (see homily on Luke
8:2, 3).
II. THAT LONG LONELINESS MAY WELL BRING US INTO CLOSE
COMMUNION WITH GOD. Anna had a very long widowhood(ver. 36), and
in her loss of human fellowshipshe waitedmuch on God. She "departed not
from the temple, but servedGod... with prayers night and day." When denied
one another's society, whatcan we do better than seek fellowshipwith our
heavenly Father, with our Divine Friend? What, indeed, can we do so well?
Communion with the Father of our spirits will bring healing to the wounded
soul, will be companionship for the lonely hour, will promote sanctity and
submissiveness ofwill, will remind us of those other children of his who need
our sympathy and succor, and will send us forth blessing and blest on the
errands of love.
III. THAT A VISION FROM GOD SHOULD RESULT IN PRAISE AND
TESTIMONY. Anna "gave thanks unto the Lord, and spake ofhim [the
infant Christ] to all," etc. Inspired of God, she recognizedthe long looked-for
Messiah, andimmediately she broke into praise, and forthwith beganto
communicate the joyful fact to all whom she could reach. This is the true
order and the right procedure. When God reveals himself or his truth to us,
we must first go to him in gratitude and praise, and must lose no time in
passing on to others what he has entrusted to us.
IV. THAT AGE HAS ITS OFFERINGTO BRING, as wellas youth and
prime. It is pleasantto think of the agedAnna, some way pastfour score, bent
and feeble with the weightof years, speaking to "all them that looked," etc.,
and telling them that he whom they had waitedfor so long had come at last. A
fair sight it is in the eyes of man, and surely in his also who estimates our
service according to our ability (ch. 21:3), when those whose strengthis well-
nigh gone and who have earnedtheir rest by long and faithful labor will not

be persuaded to retire from the field, but labor on until the darkness ofdeath
arrests them.
V. THAT HOLY EXPECTATION WILL MEET WITH ITS FULFILMENT.
There were many looking ("allof them," etc.)for redemption (ver. 38); and as
they waitedfor God and upon him, their hearts' desires were granted. God
may delay his answerfor a while, even for a long while, but in due time it will
come. The seekerwill find; the workerwill reap. - C.
Biblical Illustrator
And the Child grew, and waxed strong in spirit.
Luke 2:40
Our Lord's early years upon earth
S. P. C. K. Sermons.
Notice a few things which are remarkable in our Lord's Childhood, and which
are too often wanting in that of others.
1. His obedience to His earthly parents.
2. A childhood of privacy and seclusion. He was keptin the background, not
paraded by His parents as an instance of precocious excellenceorintellect. He
drank in the pure breezes of heaven, and was in secret.
3. A genuine thirst for improvement (ver. 46, &c.). How unlike that raging
appetite for mere amusement which begins in our days so early, and has
turned the very literature of the young into a jestand plaything. What we seek
is something to make us laugh, something which may present to us the
ludicrous side of everything, and turn awayfrom us the realand the sobering.
What Christ soughtat the age of twelve years was knowledge,and He sought
that knowledge in the courts of His Father's house.

4. A spirit of docility. He sought knowledge evenfrom men little qualified,
indeed, to impart it, but who yet occupiedthe position to which it belonged to
teach.
5. Christ's childhood was stamped with a sense ofduty, and elevatedby a lofty
aim. A sense ofHis relation to God, of the meaning and responsibility of life,
of a work to be done on God's earth in which He was Himself to be a fellow-
workerwith His Father — these motives had already dawned upon Him at
that young age, and gave an unwonted seriousness to a childhood in all else so
natural.
6. Notice the testimony which Christ's childhood bears to God's patience in
working out His purposes; to what we may callthe gradual characterofGod's
works. "In due time" is written upon all of them.
7. Our Lord's early life was the consecration, for all time, of what are
regarded, by way of distinction, as the more secularand the humbler callings.
(S. P. C. K. Sermons.)
The holy Child Jesus
DeanGoulburn.
Christ might have been made full-grown at once. Adam was, and our Lord is
called"the last Adam," "the secondman"; that is to say, Adam was a type or
figure of Christ. One might have expected, therefore, that our Lord would be
what Adam had been, a man sent into the world full-grown. Infancy,
childhood, boyhood, are very humbling conditions. Why did Christ submit to
them?
1. Our Lord's condescensionis infinite, and therefore, in coming into the
world, He desiredto stoopas low as possible, in order to set us the more
striking example of lowliness of mind. Therefore tie preferred, for His
entrance into the world, the condition of an unconscious babe, and of a child
dependent upon its parents, to that of a full-grown and independent man.

2. Our Lord, out of His infinite compassionforus, earnestlydesired to
sympathize with men in all their trials, and in every condition in which they
can be placed, in eider that He might bless and comfort them by His
sympathy. So He came in by the usual gate — infancy.
3. One canquite see this, that for a grown-up person never to have known
childhood, a home, or a mother's care, would cut them off from all the most
beautiful and tender associations ofour nature. It makes a man tender, as no
other thought can, to look back on his childhood and early home, on the
strong interestwhich his parents used to take in him, and on the sacrifices
which they were at all times ready to make for him. Now our Lord was to be
infinitely tender, in order that He might attractthe miserable and suffering to
Himself; and He was to exhibit all the beauties and graces ofwhich human
nature is capable;and therefore it was that He willed to have a home of
childhood, and to be dependent upon a mother's care, and to lisp His earliest
prayers at a mother's knee, which is the way in which all of us first learn to
pray. These experiencescontributed to make His human soul
tender.Concluding lessons:
1. Take to Him all your little troubles and trials in prayer, and assure
yourselves that He is most ready to hear and help you. Why did He become a
child, but to assure children of His sympathy with them?
2. Take Him for your example. Observe His love of God's house, His
teachableness, His desire for instruction, His submission to His parents (while
all the while He was their God), His growth in wisdom and in favour with God
and man; and try to copy Him in these points.
3. Trust with all your heart in the goodness whichHe as a child exhibited, and
which was perfect goodness, suchas yours can never be. Only for the sake of
that goodnessofHis will God forgive your faults.
(DeanGoulburn.)
The growth of children

