The Obedient Example of Jesus

God has established the family, and placed reciprocal duties upon parents and children. If children defy God's command to obey their parents, they will have trouble in this life. Not only so, they will have trouble obeying God their Father, or trusting in Him to do what is good for them as His sons.

God further sanctified the family relationships by giving His Only Begotten Son a human family at the incarnation. God provided Jesus with a Godly earthly father, Joseph, who adopted Jesus and treated Him as his own son.

God sanctified the role of adoptive father when He did so, and how dare any person denigrate adoption or belittle a man who, without any moral duty at all, nevertheless takes a child as his own out of love for him!

In Joseph's case, taking the Lord Jesus as his child was a costly decision, yet Joseph loved Him as his own.

Joseph took extraordinary steps to protect his son, defying a murderous commandment by the government in order to save Jesus' life.

Imagine: God entrusted the baby Jesus to Godly earthly parents for safekeeping - the Lord of all Creation was entrusted to them in His infancy and youth.

God gave the child Jesus two earthly parents to love Him, protect Him, raise Him, and love Him, and our Lord Jesus in turn performed the duties of a son to them and obeyed them perfectly.

How amazing that the One Who made Mary and Joseph obeyed them in His youth! Jesus kept all the law in this matter, even when, at the age of 12, it meant leaving the temple and the things of God's Word and going back to Nazareth to be subject to His parents.

What an example to Christian young people is this precious obedience of Christ to His parents!