Psalm 69:20 Reproach hath broken my heart; and I am full of heaviness: and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none.

I was watching a pre-civil war movie last week. In it was brutality and inhumanity. The hearts of most whites and even a few slaves were pitiless. As I watched the movie none of that struck me as hard as watching the process of selling a slave, with title and deed, with history of ownership from slave ship, to owner and birth records and every trade ever made. It was in seeing that process I saw a glimpse into the attitude of some who resent proof of voters rights.

Are those feeling just? The law was written to protect their rights, yet did nothing to address the emotions that have lingered in the hearts of men and women since the end of the civil war. Laws may address wrongs but they cannot heal wounds. We write laws to address injustice and create within their bounds a weapon of reminder, of pain, or injustice, that society needed to create a law which does nothing to fix the problem, but only highlights a deeper problem without addressing the problem itself.

The law may be perfect or imperfect. The abiding in the law may be perfect or imperfect. Neither can change the problem. The sin nature of man is the problem and nothing changes that except God.

Psalm 49:20 Man that is in honour, and understandeth not, is like the beasts that perish.

Psalm 119:130 The entrance of thy words giveth light; it giveth understanding unto the simple.

The Word gives light to the entrance, but they still have to enter in to be free.

Luke 2:49 And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?

Ever play hide and go seek? The seeker would cover his eyes and count to one hundred and then say “Ready or not, here I come.” Here in chapter 2 of Luke, Jesus stays behind after he is declared a man, by tradition. He knows He is ready, willing and eager to enter into the ministry of His Father’s house.

I do not know just when and how Jesus came to know His heavenly Father. Scriptures do not relate any clear text as to the behavior and relationship of our Savior in those early years. We have no idea how much time He spent in prayer, in communion, in instruction directly from the Father. It can only be seen that by His actions this day, He believed He was ready.

It would be another twenty odd years before His people would come to know who Christ was in their midst. His ministry did not begin until a wedding feast. Or did it? Those years between this day and that were also darkened from the pages of testament. We have little to view accept one comment in which it said Jesus read “as was His custom.” Jesus grew up in the church, in the Jewish synagogue.

What must have gone through the heart and mind of Jesus to know the Father and the possible yet constrain Himself until the appointed time? Was His heart any less eager to help? Did He feel any less for the suffering of His people as He stood and waited for His ministry to begin?

Compassion comes at a price.