H. C. Trumbull.
"The Child grew." Of course the Child grew. Every child grows. There is not
a child in the world who is not older to-day than he was yesterday, and who, if
he lives, will not be older to-morrow than he is to-day. And whateverneeds to
be done for a child while he is young as now ought to be done to-day. He will
have outgrownthe possibility — if not the need — of such doing for him when
to-morrow is here. Childhood is quickly lost. It is not to be regained. Unless it
is improved as it passes,it is unimproved for ever. A child grows by night and
by day, whether he is cared for or neglected. Oh, how soonthe child has
outgrownthe possibilities of training in the nursery, of a mother's training, of
a father's training, of a teacher's training! And when he has outgrown all
these, who but God can reachhim? If you would do your work for your child,
you must do it now — or never, Have that in mind with your every breath; for
with every breath your child is growing awayfrom his plastic and impressible
childhood.
(H. C. Trumbull.)
No abasementin growth
Sunday SchoolTimes.
There is no abasementin the fact that Jesus grew as any other boy grows. The
apple of June is perfectas a June apple, though it has not come to its
maturity. The acornis perfect as an acorn, just as the oak is perfect as an oak.
Jesus was a perfect Boy, as He was a perfectMan. If Jesus was contentto
grow slowly, should not we? The mushroom may spring up in a night; it is
many a year before the sturdy oak attains its full growth.
(Sunday SchoolTimes.)
The source of Christ's growth
Sunday SchoolTimes.

When one sees a river flowing deep and strong through a parched country, as
the Ganges in India, he becomes desirous ofknowing something about its
source. He follows it up, and finds that it comes from the cold hills of the
north, issuing it may be, in full flood from beneath a glacier. So the source of
Jesus'growthin spirit and wisdom is here told — "The grace ofGod was
upon Him."
(Sunday SchoolTimes.)
Youthful piety of Christ
DeanGoulburn.
There are three parts of our nature mentioned in the Bible — the body, the
soul, the spirit. "The body" is what the animals have in common with us; it is
the part of us in which we feel hunger, thirst, and weariness — the part which
is fed by food cud restedby sleep. "The soul" means the feelings and
affections; it is the part of us which feels pity for distress, fearof danger,
angerat an insult, and so forth. "The spirit" is that higher part of our nature,
which makes us reasonable beings;it is by the actionof our spirit that we
think of God, setHim before us, pray to Him, fear Him, worship Him. It is,
then, a greatthing to say of any child, and it could only be said of a goodand
holy child, that he "waxes strong in spirit." It means not that he becomes
taller, nimbler, cleverer, but that his consciencebecomesmore and more
formed as he grows up, his will more steady in doing what is right and
avoiding what is wrong, his prayers to God more earnest, his sense of God's
presence more keen, his dread of sin stronger. Alas! it is the very opposite
with children in general. Their conscience, whichwas once tender, becomes
hardened as they getto know more; they soonshake off any dread of sin and
the fearof God; their will weaklyyields to temptation, until it becomes easy
and natural to yield. And it is added, "He was filled with wisdom." The words
imply that wisdom kept on flowing, like a running stream, into His human
soul; there were, in His case, none of those thoughts of levity and folly, by
which childhood is commonly marked. "And the grace of God" (meaning
both the favour of God, and the precious influence of His Holy Spirit) "was

upon Him." When the sun shines out upon the dewdrops that coverthe tender
grass ofspring in the early morning, how beautiful is eachspangledbead of
dew, glistening with all the colours of the rainbow t Such was the childhood of
the Holy Child! The dews of God's Spirit restedupon Him without measure.
And the sunshine of God's favour beamed out upon Him, as "the Child of
children," in whom — and in whom alone of all children that had ever been
born — God the Fatherwas well pleased. How early cana child love God,
yearn towards God, hope in God, trust in God? I cannot say. Probably much
earlier than we suppose. Do not the youngest infants stretch their tiny arms,
and smile graciouslywhen their mother comes into the room? They are not
too young to show that they love and trust their parents; I do not know why it
should be impossible for them to love and trust their heavenly Father,
especiallyif He should give His grace to them "without measure," as was the
case with our Lord. Perhaps you say, "It is impossible for a child in arms to
understand or know anything about God." How can any one be sure of that?
It was foretold of John the Baptist, that he should be "filled with the Holy
Ghost, even from his mother's womb"; and if this was the case with him, how
much more must it have been the case with the Lord Jesus? Have you one
single feeling of affectionand trust towards your heavenly Father, as He had?
Do you even wish to have some such feeling The wish is something, no, it is
much; let it lead you to pray for the feeling, and in due time the feeling will
come. If your earthly parents would deny you nothing that is goodfor you,
which they had it in their power to give, "how much more shall your heavenly
Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?"
(DeanGoulburn.)
Growth under ordinary events
Canon Westcott.
These words, applied by St. Luke first to John the Baptistand then to our
Lord, simply express an everyday occurrence — what we habitually take for
granted as the natural course ofthings. This very fact — that they are so
simple, so natural, so completely on the level of our common life — gives them

