WEEK TWO

Bethlehem

            Last week we visited Nazareth, the hometown of Mary, where she learned she would have a child. Today we turn to Joseph’s story and how he found out Mary would give birth to the Messiah. A careful reading of the Gospels leads many scholars to believe that Joseph’s hometown was Bethlehem and that his engagement to Mary was a long-distance relationship.

Joseph is mentioned only a handful of times in the Gospels and never outside of them. But if we’re paying attention, even that handful of verses tells us a lot about this man.

Joseph was a tekton, a builder. Now, here’s the thing to note: a tekton would not have a 401K or large tracts of land. He didn’t have herds of sheep. Everything he owned of value could fit into a toolbox. A tekton was a simple, hardworking person. We can easily imagine what Joseph was like, even though he doesn’t have a single spoken line in the New Testament. Joseph was humble. He was merciful. He was obedient. And I think it was for these reasons that God chose him to be the earthly father of Jesus.

Just outside Bethlehem was Herodium, a monument to a very different kind of man, with a royal palace at the top. The man was King Herod, and his life stood in stark contrast to Joseph’s.

Herod called himself great and built massive palaces to prove it. Joseph wouldn’t have dares to call himself great, but he demonstrated true greatness by living a life of mercy, obedience, and humility. How do you define greatness?

Joseph, living and working in the shadow of Herodium, modeled how to serve without expecting a reward. He had the most important job ever given to a man up to that point: raising Jesus and teaching him how to be a man. He did that job without recognition, without the praise of others, solely because God had called him in a dream to care for God’s Son.

Allow me to ask you the question I’ve asked myself many times: Who will you choose to be? Will you be Herod, who spent his life seeking to win the praise of others; who pursued wealth, power, and material possessions; who seemed to say through his actions, “Here I am, notice me”? Or will you be Joseph, who was a humble servant of God, who never sought the limelight, who was willing to say, “Here I am, God, use me”?

God favors the humble rather than the proud. God’s greatest work through us may be difficult and challenging, and we may never receive recognition or the praise of others, but we are called to serve anyway, seeking nothing more than God’s satisfaction and glory. This often requires seeing with eyes of faith, trusting that the one who calls us is faithful to complete his work in us. See with eyes of faith this week as you walk further down the road to Bethlehem.

“She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” (Matthew 1:21)

  

Before Jesus was even born, Joseph was told that his son would be humanity’s Savior. Jesus-Joshua, as he would have been called by Mary and Joseph- means “the Lord saves.” The messenger told Joseph in a dream to give his son that name because he would save his people from their sins.

I won’t try to discuss here how Jesus saves his people from their sins; I’ve devoted the better part of another book to that. But let’s pause for a moment to think about sin and what it means. The primary Hebrew and Greek words that translated into English as sin mean “to stray from the path” or “to miss the mark.” The same Greek word was used to describe what happened when an archer shot an arrow and it missed its target. Sin is a deviation from God’s path or mark, and we are all prone to do this. Consider the classic “seven deadly sins”: lust, gluttony, greed, indifference, wrath, envy, and pride. Which of us hasn’t wrestled with several of these with some regularity? And when we routinely commit these sins, we find that we experience pain and separation from God and others.

I think several men over the years who have sat in my office in tears describing the breakup of their marriages over infidelity or the man I greet after church who cannot seem to break free of his addiction to alcohol, despite the fact that it cost him his family. I think several church members, professional and respected people in the community, who ended up in prison over choices they made. I think of a woman who wept as I prepared to give her communion, saying she wasn’t sure she was good enough to take it. And I think of my own life, and how many times I’ve done things I have been ashamed of.

I can’t see you, but I think I know something about you. This is what I know: you have a few secrets too. There are things you’ve said or done or thought that you don’t want anyone else to know about, things that make you squirm or cringe or even cry when you think about them. Alongside those things you may have done, or thought of doing, are the things you didn’t do that you were meant to do-sins of omission, things God was counting on you to do but which you chose to rationalize away.

Part of the gift of Christmas is the gift of a Savior. Jesus came to save us from our sins. He came to show us the way, the truth, and the life. He came to redeem us, suffer for us, cleanse us, forgive us, and heal us. Paul once wrote it this way: “Wretched man that I am, who can save me?” He went on to answer his own question: “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:24-25 paraphrase).

