Nazareth

Artist's drawing of what Nazareth must have looked like in Jesus's childhoodIn many ways the past year has been "annus horribilis," as Queen Elizabeth would term it--a "horrible year"--for some people in my community. Pastor John's sermon this week was just the thing to sum it all up, leaving us hearers with hope for the future. You may need this, too. With credit to Pastor John for his message, let me tell you about Nazareth.

In the time of Jesus's childhood, Nazareth was nowhere. It wasn't any of the major cities, it wasn't mentioned by Josephus, it wasn't on the road between one important place and another. To get to Nazareth, you had to take a trail out of the Jezreel valley and climb up into the hills to a tiny little collection of about 35 dwellings on a hillside. They had not enough water to sustain them. To survive, they carved rocky terraces out of the hillside for growing grains, olives and grapes. (Read more about Nazareth of Jesus's time here; it's fascinating.) Nazareth was the equivalent of the proverbial little hick town tucked way back into the Smoky Mountains; people from there had an accent to their speech, were the butt of jokes and had no standing in the political, religious or social culture of the times.

It was a "hard scrabble" kind of life that the people in Nazareth lived. They dwelt in small rock houses built built against the hillsides, some of them built over cave openings. The people had to carve simple cisterns out of the rock to catch enough rainwater to supplement their one little spring. (Forget taking baths.) They had to build watchtowers by their hillside vineyards to guard against thieves when the harvest was coming on. They had to try to grow their own food on hills so full of rocks that the harvest yield was limited.

Isolated. Provincial. Poor. Constantly in hardship. These words sum up the lives of the people living in Nazareth village.

So when Nathanael was invited to come see Jesus who came from Nazareth, it makes sense that he asked, "Can any good come from there?" (John 1:46)

Indeed, the people of Nazareth weren't too kind to one of their own, either. The Bible describes how Jesus's own family believed he had become mentally ill (Mark 3:15) , and how his fellow villagers got angry at his brief commentary on the synagogue reading and tried to kill him. Jesus was all too aware of the lack of support from his own family and village, remarking, "Only in his hometown, among his relatives and in his own house is a prophet without honor." (Mark 6:4) He must have felt misunderstood, maligned and abandoned.

And yet Luke points out that something good came out of Nazareth (Luke 2:52): "And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man." (KJV) Jesus, who stood up for the oppressed, called out the oppressors, lived with integrity and eventually changed the world by his example of humility and compassion, ... came from Nazareth. And according to Luke's quick summary in that verse, he grew up well--intellectually, physically, spiritually, and socially.

A good thing came out of Nazareth.

So where have you been dwelling this year? In Nazareth? Have you been living an "annus horribilis" in some aspect of your life? Have you experienced isolation? Hardship? Lack of sustenance? Brokenness? Fear for yourself or your family? Dryness? Ridicule? Misunderstanding from your own villagers? Loneliness? Have you been maimed by the very place or people that shaped who you are? For some of us, that may have been our entire life's story, not just the story of this year.

Your story is not over. You have other options than allowing Nazareth to shape you or the ending of your story. Wait on the Lord ("wait on" as a waiter serves a patron). God can still bring something good out of your "Nazareth."

The Olive Trees by Vincent Van Gogh