the rich meaning that they possessfor us. Forthey teachus that the Divine
method of life is quite different from what we should expect; that eachman
may find in and about him, in his endowments and in his environments, just
what he requires for the accomplishmentof his work. We need not go from
our proper place in order to discipline ourselves forGod's service;we need
not strive after gifts which He has not entrusted to us, or forms of action
which are foreign to our position, in order to do our part as members of His
Church. It is enough that we grow and wax strong under the action of those
forces by which He moves us within and without, if we desire to fulfil,
according to the measure of our powers, the charge which He has prepared
for us. Thus it was that John the Baptist, the stern, bold preacher, grew up in
the desertaccording to the angel's message — a lonely boy, a lonely youth,
until the days of his showing unto Israel, communing only with the severest
forms of nature and with the most awful thoughts of God. Thus it was that
Jesus lived in the calm seclusionof a bright upland valley, in the Jewish
fellowship of a holy home, subjectto His parents and in favour with God and
man, until His hour came. In that silent discipline of thirty years, there was no
anxious anticipation of the future, no wistful lingering on the past; the past,
used to the utmost, was the foundation of the future.
(Canon Westcott.)
God's mode of training men
Canon Westcott.
We are always inclined to look for some joy or sorrow, as that which shall stir
the energies ofour souls; for some sharp sicknessorbereavement, as that
which shall make us trust more faithfully in God; for some blessing or
deliverance, as that which shall bring us to love Him with tender devotion. But
when these exceptionalevents happen, they do but reveal to us what we have
already become;then, at length, when our eyes are opened, we see ourselves;
then we know what we are; then we realize the value of little things, the
abiding results of routine; then we marvel, it may be, to know assuredlythat
we despised Christ when He came to us in strange disguises;or it may be that

we welcomedHim in the leastof His little ones, orin the most insignificant of
His workings. Greatoccasions do not make heroes orcowards;they simply
unveil them to the eyes of men. Silently and imperceptibly, as we wake and
sleep, we grow and wax strong, or we grow and wax weak;at last some crisis
shows us what we have become.
(Canon Westcott.)
Greatresults from secretprocesses
Canon Westcott.
The facts of the material world help us to feel the reality of this still and secret
process whichis the universal law of life. The ground on which we stand, the
solid rocks which lie beneath it, are nothing but the accumulated results of the
actionof forces whichwe observe in actionstill. A few drops of rain gather on
the hillside, and find an outlet down its slope;grain by grain a channel is
fashioned, fresh rills add their waters to the flowing stream, and at last the
runlet which a stone might have diverted from its course has grown into a
river which no human force canstem. The sapling is planted on an open ridge,
straight and vigorous;seasonafterseasonthe winds blow through its
branches; it bends and bends and rises again, but with ever-lessening power;
and when years have gone by, and the sapling has become a tree, its strange
distorted shape bears witness to the final power of the force which at each
moment it seemedable to overcome. And so it is with all of us. From small
beginnings flow the currents of our lives, from constantand unnoticed
impulses we take our bias; the streamis evergathering strength; the bend is
ever being confirmed or corrected. At any time of this life, our characteris
representedby the sum of our past lives. There is not one act, not one
purpose, which does not leave its trace, though we may be unable to
distinguish and measure its value. There is not one drop which does not add
something to the flowing river, not one branch which does not in some way
shape the rising tree. The appointed duty, heartily or carelesslygone through,
makes us weakerforthe next effort. The unkind word spoken, or the kind
word not spoken, makes us less tender when our love is next needed; the evil

thing done, or the evil thought cherished, makes a vantage-groundfor the
tempter when he next assails us. The prayer neglected, or saidwith the lips
only, makes it harder for us to seek Godwhen we next desire to find Him. The
Communion superstitiously slighted, or superstitiously frequented, makes it
more and more difficult for us to see life transfigured by the brightness of a
Divine presence. In this way it is that we grow and waxweak, happy only if
some day of reckoning startles us by the sense ofour loss, and if we are
constrainedto offer to Godin the humblest spirit what remains. And, on the
other hand, every faithful answerto the leastclaim upon our service, every
manful contestfor the right, every painful struggle with self-indulgence, every
sore temptation met in the name and strength of Christ, every striving
towards God in prayer and praise, is fruitful for the future — fruitful in self-
sacrifice, in courage, in endurance, in the joy of Divine fellowship.
(Canon Westcott.)
Childhood disparagedby the ancients
David Swing.
In those brief sketchesofChrist which are called the Gospels, eighteenyears
of experience are wholly wanting. The bestexplanation of the omissionis, that
in that epoch, and in almost all past periods, child life was not a matter of
importance. It did not enter largely into literature, nor into the categoryof the
greatthings of the world. In some nations the death-day rather than the
birthday was celebrated, because the latter period was associatedwith fame
or learning or some other form of merit, while the birthday enjoyed no
associationofworth — it was only the period of all shapes of weakness.In the
most of the ancient philosophies the reasonable souldid not come to the body
until it was about twenty years old. According to one of the old Rabbis a man
was free at twelve, might marry at eighteenor twenty, should acquire
property until he was thirty, then intellectual strength should come, and at
forty the profoundest wisdom should appear. Amid just what opinions of this
nature the youth of Jesus was spentis not known, but at leastthis is true that
He lived in an era when early life seemedto possess but small worth, and no

scholaror biographer encumbered with such details his record or oration or
poem. Not only do we know little about the early life of Jesus, but the early
years of Caesar, and Virgil, and Cicero, and Tacitus lie equally withdrawn
from the public gaze. Old biographies make their first chapter out of the
actualbeginnings of the public service.
(David Swing.)
An address to children on the Child Jesus
DeanStanley.
The Child Jesus grew. He did not stand still. Although it was God Himself
who was revealedto us in the life of Jesus Christ, yet this did not prevent Him
from being made like unto us in all things, sin only excepted. And so in all
things He is an example for us to imitate. Eachone, whether old or young,
must remember that progress, improvement, going on, advance, change into
something better and better, wiserand wiser, year by year, is the only way of
becoming like Christ, and therefore like God. The world moves, and you and
all of us must move with it. God calls us all ever to something higher and
higher, and that higher stage we must reachby steadily advancing towards it.
There are three things especiallywhichthe text puts before us as those in
which our Lord's earthly education, in which the advance and improvement
of His earthly character, addedto His youthful and childlike powers.
1. Strength of character. Christ waxedstrong in spirit. What we all want is a
stout heart to resisttemptation, a strong hardy consciencewhichfixes itself on
matters of real importance and will not trifle or waste its powers on things of
no concern. We must earnestlyseek this strength. It comes to those who strive
after it.
2. Wisdom. To gain this — to have your mind opened, to take in all that your
teachers canpour into it — you are sent to school. You need not be old before
your time, but you must even now be making the best use of your time. These
are the golden days which never come back to you, which if once lostcan
never be entirely made up. Seek, therefore, forwisdom, pray for it, determine

