said the words of Jesus rather indicated surprise. But how could he be
surprised at anything? If he was God, he must have known everything."

"He tells us himself that he did not know everything. He says once that
even _he_ did not know one thing--only the Father knew it."

"But how could that be if he was God?"

"My dear, that is one of the things that it seems to me impossible I should
understand. Certainly I think his trial as a man would not have been
perfect had he known everything. He too had to live by faith in the Father.
And remember that for the Divine Sonship on earth perfect knowledge was not
necessary, only perfect confidence, absolute obedience, utter holiness.
There is a great tendency in our sinful natures to put knowledge and power
on a level with goodness. It was one of the lessons of our Lord's life that
they are not so; that the one grand thing in humanity is faith in God; that
the highest in God is his truth, his goodness, his rightness. But if Jesus
was a real man, and no mere appearance of a man, is it any wonder that,
with a heart full to the brim of the love of God, he should be for a moment
surprised that his mother, whom he loved so dearly, the best human being
he knew, should not have taken it as a matter of course that if he was not
with her, he must be doing something his Father wanted him to do? For this
is just what his answer means. To turn it into the ordinary speech of our
day, it is just this: 'Why did you look for me? Didn't you know that I must
of course be doing something my Father had given me to do?' Just think of
the quiet sweetness of confidence in this. And think what a life his must
have been up to that twelfth year of his, that such an expostulation with
his mother was justified. It must have had reference to a good many things
that had passed before then, which ought to have been sufficient to make
Mary conclude that her missing boy must be about God's business somewhere.