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Chapter II

The Lost Christ

I once possessed a book—I cannot tell what became of it—that was filled from cover to cover with apochryphal records of the infancy of Jesus. There were wonderful stories of His causing flowers to spring up magically beneath His outstretched hand, stories of His restoring to His schoolfellows their lost or broken toys, stories of His causing the clay birds that His deft fingers had fashioned to spread their wings and fly away. Whether or not any of these legends are true, nobody knows; nor does it very much matter.

 The striking thing is that, although every childhood is rich in arresting and attractive incidents, only one episode in the childhood of Jesus has been authentically preserved for us-the story of His being lost among the pilgrims of the high-road and found among the doctors in the Temple. Now why did the chroniclers depart from their extreme reticence in order to give us this one beautiful story?

I

 Was it in order to warn us that the Saviour is easily lost? It is the old story: ‘whilst thy servant was busy here and there, he was gone!’ In The Days of His Flesh, Professor David Smith shows how it probably happened in this case. The men and the women travelled in separate bands: a child might accompany either father or mother: Joseph took it for granted that Jesus was with Mary; Mary naturally concluded that He was with Joseph; and thus no alarm was felt by either, It was only when they met at night that the tragic discovery was made. Incredible as it sounds, it is easy to lose the Saviour. 

 Indeed, the most unlikely people lose Him. Let no minister or missionary say: I am an ordained preacher of His Word: it could never, never happen to me!’ Let no elder say: I am a man of mature Christian experience and of long service: it could never happen to me!’ Let no city missionary, no Salvationist, no Sunday-school teacher, no Christian Endeavourer argue similarly. It can happen; it does happen; it even happened to Mary! 

 We may decline to weave about the devoted head of the Mother of Jesus a halo of extravagant superstition; yet we love her no less than those who do. We have all fallen under the spell of her sweet and pure and noble womanhood. I remember that, as a small boy, 1 loved occasionally to accompany my father to church on Sunday evening, partly because the evening service contained the Magnificat. Mary’s lovely song of adoration held an extra-ordinary fascination for my young mind; and if, above the other voices, I caught the clear, rich voice of one of the sopranos, I tried to persuade myself that I was listening to the song of the Virgin Mother as she so rapturously sang it: My soul doth magnify the Lord and my spirit bath rejoiced in God my Saviour! To this day I feel that, for sheer grace of narrative, the Scriptures contain nothing more affecting than those passages at the beginning of Luke’s Gospel that must, in the nature of things, have been Mary’s contribution to the inspired record. It was the committal to paper, amidst waves of memory and floods of emotion and streams of happy tears, of that sublime and wondrous secret that she had so long treasured and pondered in her heart, the secret that had transfigured and irradiated the whole of her selfless and saintly life. Nobody loved Jesus as Mary loved Him. It was she who laid Him in the manger: it was she who fingered longest at the Cross. But there was a time when even Mary lost Him! Let those beware who fancy that their devotion renders them immune from such a danger!

II

 Jesus may be elbowed out by the very choicest company. They were all pilgrims, men and women who, with the songs of Zion upon their lips, had been up to Jerusalem to keep the Feast. Yet, on the return journey, Joseph was so occupied with the delightful conversation of his companions, and Mary so engrossed in all that her friends were telling her, that neither of them noticed that Jesus had been left behind. 

 The good is often the enemy of the best. The most excellent books may lead me to neglect my Bible: tireless service may exclude the possibility of secret devotion. In the porch of the little church near Hawarden Castle—the church in which Mr. Gladstone bowed in worship every morning and in which he loved to read the lessons on Sunday—there is a notice which. I understand, was placed there at Mr. Gladstone’s own suggestion. It lays down several simple rules for worship and closes with this admonition: ‘Be quiet and thoughtful as you go. On your way home be careful of your talk or the world will slip back into your heart.’ The chatter of perfectly good people about perfectly good things may dispel the spirit of reverence and scatter like a cloud of frightened birds the uplifting thoughts gathered in the sanctuary. Bunyan tells us how he returned from church under deep conviction of sin; but he allowed his sensuous enjoyment of a sumptuous dinner to dissipate and obliterate the sacred impressions left by the sermon. The good may slay the best. The society of saints may deprive us of the society of the Saviour.

 It is possible to forfeit the presence of the Lord without knowing it. Mary and Joseph did. Samson wist not that the Lord had departed from him. We all like to be missed. The supreme tragedy of the spiritual life occurs when, the Saviour having withdrawn Himself from our company, we do not even notice that He has vanished. A man may go on with his work-even his philanthropic work, his church work, his evangelistic work, his missionary work — without noticing that he no longer enjoys the divine companionship of his Lord. 

 That, I imagine, is what Brother Lawrence meant when he entitled his invaluable little book The Practice of the Presence of God. I used to shrink from using that word ‘practice’. It seemed to savour of drudgery, as when young people practise music, or practise drawing, or practise shorthand. I preferred to think of the luxury of the presence, the revelry of the presence, the ecstasy of the presence. I was impressed by the unspeakable delight of awakening each morning to the sweetness of His smile, of passing through each common day in a palpitating consciousness of His nearness and of closing my tired eyes every night under the fragrant breath of His benediction. 