Christmas comes with the promise of salvation from our sins, wrought by the child who was born in Bethlehem.

 

            Lord, thank you for mercy and grace. Forgive me for __________________________________. 

{Confess those things that you continue to carry guilt over.} Thank you for sending Jesus to save and deliver me. Help me, in thought, word, and deed, to live a life that pleases you. Amen.

Now all of this took place so that what the Lord had spoken through the prophet would be fulfilled:

            Look! A virgin will become pregnant and give birth to a son, And they will call him, Emmanuel.

(Emmanuel means “God with us.”)           (Matthew 1:22-23 CEB)

   

            As I write, cities and towns along the Mississippi River are either flooding or are braced for flooding as the river reaches historic levels in the South. Thousands of people will lose their homes, farms, and businesses. Some will ask, “Where was God in the midst of these floods?” Or more to the point, “Why didn’t God act to save us?”

I’ve tried to answer these and other questions about suffering elsewhere, but here I would just say that suffering, natural disasters, and tragedies are a part of life. Our bodies are susceptible to disease. Human beings misuse their freedom and harm one another. Earthquakes, tornadoes, and floods seem to be part of the equilibrium that makes life in our planet possible.

It seems that generally God does not directly intervene to suspend the forces of nature-either the macro forces that control weather and the movement of tectonic plates, or the micro forces that can cause sickness. Floods occur, and even the most holy people catch colds and suffer from diseases. Neither does God suspend human freedom. As much as it must pain God to watch what we human beings do to one another, God seems to allow human being to rebel against his will and do things that bring pain to others.

If God doesn’t suspend natural laws for us, what does God do? Isaiah 43:2 gives is an idea. There God says, “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you.” David, in the best known of all psalms, says, “Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil; for you are with me.” Again and again in the Scriptures, God promises not freedom from adversity but freedom from fear, hopelessness, and despair because he is with us.

To some, God’s promise to be with us may not seem like much. I disagree. I am grateful for the forces of nature that create the mountains and carve the canyons. I am grateful for the natural laws that somehow bring equilibrium to our atmospheric conditions. I am grateful for human freedom and for the bodies we live in, even if they are, by their nature, susceptible to disease.  I feel I can face all these things, provided I know that God is with me, that he won’t leave me or forsake me, and that when this earthly life is over he will welcome me to his eternal realm.

This brings us to our passage today. Here Jesus is called, in Hebrew, Emmanuel. Emmanuel means “God with us,” as Matthew points out to his Greek-speaking readers. This word contains one of the most powerful ideas in the Christmas story. God has not promised is a life without suffering or a world without pain; he had promised to walk with us through the suffering and the pain. In Jesus, God literally had come to us in flesh and blood, so that we might know that he is with us. He had come to suffer with and for us that we might know he understands what human life is like. At the end of his life he was raised from the dead, to assure us that not even death will have the final word in our lives.

I walked into a hospital room not long ago to visit a man who had just been diagnosed with terminal cancer. His wife sat next to hum. I wanted to promise them that if we just prayed hard enough, his cancer would be gone. Sometimes that happens, but in my experience those times are rare. More often, doctors do what they can to prolong life. People who pray, who trust in God, and who have a church family can find peace on their journey. After listening to this man and his wife describe their feelings and emotions, I said to them, “We’re going to pray for a miracle. But we also recognize that miracles are not the norm. What is most important for you to know, and what I came to be a visible reminder of, is that God is with you. He will be with you every moment. He will hold you in his arms, and he has promised that this life is only the preface to the great adventure he has prepared for you. Rest in his arms. Trust that he’s with you. Know that God loves you.”

What difference does it make? When my daughters were small, there would sometimes be storms in the middle of the night, and, terrified, they would run to our room. “Daddy, I’m scared,” they would cry. I would make them a little bed next to ours, and I would tell them, “Daddy’s right here. You don’t have to be afraid.” They would fall right sleep. I hadn’t stopped the storm, but they knew that if their father was nearby, they didn’t need to be afraid.

Jesus is a flesh-and-blood reminder that God walks with us, suffers with us, loves us, has redeemed us, and offers us eternal life. John Wesley, as he lay dying in his chambers near the New City Road Chapel, put it this way: “The best of all is, God is with us.”