to have it, and God who gives to those who ask for it, will give it to you. Try to
gain it, as our Lord gainedit when He was a child, by hearing and by asking
questions, i.e.,
(a)by being teachable, humble, modest, and fixing your attention on what you
have to learn;
(b)by trying to know the meaning of what you learn, by cross-questioning
yourselves, by inquiring right and left to fill up the blanks in your mind.
3. The grace or favour of God, or, as it says in ver. 52, the favour of God and
man. Our Lord possessedGod's favour always, but even in Him it increased
more and more. It increasedas He grew older, as He saw more and more of
the work which was given Him to do; He felt more and more that God was His
Father, and that men were His brothers, and that grace and loving-kindness
was the best and dearestgift from God to man, and from man to man, and
from man to God. He was subject to His parents. He did what they told Him;
and so He became dearto them. He was kind, and gentle, and courteous to
those about Him, so that they always liked to see Him when He came in and
out amongstthem. So may it be with you. Look upon God as your dear Father
in heaven, who loves you, and who wishes nothing but your happiness. Look
upon your schoolfellowsandcompanions as brothers, to whom you must show
whateverkindness and forbearance you can. Justas this beautiful building in
which we are assembledis made up of a number of small stones beautifully
carved, every one of which helps to make up the grace and beauty of the
whole, so is all the state of the world made up of the graces andgoodnessesnot
only of full-grown men and women, but of little children who will be, if they
live, full-grown one day.
(DeanStanley.)
The Child Jesus, a pattern for children
S. Cox, D. D.

1. The Child Jesus was diligent scholar. He did not "hate" to go to school. He
did not neglectHis tasks, orslur them over anyhow, or think, as perhaps some
of you think, that getting out of schoolwas the best part of the whole business.
We might be quite sure that He diligently attended to the wise Rabbis who
askedand answeredquestions, who uttered so many wise and witty proverbs,
and told so many pretty stories, if only because He Himself was, in after years,
so wise in asking and answering questions, and spoke so many proverbs and
parables which the world will never let die. But we can do more and better
than merely infer what a goodscholarHe was. We can see Him while He was
yet a lad, going to schoolof His ownaccord, and staying in it when He might
have been climbing the hills or running through the fields with His friends
(vers. 41-46).
2. This goodscholarwas also a goodson. The Hebrew boys of our Lord's time
were very well bred. They were taught goodmanners as well as goodmorals.
They were enjoined, both by their parents and their masters, to salute every
one they met in the street, to say to him "Peacebe with thee." To break this
rule of courtesy, they were told, was as wrong as to steal. And the Boy Jesus
was well brought up, and was full of courtesy, kindness, goodwill;for not only
did He grow in favour with men in general, but He had a large circle of
kinsfolk and friends who loved Him and were glad to have Him with them
(ver. 44). We know, too, that He had never grieved His parents before, in His
eagerness to learn, he let them go on their way home without Him. Forwhen
they had found Him in the Temple, they were so astonishedthat He should
have given them the pain of seeking Him sorrowfully, that they cannot blame
Him as for a fault, but can only ask Him why He had treated them thus. He
must indeed have been a goodsonto whom His mother could speak as Mary
spoke to Jesus.
3. He was also a goodchild of God. Always "about His Father's business" —
feeling that He must be about it, wherever He went, whateverHe did. The one
greatthing He had to do, the one thing which above all others He tried to do,
was to serve God His Father; not simply to become wise, and still less to please
Himself, but to please God by growing wise in the knowledge andobedience of
His commandments.

(S. Cox, D. D.)
Superstitious reverence of Christ's person guarded agains
James Thomson, D. D.
t: — After informing us that Jesus was filled with wisdom, the evangelistadds,
that the grace of God was upon Him. Now as the grace of Godis not said to
have been in but upon Him, it seems intended to express something not
internal, but obvious to the senses. Hence it has been supposed that here the
grace ofGod denotes a Divine gracefulness. In confirmation of this opinion it
has been said, that in severalpassagesthere are allusions to something highly
graceful, dignified, and impressive in His manner. Thus, the officers of the
chief priest declaredthat never man spake like this man; and even the
inhabitants of Nazareth were delighted at first with the words full of grace
which He uttered. It is particularly to be remarked, however, that neither in
the four Gospels, nor in any of the other books ofthe New Testament, has any
description been given of the personalappearance ofour Saviour. There is
not, indeed, to be found the slightestallusion to the subject. Yet, of the
founder of every other religion, whether true or false, some description,
howeverconcise, has beenpreserved. Thus, we are told that Moses,whena
child, was extremely beautiful. Tim followers ofMahomet have described
their pretended prophet in a minute manner; and the persons of most of the
eminent sagesofantiquity have been delineatedby their disciples. But of the
external appearance ofJesus no recordis left. Why this singular omission?
Were not the apostles of Jesus attachedto their Master? Yes:their
attachment was strongerand more disinterestedthan the world ever
witnessed, for they suffered everything and sacrificedeverything for His sake.
But the omissions of inspired writers are never to be ascribedto oversight, but
to the designof an over-ruling Providence. Nothing, therefore, was to be
inserted in the SacredRecords concerning Jesus whichmight lead to a
superstitious veneration of His person, and thus draw awaythe attention of
His followers from His sublime doctrines and precepts, and the perfectionof
His character.

