Nazareth—really?

As Luke began his story about Jesus’ birth, he told of a divine messenger appearing to Zechariah, an aged priest, in the imposing Temple in Jerusalem, Israel’s capital city (cf. Luke 1:5-11). But that was just prologue to the main story. The main story came from Nazareth. Pilgrims came from all over the Mediterranean world to Jerusalem, but Nazareth was not on any pilgrim’s wish list. Honestly, it’s likely that most citizens of Judea (southern Israel) had never heard of Nazareth.

• Scholar Craig Keener wrote, “In contrast to Jerusalem, with its massive building projects, Nazareth was a lowly village (cf. Jn 1:46).”* The town where Mary lived was not the kind of place to fill its young people with lofty ambitions. It seems most unlikely that she had any idea we’d be reading about her in the year 2021. Where were you born and brought up? What effect, positive or negative, did the surroundings of your birth and childhood have on your expectations of life?
• In the text from the gospel of John, we see that Nathanael didn’t think coming from Nazareth said anything promising or good about Jesus. His doubts likely reflected a common opinion in the area: “Nathanael himself was from nearby Cana (John 21:2).”** Yet we only know about the incident because, after meeting Jesus, Nathanael became one of his followers. When has God used an unexpected person or ministry to uplift or deepen your spiritual life?

The Journey: A Season of Reflections

Today’s Insights was chapter 2 (“A Town in Galilee Called Nazareth”) from The Journey: A Season of Reflections, by Adam Hamilton. Copyright © 2011 by Abingdon Press, and available on our website for 24 hours by permission of Abingdon Press. If you’d like to buy the entire book of reflections, you can click here for a direct link to the Cokesbury sale page, as well as other Journey resources.