“Why were you searching for me?” [Jesus] asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” But they did not understand what he was saying to them. (Luke 2:49–50, NIV 1984).
My Musings – They (Joseph, Mary and Jesus) had traveled to Jerusalem for the feast of Passover. Jesus was twelve years old. “After the Feast was over, while his parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it. Thinking he was in their company, they traveled on for a day. Then they began looking for him among their relatives and friends. When they did not find him, they went back to Jerusalem to look for him.” (Luke 2:42–45, NIV 1984).
After three days of anxiously searching for Him, they found Him “sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers.” (Luke 2:46–47, NIV 1984). A parent can understand the anxiety, especially after searching for three days. But Jesus? “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” But not unlike you or me, “they did not understand.”
Fast-forward some twenty-one years. It was another Passover and Jesus once again visited the “temple area and began driving out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts. And as he taught them, he said, ‘Is it not written: My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations’? But you have made it “a den of robbers.'” (Mark 11:15–17, NIV 1984).
His reception was once again met with amazement, but not by all. This time “the chief priests and the teachers of the law heard this and began looking for a way to kill Him, for they feared Him, because the whole crowd was amazed at his teaching.” (Mark 11:18, NIV 1984.). They found a way and they crucified Him. “For zeal for your house consumes me.” (Psalm 69:9, NIV 1984).
After the Passover, after the crucifixion, “Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others with them, took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, ‘Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen!'” (Luke 24:10, 1–6, NIV 1984).
My Advice – Why do search where He cannot be found (e.g., among the relatives, among the dead)? Why don’t we ever search where He can be found (e.g., His Father’s House, among the living)? Searching in all the wrong places, in all the wrong ways (good works, false religions). Why don’t we “understand what he was saying to [us]?” Why do we find it so difficult when “He is not far from each one of us?” (Acts 17:27, NIV 1984). Because we seek with our minds and not with our hearts. “‘You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,’ declares the Lord.” (Jeremiah 29:13–14, NIV 1984).
The Brew Is A Musing 