(James Thomson, D. D.)
The development of Christ through the influences of outward nature
Stopford A. Brooke, MA.
The Ebionites thought the natural humanity of our Saviour's early life
unworthy of a Divine person, and denied His essentialdivinity. To them,
Christ was, till His baptism, a common man. It was at His baptism that He
receivedfrom God, as an external gift, the consciousnessofHis Divine mission
and specialpowers for it. We, however, do not hold the necessary
unworthiness of human nature as a habitation of the Divine. We hold, with the
old writer, that man is "the image of God." Hence insteadof looking upon
Christ's youth and childhood and His common life as derogatoryto His glory,
we see in them the glorificationof all human thought and action in every stage
of life. The whole of humanity is penetrated by the Divine. This is the
foundation-stone of the gospelof Christ. On it rest all the greatdoctrines of
Christianity, on it reposes allthe noble practise of Christian men, and we call
it the Incarnation. But this re-uniting of the divinity and humanity took place
in time, and under the limitations which are now imposed upon humanity.
The Divine Word was self-limited on its entrance our into nature, in some
such sense as our spirit and thought are limited by union with body.
Consequently, we should argue that there was a gradual development of the
person of Christ; and this conclusion, which we come to a priori, is supported
by the narrative in the Gospels. We are told that Jesus "increasedin wisdom,"
that He "waxedstrong in spirit," that He "learnedobedience," thatHe was
"made perfectthrough suffering." This is our subject — the development of
Christ. And, first, we are met with a difficulty. The idea of development seems
to imply imperfections passing into perfection — seems to exclude the idea of
original perfection. But there are two conceivable ideas of development; one,
development through antagonism, through error, from stage to stage of less
and less deficiency. This is our development; but it is such because evilhas
gained a lodgment in our nature, and we can only attain perfection through
contestwith it. But there is another kind of development conceivable, the

development of a perfectnature limited by time. The plant is perfectas the
greenshootabove the earth — it is all it canbe then; it is more perfect as the
creature adorned with leaves and branches, and it is all it canbe then; it
reaches its full perfectionwhen the blossombreaks into flower. Such was the
development of Christ. He was the perfectchild, the perfectboy, the perfect
youth, the perfectflower of manhood. A second illustration may make the
matter clearer. The work of an inferior artist arrives at a certain amount of
perfection through a series offailures, which teachhim where he is wrong.
Such is our development. The work of a man of genius is very different. He
has seen, before he touches pencil, the finished picture. His first sketch
contains the germ of all. His work is perfect in its severalstages.Suchwas
Christ's development — an orderly, faultless, unbroken development, in
which humanity, freed from its unnatural companion, evil, went forward
according to its real nature. It was the restorationof humanity to its original
integrity, to itself, as it existed in the idea of God. Think, then, of His
development through the influence of outward nature. From the summit of
the hill in whose bosomNazareth lay, there sweeps one of the widest and most
varied landscapes to be seenin Palestine. It is impossible to over-estimate the
influence which this changing scene ofbeauty had upon the mind of the
Saviour as a child. The Hebrew feeling for nature was deep and extended. By
care, then, alone, the Child Jesus was preparedto feel the most delicate shades
of change in the aspectofoutward nature. But as He was not only Hebrew but
the type of pure humanity, we may, without attributing to Him anything
unnatural to childhood, impute to Him the nobler feelings which are stirred in
the Westernand Northern races by the modes of natural beauty.
(Stopford A. Brooke, MA.)
The early development of Jesus
F. W. Robertson, M. A.
I. "The Child grew." Two pregnantfacts, lie was a child, and a child that
grew in heart, in intellect, in size, in grace, in favour with God. Not a man in
child's years. No hotbed precocitymarked the holiest of infancies. The Son of

Man grew up in the quiet valley of existence — in shadow, not in sunshine, not
forced.
II. This growth took place in three particulars —
1. In spiritual strength. I instance one single evidence of strength in the early
years of Jesus:I find it in that calm, long waiting of thirty years before He
beganHis work.
2. In wisdom. Distinguish wisdomfrom(1) information,(2) talent. Love is
required for wisdom — the love which opens the heart and makes it generous.
Speaking humanly, the steps by which the wisdom of Jesus was acquired were
two —(a) The habit of inquiry.(b) The collisionof mind with mind. Both these
we find in this anecdote:His parents found Him with the doctors in the
Temple, both hearing and asking them questions.
3. In grace. And this in three points —(1) The exchange of an earthly for a
heavenly home. "My Father's business," "MyFather's house."(2)Of an
earthly for a heavenly parent.(3) The reconciliationof domestic duties (ver.
51).
(F. W. Robertson, M. A.)
Apocryphal stories of the Infancy
George Dawson.
The Holy Spirit of God must have touched Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John
with the spirit of "selection," whichsavedthem from such miracle-
mongering. For Christ — the Christ that I adore — rises above these pitiful
tales.
(George Dawson.)
A bishop's dream of our Lord's childhood
ArchdeaconFarrar.

There was once — as Luther tells us — a pious, godly bishop who had often
earnestlyprayed that God would show him what Jesus was like in His youth.
Now once the bishop had a dream, and in his dream he saw a poor carpenter
working at his trade, and beside him a little boy gathering up chips. Then
came in a maiden clothed in green, who calledthem both to come to the meal,
and setbread and milk before them. All this the bishop seemedto see in his
dream, standing behind the door that he might not be seen. Then the little boy
beganand said, "Why does that man stand there? Will he not come in also,
and eatwith us?" And this so frightened the bishop that he woke. But he need
not have been frightened, for does not Jesus say, "If any man hear My voice,
and open the door, I will come in to him, and sup with him, and he with Me."
And whether the dream be true or not, we know that Jesus in His childhood
and youth lookedand acted like other children, "in fashion like a man," "yet
without sin."
(ArchdeaconFarrar.)
St. Edmund's vision of the Child Jesus
ArchdeaconFarrar.
There was once a boy whose name was Edmund Rich, and who is calledSt.
Edmund of Canterbury; and his brother tells us that once, when, at the age of
twelve, he had gone into the fields from the boisterous play of his companions,
he thought that the Child Jesus appearedunto him, and said, "Hail, beloved
one!" And he, wondering at the beautiful child, said, "Who art Thou, for
certainly thou art unknown to me?" And the Child Jesus said, "How comes it
that I am unknown to thee, seeing that I sit by thy side at school, and
whereverthou art, there do I go with thee? Look on My forehead, and see
what is there written." And Edmund looked, and saw the name "Jesus."
"This is my name," said the child; "write it on thy heart and it shall protect
thee from evil." Then He disappeared, on whom the angels desire to look,
leaving the little boy Edmund with passing sweetnessin his heart.
(ArchdeaconFarrar.)

