“And he said to them, ‘How is it that you sought me? Knew you not that I must be about my Father’s business?’” – Luke 2:49

 

In the early part of Luke’s gospel, it tells about one of the few youthful glimpses we have about Jesus. After a trip to Jerusalem for the holiday of Passover, Jesus’ earthly parents, Joseph and Mary, were traveling back to their home in Nazareth when they suddenly realized that they left the boy Jesus behind. After a frantic three day search, they found the 12 year old Jesus sitting in the temple speaking with the priests and scribes. When His parents asked Him why He was there, Jesus replied that He “must be about my Father’s business.”

 

There are a few things to take from this story. First off, the obvious one, Jesus was ALWAYS about God’s business because He is God in the flesh. However, Jesus didn’t just mean He was about God’s work, but also Joseph’s work as well. Joseph was a carpenter and in a bigger sense, so is Christ.

 

To become a carpenter, you must first know your tools and the material you will be working with. Each one of us is a child of God, but we are in the rough. We still need to be built into what God has in mind for our lives. God in His magnificence plans situations and trials for each of us that will, over time, wear away at our rough exterior much like sandpaper. Good and bad times both are another stroke of brilliance by the master carpenter.

 

One of our biggest problems is that we enjoy comfort. Some preachers will tell you that when you become a Christian, all of your problems go away. It sounds good, but unfortunately it isn’t true. In fact, your times and circumstances may even become tougher, but being a child of the Most High God allows us to better deal with those problems that come our way. Just like living in darkness, our old selves are dealing with the trials as they are. However, Jesus gives sight to the blind. When we accept Christ’s work on the cross for our salvation, we can then go through trials with a better sense of what awaits afterwards. Through a close relationship with Jesus, we have a stronger hope for the future and a peace within us that surpasses all earthly understanding.

 

Jesus is our Savior and the example to follow. We are to be as much like Jesus as possible. In order to make this happen, Jesus gave us His Holy Spirit so that He could always live in us and through us and change us from the inside out. There was a story once about Michelangelo and his statue of David. He started with a rough block of marble that had been tossed away by another worker. Eventually, after a lot of work, he was left with the beautiful statue. When asked how he did it, Michelangelo replied that David was always in there, he simply needed to chip away anything that was not David. The Holy Spirit works on us in much the same way. It is His job to whittle away at us and remove anything that is not Jesus.

 

Christ is truly the greatest carpenter ever. He took two beams of wood and three nails and gave us an eternal home.

 

God’s blessings to you.

 

DH