 But I see now that Brother Lawrence’s word is the right word. It is good to practise the presence, to realize it, to test it, to make sure of it.

O Jesus, Jesus, dearest Lord,
  Forgive me if I say
For very love Thy precious Name
  A thousand times a day! 

 It is good to speak to Him even though I have nothing particular to say; it will intensify my recognition of His immediate immanence; it will unconsciously move me to live my whole life to His approval and delight. There is no greater mistake than to take His presence for granted. Joseph and Mary did so, and their easy-going assumption involved them in long hours of mental anguish.

IV

 For it took them three days to repair the loss they had sustained in one, and at least four days to regain the point at which they had awakened to their loss. They, supposing Him to have been in the company, went a day’s journey — one day. And then: It came to pass that, after three days, they found Him—three days! And those three days were the longest days and the cruellest days and the most miserable days that Mary and Joseph ever knew. It is so easy to lose our spiritual heritage: it is so very difficult to recapture it. It may vanish in a flash. As George Macdonald so sadly sings: 

Alas, how easily things-go wrong!
  A sigh too much or a kiss too long,
And there follows a mist and a weeping rain,
  And life is never the same again! 

 George Macdonald says never. Never is a long time. It may not always be as bad as that. It depends. It depends upon the alacrity with which we become sensible of our deprivation and upon the diligence with which we set out in search of our lost treasure. Mary and Joseph took one whole day to lose Jesus: they found Him again in three. As things go, they were very fortunate. Few people regain their lost faith, or their lost vision, or their lost peace, or their lost joy so quickly. Wherefore let every man who enjoys the living presence of his Lord practise that presence assiduously lest, whilst his mind is occupied with other things, a divine withdrawal take place which will involve him in an aching sense of dereliction and a long, long quest.

V

 If, to his unspeakable sorrow, so dire a disaster should overtake him, let him pay careful heed to the subtle hint that this story imparts. Mary and Joseph found their boy in the Temple. In the Temple, mark you ! That is always a good place in which to look for Him. By some inexplicable refinement of spiritual perversity, it often happens that those who have been unhappy enough to lose the Saviour straightway neglect His house, If Mary and Joseph had followed that course, their wretchedness must have been indefinitely prolonged. In their wisdom, they made a bee-line to the Temple gates, and there, in the courts of the House of the Lord, they found Him! 

 They found Him, we are expressly told, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them and asking them questions. What could be more boy-like? Listening, as boys love to listen; inquiring, as boys love to inquire. 

 There are only two classes of people who ask intelligent questions—the people who, not knowing, wish to learn, and the people who, knowing, wish to teach. Of the first class, Alexander the Great is the natural representative: of the second class, Socrates is. It was with Alexander rather than with Socrates that Jesus associated Himself that day. Plutarch says that nothing about Alexander more impressed the ambassadors from Persia than his genius for asking pertinent and penetrating questions. The biographies of Sir Walter Scott, Napoleon, Darwin, and Carey stress the same trait. The modesty of these men drove them to ceaseless interrogations, and their inquiries stored their minds with the wisdom that made them great. The questions that Jesus asked in the Temple that day—the questions that so astonished the doctors — formed an index to the lovely life that followed.

VI

 He was found in the midst of the doctors, asking them questions. Have a good look at the expression of curiosity and surprise on the face of Joseph as, an innocent eavesdropper, he listens to the questions asked by this boy of twelve. Why, he says to himself, why is He putting these questions to the doctors) Why did He not ask me? That is the point. A boy of twelve will ask questions of outsiders that he would never dream of submitting to his parents. 

 But there is no need for perturbation or alarm. The parents’ extremity is the teacher’s opportunity. The father and mother recognize, with a humiliating sense of helplessness and perhaps a pardonable pang of affectionate jealousy, that there are subjects on which, in their own presence, their boy’s lips are sealed. If, to the teacher, that boy offers his confidence, let the teacher embrace the golden opportunity with ready sympathy and with profound thankfulness. And let the parents rejoice that, in the person of the teacher, the boy has found so capable a friend. 

 He was found in the midst of the doctors, asking them questions. Listening to those questions, the doctors marvelled at the insight and perspicacity which they betrayed. But never for a moment did they suspect that the eyes that gazed so wonderingly, so wistfully, so hungrily into theirs were the eyes of the Son of God, the Saviour of the world! 

 No; they did not know! That is the pity of it: we never know! Let every teacher of boys and girls pay close heed to this pregnant story. You never know whose face it is that looks inquiringly, pensively, eagerly into yours. That boy with the question on his lips may not be the Son of God; but he may be next door to it. And even though he be among the lowliest, the simplest and the dullest, the teacher who gives that boy of his best will one day hear a voice that is like the sound of many waters, say: Inasmuch us ye did if unto one of the least of these, ye did it unto Me! And so that happy teacher will discover with a sublime surprise that the boy who asked the question was the Son of God after all!

-F.W. Boreham