"Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?"
I have always been a person who looks at the little things and dwells on them. And in this brief passage I have been struck by these few words of truth from a twelve year old fully man fully God (person?) While at IHOP KC I heard God speak that it was time to return to the Word with fresh eyes. Go back to basics is more closely what He said. SO I began to read Luke and stop every few verses and just sit in a place of listening to God on His word. And when I arrived at this passage I had to stop for the very first time and realize wait a minute: these are His first words. These are them. Of all things that Jesus could say. of all the infinite possibilities of word combinations to be recorded for all eternity, these are the ones that come first. And because I fully am convinced that these words in our Bible are real, are perfect, then I have to stop and do more than highlight or underline or whatever it is we do and I have to stop and in my brokenness say yes to the Father. Because here, in this moment, Jesus stands in front of probably some amazing scholarly men and He teaches them. And then His mom and dad show up, after having lost Him for a day, and mom says, "Son, why have you treated us so? Behold your father and I have been searching for you in great distress." Wow? I try to see this in my mind and when Jesus answers, in my mind, it is with such tenderness, it is with such humility. And He just tells them He has been in His Father's house.
And so who cares? but it is so important for us. It is the first thing. He MUST be with His Father. He declares it. It is not a rule He follows, it is the desire of His heart. He aches for the Father, He longs for the Father, He wants to be with the Father, talking about the Father. And here is where we are either gripped or we are hopelessly A.D.D. We either have this same longing for our Father or we don't. Jesus was consumed with the Father, He knew where He was supposed to be and He knew where He wanted to be.
In Psalm 69:9 the psalmist cries out, "Zeal for your house consumes me." Oh that we would have a glimpse of this truth. Oh that we would maybe, just maybe, catch it from the corner of our eye. Just that much would be something.