I can face anything if I know that God is with me. That promise is part of the gift of Christmas: Emmanuel, God with us.

            Lord, thank you that you never leave me, nor forsake me. Help me to trust that you are with me always. Help me to draw strength and courage from your presence in my life. Amen.

Then Mary said, “here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” (Luke 1:38)

 

            Imagine thirteen-year-old Mary hearing from the messenger that she would have a child, conceived out of wedlock, who would grow up to be the messianic king. Those words would have made it appear, from her vantage point, that the child she was to bear would be a direct threat to both King Herod and the Roman Empire. If the child’s identity were found out, then the child, and she, would be killed.  Herod had already killed two of his own children, along with his favorite wife, because he believed they dreamed of taking over his throne. Viewed in this light, we can see that the messenger had brought Mary a dangerous request from God.

But it didn’t stop with the obvious danger of giving birth to a son who was to be king. There was also the matter of the child being conceived outside of wedlock. The law commanded that if a woman engaged to be married was found pregnant by another man, she was to be put to death. God’s request to Mary was dangerous indeed.

Then there were Mary’s hopes and dreams for her own life. She was to marry the carpenter Joseph. But now, how would this work? He would not believe her story- how could he? God’s request would mean the end of their engagement. People in her hometown would discover she was pregnant, and she would be considered promiscuous or worse. Add to this the fact that Mary was being asked to give birth, no small request in a day and time before modern medicine. Women died giving birth.

Gabriel, on behalf of God, was asking a great deal of this frightened young girl. William Barclay captures the message of this scene for all of us when he says, “the piercing truth is that God does not choose a person for ease and comfort and selfish joy but for a task that will take all that head and heart and hand can bring to it.”

When was the last time you took a risk to pursue what you believed God was calling you to do? When was the last time you did something that made you just a bit afraid because you believed it was the will of God?

Kristen was a senior in college when she felt God calling her to join the Peace Corps and more to Swaziland to help teach children whose parents had died of HIV/AIDS. At the age of twenty-two, she moved to the small African nation and began her work. The job was hard and filled with challenges and not a little danger. But ask her today how she feels about her time in Swaziland, and she’ll tell you it was among the greatest blessings of her life.

If god called you to Swaziland, would you go? What about to the heart of your own city? Mary’s response to God’s dangerous call is one of the most beautiful statements in all the Bible. This young girl simply said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” This is a prayer short enough to memorize and important enough to say again and again.

 

            Lord, I hear of opportunities to serve others, or your call to stand up for what is right, or your invitation to give of myself; yet sometimes I am afraid. Forgive me for allowing fear, or my desire for safety and comfort, to keep me from doing your will. Help me to hear your call and to be willing to step out of my comfort zone in order to do your work. “Here I am, servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Amen.

“And now you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” (Luke 1:31-33)

   

            The stories of the Annunciation and the virgin birth are meant to teach us not primarily about Mary, but about the child she would bear. In our passage today, Gabriel said a great deal about Jesus. You might read it again and underline each word or statement concerning the child Mary would bear. Gabriel was telling Mary that she will give birth to the long-awaited messianic king.

A thousand years before Gabriel’s conversation with Mary, God sent a messenger to King David. This messenger’s name was Nathan, and he was one of God’s prophets. Nathan, speaking on behalf of God, said to King David, “Your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me; your throne shall be established forever” (2 Samuel 7:16). For four hundred years a descendant of David ruled in Jerusalem.

But in 586 B.C. Jerusalem was destroyed by the Babylonians. The Davidic king, Zadekiah, was arrested by the Babylonians. His sons were executed while he watched, and then his eyes were gouged out and he was led away in chains as a prisoner to Babylon. The leading citizens were exiled to Babylon, others fled to Egypt, and the rest were scattered. For fifty years the Israelites remained in exile. During this time the prophets of the Exile reminded the people of the promise made to David, that his throne wound “be established forever.” Surely this meant that, despite their current circumstances, there was still hope that God would restore his people.

Thus the people began to hope and pray for God to send an anointed king who once more would rule over God’s people. They began to dream about what he would be like and what his kingdom would be like. This was the beginning of the messianic hope. And it was these hopes, dreams, and promised that Gabriel announced would be fulfilled in Jesus, whose name itself means, “Deliver” or “Savior.”

