The story of our Lord's listening to the doctors in the Temple and questioning them shows how He compelled a set of men, who were the slaves of words or rather of letters, who believed that all power lay in them, to confess a mightier power in Him.
I. This is the subject which is especially forced upon us by the text. There were met in the Temple a number of grave men, full of all the learning which could be got from the traditions of the past; full, as they thought, of all the learning which could be got from the words and lives of patriarchs, lawgivers, holy men. Age and the knowledge of what former times had bequeathed were theirs. They were the shepherds of the people. Whether the sheep went right or wrong depended mainly on their submission to this guidance or their neglect of it. Into this grave and venerable consistory there enters a Boy just twelve years of age. He stands among the Rabbis, not affrighted certainly by their dignity, with no sign of bashfulness, but also with none of forwardness. He is not eager to speak. He wishes to listen. He pronounces on nothing. He is not above the scribes, but is sitting at their feet. He desires to know what they think about this commandment in the law, about this sentence of David or Isaiah: "All who heard Him were astonished at His understanding and answers."
II. The subject is for us no less than for the Rabbis. Consider some of the lessons which lie in it. (1) There is in many divines, and in many Christians who are not divines, a great fear of questions. "Certain things," they say, "have been settled long ago. To disturb the settlement is perilous. If we are humble and modest we shall be content without knowledge of Divine things. Probabilities, distant approximation to knowledge, are all to which creatures such as we are can aspire." But we find Christ beginning His pilgrimage as a questioner. I believe that Christ has been asking questions from that day to this; that He is asking questions of us all, divines and laymen, now; that the questions come to us in multitudes of shapes, through a multitude of lips. I am greatly afraid that when we try to silence any of these questions we are trying to silence the voice of Christ, in others and in ourselves. (2) Statements like these are liable to be misunderstood, as if one wished to discourage reverence for the past, as if one thought there were no oracles of God which were stronger and deeper than all the reasonings and speculations of men. Just because I would uphold reverence for the past, I dare not stifle one anxious question of men respecting the faith of other days, respecting the oracles of God. The Rabbis did not reverence the past. They accepted its decrees. They had no fellowship with the life and sufferings of its men. No men needed so much to become little children to recover the wisdom of children. That they might attain that wisdom the Child came amongst them, listened to them, asked them questions, answered their questions. That same Child, who has the government on His shoulders, hears us, questions us, answers us for the same end.
F. D. Maurice, Sermons,vol. v., p. 91.
Reference: Luke 2:47. Clergyman's Magazine,vol. iv., p. 88.