Jerome's love for the Child Jesus
ArchdeaconFarrar.
There lived, fifteen hundred years ago, a saint whose name was Jerome, and
he loved so much the thought of the Child Christ, that he left Rome, and went
and lived for thirty long years in a cave at Bethlehem, close by the cavern-
stable in which Christ was born. And when men wished to invite him by
earthly honours to work elsewhere, he said, "Take me not awayfrom the
cradle where my Lord was laid. Nowhere canI be happier than there. There
do I often talk with the Child Jesus, and sayto Him, 'Ah, Lord I how canI
repay Thee?'And the Child answers, 'I need nothing. Only sing thou Glory to
God, and peace on earth."'And when I say, 'Nay I but I must yield Thee
something'; the Holy Child replies, 'Thy silver and thy gold I need not. Give
them to the poor. Give his only thy sins to be forgiven.' And then do I begin to
weepand say, 'Oh, Thou blessedChild Jesus, take whatis mine, and give me
what is Thine!'" Now in this way, by the eye of faith, you may all see the Child
Jesus, and unseen, yet evernear, you may feelHis presence, and He may sit by
your side at school, and be with you all day to keepyou from harm, and to
drive awaybad thoughts and naughty tempers, and send His angels to watch
over you when you sleep.
(ArchdeaconFarrar.)
Jesus the Friend of children
ArchdeaconFarrar.
Once there was carried into a great hospital a poor little raggedmiserable
boy, who had been run over in the streets and dreadfully hurt. And all night
he kept crying and groaning in his greatpain? and at last a goodyouth, who
lay in the bed next to him, said, "My poor little fellow, won't you pray to Jesus
to ease your pain? "But the little wretchedsufferer had never heard anything
at all about Jesus, and askedwho Jesus was. And the youth gently told him

that Jesus was Lord of all, and that He had come down to die for us. And the
boy answered, "Oh, I can't pray to Him, He's so greatand grand, and He
would never hear a poor street-boylike me; and I don't know how to speak to
Him." "Then," saidthe youth, "won't you just lift your hand to Him out of
bed, and when He passes by He will see it, and will know that you want Him to
be kind to you, and to ease your pain?" And the poor, crushed, suffering boy
lifted out of the bed his little brown hand, and soonafterwards he ceasedto
groan; and when they came to him in the morning the hand and the poor thin
arm. were still uplifted, but they were stiff and cold; for Jesus had indeed seen
it, and heard that mute prayer of the agony of that strayedlamb of His fold,
and He had graspedthe little, soiled, trembling hand of the sufferer, and had
takenhim awayto that better, happier home, where He will love also to make
room for you and me, if we seek Him with all our hearts, and try to do His
will.
(ArchdeaconFarrar.)
Religionin childhood
— "I cannever," saidthe late Rev. George Burder, "forgetmy birthday, June
5, 1762. It was on a Sabbath; and after tea, and before family worship, my
father was accustomedto catechize me, and examine what I remembered of
the sermons of the day. That evening he talked to me very affectionately, and
reminded me that it was high time I began to seek the Lord, and to become
truly religious. He particularly insisted upon the necessityof an interest in
Christ Jesus, andshowedme that, as a sinner, I must perish without it, and
recommended me to begin that night to pray for it. After family worship,
when my father and mother used to retire to their closets forprivate devotion,
I also went to my chamber, the same room in which I was born, and then, I
trust, sincerelyand earnestly, and, as far as I can recollect, forthe first time
poured out my soul to God, beseeching Him to give me an interest in Christ,
and desiring, above all things, to be found in Him. I am now an old man, but
reflecting on that evening, I have often been ready to conclude, that surely I
was then, though a little child, brought to believe in Christ."

Christ our example in youth
D. Moore, M. A.
In what respects, then, is the youth of CHRIST AN EXAMPLE TO US
1. First, it is an example to us of personalpiety, and that from our earliest
years. "The grace ofGod was upon Him," is the evangelist's expressionin our
text; whilst, a few verses lowerdown, we have him saying, "And Jesus
increasedin wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man."
2. Again, in the youth of Christ we have an example of diligence in the use of
means for our mental progress and improvement. "He was filled with
wisdom," says our text. And after His Visit to the Temple, it is said again, "He
increasedin wisdom." The youth of Christ, then, we consider, may fairly be
cited as furnishing us with an example of the dignity, and value, and
importance of intellectual culture.
3. We note next that Christ in His youth was an example of reverent
submission to parental authority. "And He went down with them, and came to
Nazareth, and was subjectto them."
4. Further, Christ in His youth is an example to us of the duty of a heartfelt
and entire consecrationof ourselves to the Divine service. "Mustye not that I
must be about My Father's business?" was the question of the Holy One to
His parents, when they found Him in the Temple.
5. Once more, Christ in His youth is an example to us of patient and contented
acquiescence in our providential lot howeveradverse, howeverobscure,
howeverdisappointing to the expectations whichour friends may have formed
for us, or which we, in our foolish pride, may be tempted to form for
ourselves.
(D. Moore, M. A.)