Jesus was born to be a king. He was born to rule over a kingdom. When he began his public ministry, he preached, “Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand” (Mark 1:15 KJV). His entire ministry was focused on teaching about God’s kingdom and inviting his hearers to be a part of it. That kingdom is not some future heavenly realm; it is a reality today. Jesus said, “The kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21 KJV). Whenever we choose to follow Jesus and to live as his people, we become citizens of his kingdom.

Jesus said those who are citizens in his kingdom, who follow him as king, will love their neighbors and even their enemies. He said they will feed the hungry, clothe the naked, give drink to the thirsty, visit the sick and imprisoned, and welcome the stranger. How would Jesus have us celebrate his birth? I think he would say, “By doing my will and living the precepts I taught you.”

I was struck recently by the actions of a child who understood this. His name is Jake. For his fifth birthday his parents threw him a birthday party. He invited all his friends. But he told his friends the only presents he wanted were jars of peanut butter. Jake had heard there were children in Kansas City who received breakfast and lunch at school every day, but on the weekends there was little food in their homes. They were coming to school hungry on Monday mornings. Our church started a program to send backpacks home with these children every Friday filled with snacks to tide them over for the weekend. Included among those snacks were jars of peanut butter. Jake decided that for his birthday he wanted other children not to be hungry over the weekend.

Jake is learning what it means to call Jesus his king. How might you follow his example this Christmas?

 

Lord, in this season of Advent, as I read the stories surrounding your birth, I once more acknowledge you as my king. How grateful I am that you reign forever. Help me today, and each day, to live as a citizen of your kingdom. Amen.

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. (Luke 1:26-29)

 

            What do you think about angels? A Washington Times poll found that half of all Americans believe in them. The other half were not so sure. If we’re talking little babies with wings flitting about shooting arrows into the hearts of lovers, I’m not biting. If we’re thinking john Travolta with giant wings as he portrayed the archangel Michael in a 1996 film, I’m still saying, “Nope.” Clarence talking poor George Bailey off the bridge in It’s a Wonderful Life starts to get a little closer to the angels of the Scriptures, but skip the part about him earning his wings.

When we read about angels in Scripture, it is important to remember that the word angel simply means “messenger.” Angels typically appear simply as people- no wings, just people. Sometimes their attire is majestic or glorious, but usually they’re just strangers with a word from God. Sometimes they come in visions. But sometimes they come in the flesh. The writer of Hebrews notes that some Christians in his day, as they welcomed strangers, had welcomed angels without knowing it.

In our Scripture, Mary was perplexed by Gabriel’s words but not by his appearance; hence he appeared as a stranger who told Mary a word about God’s will for her life and who invited her to be open and willing to answer God’s call.

To my knowledge I’ve never met the heavenly kind of angel. But there have been many people whose messages changed my life. When I was fourteen years old, a man named Harold Thorson knocked on my door. He spoke with an electrolarynx (a device that looks like a microphone pressed to the throat, to allow speech for those whose larynx has been removed). He was going door to door in my neighborhood, inviting people to church. Though I did not believe in God I was moved by this man’s visit and started attending church, and my life was forever changed. While in college I was selling women’s shoes in a department store. Belinda came in to try on shoes, but before she left she also invited my wife and me to visit the Methodist church she attended. We’ve been looking for a church. Her invitation, and our visit to her church, led to a call to be a part of renewing The United Methodist Church. How different my life would have been had Harold Thorson not gone visiting door to door or had Belinda not listened to the nudge in her heart to invite me to her church.

There have been a thousand more messengers since then. I think of the pastors whose preaching I heard week after week, and how God spoke to me through them. I also think of my professors at college and seminary, too. My wife has certainly been a messenger from God for me on countless occasions, as have members of the church I serve, such as Nancy, whose persistent invitations led me to visit southern Africa years ago, a visit that would have a profound impact upon my ministry.

Which leads me to a question for you: do you take the time, do you pay attention to what’s happening around you, and do you listen so that you don’t miss God’s angels when they come speaking to you?