STUDYLIGHT RESOURCES
Adam Clarke Commentary
The child grew - As to his body - being in perfecthealth.
Waxed strong in spirit - His rational soul became strong and vigorous.
Filled with wisdom - The divinity continuing to communicate itself more and
more, in proportion to the increase ofthe rational principle. The reader
should never forgetthat Jesus was perfectman, as wellas God.
And the grace of God was upon him - The word χαρις, not only means grace
in the common acceptationofthe word, (some blessing granted by God's
mercy to those who are sinners, or have no merit), but it means also favor or
approbation: and this sense I think most proper for it here, when applied to
the human nature of our blessedLord; and thus our translators render the
same word, Luke 2:52. Even Christ himself, who knew no sin, grew in the
favor of God; and, as to his human nature, increasedin the graces ofthe Holy
Spirit. From this we learn that, if a man were as pure and as perfectas the
man Jesus Christ himself was, yet he might nevertheless increase in the image,
and consequentlyin the favor, of God. God loves every thing and person, in
proportion to the nearness ofthe approaches made to his ownperfections.
Albert Barnes'Notes onthe Whole Bible
Strong in spirit - In mind, intellect, understanding. Jesus had a human soul,
and that soulwas subject to all the proper laws of a human spirit. It therefore
increasedin knowledge,strength, and character. Noris it any more
inconsistentwith his being God to say that his soul expanded, than to say that
his body grew.

Filled with wisdom - Eminent for wisdom when a child - that is, exhibiting an
extraordinary understanding, and “wise” to flee from everything sinful and
evil.
And the grace of God … - The word “grace”in the New Testamentcommonly
means unmerited favor shown “to sinners.” Here it means no more than
favor. God showedhim favor, or was pleasedwith him and blessedhim.
It is remarkable that this is all that is recorded of the infancy of Jesus;and
this, with the short accountthat follows of his going to Jerusalem, is all that
we know of him for thirty years of his life. The designof the evangelists was to
give an accountof his “public ministry,” and not his private life. Hence, they
say little of him in regardto his first years. What they do say, however,
corresponds entirely with what we might expect. He was wise, pure, pleasing
God, and deeply skilledin the knowledge ofthe divine law. He set a lovely
example for all children; was subject to his parents, and increasedin favor
with God and man.
The Biblical Illustrator
Luke 2:40
And the Child grew, and waxed strong in spirit.
Our Lord’s early years upon earth
Notice a few things which are remarkable in our Lord’s Childhood, and which
are too often wanting in that of others.
1. His obedience to His earthly parents.
2. A childhood of privacy and seclusion. He was keptin the background, not
paraded by His parents as an instance of precocious excellenceorintellect. He
drank in the pure breezes of heaven, and was in secret.

3. A genuine thirst for improvement (Luke 2:46, &c.). How unlike that raging
appetite for mere amusement which begins in our days so early, and has
turned the very literature of the young into a jestand plaything. What we seek
is something to make us laugh, something which may present to us the
ludicrous side of everything, and turn awayfrom us the realand the sobering.
What Christ soughtat the age of twelve years was knowledge,and He sought
that knowledge in the courts of His Father’s house.
4. A spirit of docility. He sought knowledge evenfrom men little qualified,
indeed, to impart it, but who yet occupiedthe position to which it belonged to
teach.
5. Christ’s childhood was stamped with a sense ofduty, and elevatedby a lofty
aim. A sense ofHis relation to God, of the meaning and responsibility of life,
of a work to be done on God’s earth in which He was Himself to be a fellow-
workerwith His Father--these motives had already dawned upon Him at that
young age, and gave an unwonted seriousness to a childhood in all else so
natural.
6. Notice the testimony which Christ’s childhood bears to God’s patience in
working out His purposes; to what we may callthe gradual characterofGod’s
works. “In due time” is written upon all of them.
7. Our Lord’s early life was the consecration, for all time, of what are
regarded, by way of distinction, as the more secularand the humbler callings.
(S. P. C. K. Sermons.)
The holy Child Jesus
Christ might have been made full-grown at once. Adam was, and our Lord is
called“the last Adam,” “the secondman”; that is to say, Adam was a type or
figure of Christ. One might have expected, therefore, that our Lord would be
what Adam had been, a man sent into the world full-grown. Infancy,
childhood, boyhood, are very humbling conditions. Why did Christ submit to
them?
1. Our Lord’s condescension is infinite, and therefore, in coming into the
world, He desiredto stoopas low as possible, in order to set us the more

striking example of lowliness of mind. Therefore tie preferred, for His
entrance into the world, the condition of an unconscious babe, and of a child
dependent upon its parents, to that of a full-grown and independent man.
2. Our Lord, out of His infinite compassionforus, earnestlydesired to
sympathize with men in all their trials, and in every condition in which they
can be placed, in eider that He might bless and comfort them by His
sympathy. So He came in by the usual gate--infancy.
3. One canquite see this, that for a grown-up person never to have known
childhood, a home, or a mother’s care, would cut them off from all the most
beautiful and tender associations ofour nature. It makes a man tender, as no
other thought can, to look back on his childhood and early home, on the
strong interestwhich his parents used to take in him, and on the sacrifices
which they were at all times ready to make for him. Now our Lord was to be
infinitely tender, in order that He might attractthe miserable and suffering to
Himself; and He was to exhibit all the beauties and graces ofwhich human
nature is capable;and therefore it was that He willed to have a home of
childhood, and to be dependent upon a mother’s care, and to lisp His earliest
prayers at a mother’s knee, which is the way in which all of us first learn to
pray. These experiencescontributed to make His human soul tender.
Concluding lessons:
1. Take to Him all your little troubles and trials in prayer, and assure
yourselves that He is most ready to hear and help you. Why did He become a
child, but to assure children of His sympathy with them?
2. Take Him for your example. Observe His love of God’s house, His
teachableness, His desire for instruction, His submission to His parents (while
all the while He was their God), His growth in wisdom and in favour with God
and man; and try to copy Him in these points.
3. Trust with all your heart in the goodness whichHe as a child exhibited, and
which was perfect goodness, suchas yours can never be. Only for the sake of
that goodnessofHis will God forgive your faults. (Dean Goulburn.)
The growth of children

“The Child grew.” Of course the Child grew. Every child grows. There is not
a child in the world who is not older to-day than he was yesterday, and who, if
he lives, will not be older to-morrow than he is to-day. And whateverneeds to
be done for a child while he is young as now ought to be done to-day. He will
have outgrownthe possibility--if not the need--of such doing for him when to-
morrow is here. Childhood is quickly lost. It is not to be regained. Unless it is
improved as it passes,it is unimproved for ever. A child grows by night and
by day, whether he is cared for or neglected. Oh, how soonthe child has
outgrownthe possibilities of training in the nursery, of a mother’s training, of
a father’s training, of a teacher’s training! And when he has outgrown all
these, who but God can reachhim? If you would do your work for your child,
you must do it now--or never, Have that in mind with your every breath; for
with every breath your child is growing awayfrom his plastic and impressible
childhood. (H. C. Trumbull.)
No abasementin growth
There is no abasementin the fact that Jesus grew as any other boy grows. The
apple of June is perfectas a June apple, though it has not come to its
maturity. The acornis perfect as an acorn, just as the oak is perfect as an oak.
Jesus was a perfect Boy, as He was a perfectMan. If Jesus was contentto
grow slowly, should not we? The mushroom may spring up in a night; it is
many a year before the sturdy oak attains its full growth. (Sunday School
Times.)
The source of Christ’s growth
When one sees a river flowing deep and strong through a parched country, as
the Ganges in India, he becomes desirous ofknowing something about its
source. He follows it up, and finds that it comes from the cold hills of the
north, issuing it may be, in full flood from beneath a glacier. So the source of
Jesus’growthin spirit and wisdom is here told--“The grace ofGod was upon
Him.” (Sunday SchoolTimes.)
Youthful piety of Christ

There are three parts of our nature mentioned in the Bible--the body, the soul,
the spirit. “The body” is what the animals have in common with us; it is the
part of us in which we feelhunger, thirst, and weariness--the part which is fed
by food cud restedby sleep. “The soul” means the feelings and affections;it is
the part of us which feels pity for distress, fearof danger, angerat an insult,
and so forth. “The spirit” is that higher part of our nature, which makes us
reasonable beings;it is by the actionof our spirit that we think of God, set
Him before us, pray to Him, fear Him, worship Him. It is, then, a greatthing
to say of any child, and it could only be said of a goodand holy child, that he
“waxes strong in spirit.” It means not that he becomes taller, nimbler,
cleverer, but that his conscience becomes more and more formed as he grows
up, his will more steady in doing what is right and avoiding what is wrong, his
prayers to God more earnest, his sense ofGod’s presence more keen, his
dread of sin stronger. Alas! it is the very opposite with children in general.
Their conscience, whichwas once tender, becomes hardenedas they getto
know more; they soonshake offany dread of sin and the fear of God; their
will weaklyyields to temptation, until it becomes easyandnatural to yield.
And it is added, “He was filled with wisdom.” The words imply that wisdom
kept on flowing, like a running stream, into His human soul; there were, in
His case, none ofthose thoughts of levity and folly, by which childhood is
commonly marked. “And the grace of God” (meaning both the favour of God,
and the precious influence of His Holy Spirit) “was upon Him.” When the sun
shines out upon the dewdrops that coverthe tender grass of spring in the
early morning, how beautiful is eachspangledbead of dew, glistening with all
the colours of the rainbow t Such was the childhood of the Holy Child! The
dews of God’s Spirit restedupon Him without measure. And the sunshine of
God’s favour beamed out upon Him, as “the Child of children,” in whom--and
in whom alone of all children that had ever been born--God the Father was
well pleased. How early can a child love God, yearn towards God, hope in
God, trust in God? I cannot say. Probably much earlierthan we suppose. Do
not the youngestinfants stretch their tiny arms, and smile graciouslywhen
their mother comes into the room? They are not too young to show that they
love and trust their parents; I do not know why it should be impossible for
them to love and trust their heavenly Father, especiallyif He should give His
grace to them “without measure,” as was the case with our Lord. Perhaps you

say, “It is impossible for a child in arms to understand or know anything
about God.” How can any one be sure of that? It was foretold of John the
Baptist, that he should be “filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother’s
womb”; and if this was the case with him, how much more must it have been
the case withthe Lord Jesus? Have you one single feeling of affectionand
trust towards your heavenly Father, as He had? Do you even wish to have
some such feeling The wish is something, no, it is much; let it lead you to pray
for the feeling, and in due time the feeling will come. If your earthly parents
would deny you nothing that is goodfor you, which they had it in their power
to give, “how much more shall your heavenly Fathergive the Holy Spirit to
them that ask Him?” (Dean Goulburn.)
Growth under ordinary events
These words, applied by St. Luke first to John the Baptistand then to our
Lord, simply express an everyday occurrence--whatwe habitually take for
granted as the natural course ofthings. This very fact--that they are so simple,
so natural, so completely on the level of our common life--gives them the rich
meaning that they possessforus. For they teachus that the Divine method of
life is quite different from what we should expect; that eachman may find in
and about him, in his endowments and in his environments, just what he
requires for the accomplishmentof his work. We need not go from our proper
place in order to discipline ourselves for God’s service;we need not strive
after gifts which He has not entrusted to us, or forms of actionwhich are
foreign to our position, in order to do our part as members of His Church. It
is enough that we grow and wax strong under the action of those forces by
which He moves us within and without, if we desire to fulfil, according to the
measure of our powers, the charge which He has prepared for us. Thus it was
that John the Baptist, the stern, bold preacher, grew up in the desert
according to the angel’s message--a lonelyboy, a lonely youth, until the days
of his showing unto Israel, communing only with the severestforms of nature
and with the most awful thoughts of God. Thus it was that Jesus lived in the
calm seclusionof a bright upland valley, in the Jewishfellowshipof a holy
home, subject to His parents and in favour with God and man, until His hour
came. In that silent discipline of thirty years, there was no anxious

Jesus was a child

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