Today many of us are so busy, so preoccupied, or in such a hurry that there is no time to listen to how God may be trying to speak to us. Imagine if Gabriel had approached Mary while she was fetching water and she had said, “I’m sorry, I’m really busy right now. Do you think you could come back later?” Or if she had dismissed him as a crackpot when he tried to tell her about God’s plans for her life. And yet this is precisely the response many of us would have in our busy and preoccupied lives today.

God speaks through Scripture and through the still small voice of the Holy Spirit; but God also speaks through people (and occasionally heavenly messengers who look like them). Pay attention! Listen, lest you miss out on God’s purposes for your life.

Lord, thank you for the people through whom you have spoken to me. Help me to pay attention and to listen for your voice through those you send. Speak, Lord; your servant is listening. Amen.

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. (Luke 1:26-27)

            It was “the other side of the track,” if there had been tracks in first-century Palestine. Nazareth was only four miles from the thriving city of Sepphoris with its luxury villas, markets, temples, and Roman theater. You can still walk among the amazing ruins at Sepphoris to this day. You can see Sepphoris from Nazareth, and by car it’s only a ten-minute drive; but in Mary’s day it was an hour’s walk to Sepphoris from Nazareth. Sepphoris was where the “haves” lived. Nazareth was for the “have nots.”

            Nazareth doesn’t even show up on first-century lists of villages in Galilee. It was considered by the Jewish population of the region as insignificant, or worse. In John 1:46 Nathanael asked, when told that Jesus was from Nazareth, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”

            A woman, who grew up in poverty, once described for me the formative years of her childhood. She lived in a trailer park at the lower end of the socioeconomic scale. Children teased her at school, calling her “trailer trash,” a name they had learned from their parent. Forty years and a law degree later, she was describing how it felt as a child to be made to feel small and insignificant.

            When I think of Nazareth I think of her story. If the tradition is correct, Mary’s family lived in the cheapest form of affordable housing at that time: a cave. Mary’s village was considered of “no account.” But it was precisely here that God Came looking for a young woman to bear his Son.

            God routinely chooses the humble and the least expected in and through whom he might do his greatest work. Mary recognized this in Luke 1:45-55, when she praised God because he “looked with favor on the lowliness of their hearts.”

            Many of us live in Sepphoris. But God’s choice of a woman from Nazareth to bear the Christ leads us to see the importance God places in humility; calls us to repent of any ways in which we, like Nathanael have said, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”; and even invites us to reconsider how we celebrate the birth of Jesus.

            As you are preparing for Christmas, here’s a suggestion: What if this year you recalibrated? What if this year you decided to give away a bit more to people in need and spend a bit less in yourself and your immediate family? Our family made a commitment several years ago to donate to organizations serving the poor and those in need an amount equal to the total of what we spend on our family and friends at Christmas. This decision forces us to reduce what we spend on people who don’t really need anything, so that we can give to those who truly stand in need. In the process, we’ve found greater joy in our Christmas celebration.

            Lord, forgive me for any time I’ve ever made others feel small. Forgive me for thinking more highly of myself than I ought.  And help me, in the words of Paul, to “consider others better than myself.” Help me, this Christmas, to look for ways of increasing what I give to those in need. Amen.

An account of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, and Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, and Perez the father of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Aram, and Aram the father of Aminadab, and Aminadab the father of Nahshon, and Nahshon the father of Salmon, and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of King David. And David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah… (Matthew 1:1-7)

My great aunt, Celia Belle Yoder, keeps our family history. She’s ninety-five years old but sharp as a tack and shows no sign of slowing down. I went to visit her a few weeks ago. We spent an hour together as she walked me through our family genealogy. She’s a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, and she can trace our family history back at least four hundred years. She tells me of well-known circuit-riding preachers who started churches a hundred fifty years ago, about Civil War soldiers, and about pioneers on the Oklahoma prairie. She wants me to know who I am and where I came from.

We begin this book of reflections about the stories surrounding the birth of Jesus precisely where Matthew begins the story-with the genealogy of Jesus. Scholars agree that Matthew does not give us a complete genealogy. He gives us just the highlights that he thinks are important. I’ve included only a portion of the genealogy above, but I would encourage you to read all seventeen versus (Matthew 1:1-17). Most people just skim them when reading Matthew, but there are important things to notice.

Here are a few. Matthew’s genealogy is a summary of nearly the entire Old Testament, from Genesis 11 to Malachi 4, capturing the stories of the patriarchs, the Israelites’ slavery in Egypt, and the exodus from Egypt to the Promised Land; there is David and Solomon and the divided kingdom, the destruction of Israel and the exile of Judah, and finally the return from exile. Here’s the point: Jesus’ birth is the climax of this entire story of God’s relationship with Israel. Jesus is the end to which the entire biblical story was moving.

It is often rightly noted that Matthew’s account of Jesus’ genealogy is nearly unique in that it includes five women. Putting women in a genealogy was not unheard of in the first century, but it was unusual. Who are these women, and what do they tell us about Jesus?

Tamar, the mother of Perez, played the role of a prostitute in order to have children after her husband died. Rahab, listed as the mother of Boaz, was a prostitute when she first entered the biblical story. She was also a foreigner. Then there was Ruth, who, like Tamar, was a widow and, like Rahab, was a foreigner. Bathsheba is mentioned next. She was the wife of Uriah the Hittite, which means that she may have been a foreigner, and she was an adulteress (or the victim of rape) at the hands of King David, after which David had her husband killed. She too was a widow. The last of the women mentioned in the genealogy is Mary, a peasant girl whose life we will examine in greater detail in the next reflection.

When my Aunt Celia Belle tells me our family’s history, she describes pioneers, soldiers, and preachers. When Matthew tells Jesus’ genealogy he lists two prostitutes and an adulteress, women who were outsiders. Matthew is, in this genealogy, pointing us toward Jesus’ identity and mission. Jesus would bring hope to the widow, mercy to the sinner, and good news not just for the Jews, but for all humankind.

 

Lord, thank you for your love of those whom others see as second class. Thank you for showing mercy to the sinner and compassion to the brokenhearted. As I begin this season of Advent, help me to see you more clearly in the stories surrounding your birth. Amen.

            It’s been said that the Holy Land is the fifth Gospel-that in walking its streets and tracing its terrain you have a chance to see the biblical story with fresh eyes and hear it with fresh ears. During this Advent season, we will visit four locations in the Holy Land, one per week. Then we will reflect each day on the events that took place in that location and their meaning for our lives.

            This week we will visit Nazareth, the hometown of Mary and later of Jesus. To get there, we’ll travel through the nearby town of Sepphoris, from which you can make out the tiny village of Nazareth to the south. Sepphoris had existed for hundreds of years before the birth of Jesus. There were several main streets in Sepphoris with shops on either side.

            Scholars believe that Nazareth was named after the Hebrew word netzer. The word can mean either the branch of a tree or a shoot that comes up from the stump of a tree. In the Book of Isaiah, the prophet said that God would raise up a leader, a shoot, a branch that would give new life to the people of Israel. Of course, Christians understand that leader to be Jesus. Little did the founders of Nazareth know that one of their own children would be the shoot that God would raise up!

            The town of Nazareth was looked upon with some disdain. We hear that disdain in John 1:46, thirty years after the birth of Jesus, when Philip told Nathanael that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah. Nathanael replied, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”

            The site that Christians visit as Mary’s childhood home in Nazareth-at least the lower level of it-is a cave. Seeing this modest dwelling reminds us that when choosing the mother of the Messiah, God went to a tiny village considered insignificant by most, likely named after the hope of a Messiah, and invited a young woman of very humble means to bear the Christ. It was in this cave, tradition says, that Gabriel came to Mary and announced that she was with child. It was here, in this place, that the Word became flesh in Mary’s womb.

            Mary lived in a little, out-of-the-way town. She was uneducated and probably came from a poor family who may well have been servants in Sepphoris, a larger town near Nazareth. She was likely about thirteen years old. As she stood by the spring of Nazareth, listening to the sound of water bubbling forth from the rock, she was no better prepared for the visit of an angel than any of us might be. You can imagine that after hearing the words of Gabriel, she tried desperately to take it all in. Yet, with head spinning filled with questions, uncertain of what it all meant, Mary said yes. Her response to the angel was simple and profound. She said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word” (Luke 1:38).

            As we begin our journey through the story of Jesus’ birth, my hope and prayer for you is that each week you will come to learn more about who God is, who we’re called to be, and who the child was who would be born to Mary. This week especially, ponder the way God chooses unlikely characters to bring about great purposes.