I want to build in your imagination a picture of Nazareth, the boyhood home of Jesus. Most see it as a sleepy little village from which shepherds went to find pasturage for their flocks. It was more than that.
Nazareth was located in the state of Galilee, about 70 miles north of Jerusalem. It was (and is) in the hill country between the Sea of Galilee to the northeast, and the Mediterranean to the west, at an elevation of about 1350 feet. The town at Jesus’ time occupied two rocky ridges and the basin between them. It was a town of ups and downs in a part of the country that rested on an immense slab of limestone. Nazareth is still there today, but is smaller than it was in the time of Jesus, and almost nothing remains of the town Jesus knew.
Recent archeological discoveries have given light on a Nazareth that was larger and more cosmopolitan than first thought. It was not a sleepy village. It rested at the confluence of two main roads. The first led from the Mediterranean port of Ptolemais, going from an east to west direction. The second road led to the south, fed by the larger town of Sepphoris, 4 miles to the north of Nazareth.
During the boyhood of Jesus commerce would have flowed in both directions, from caravans coming from North Africa and Egypt to more immediate commerce from the whole of Palestine. Roman soldiers, coming to replenish southern garrisons or to transit to the eastern borders, would have passed through Nazareth. The town’s business would have presented the growing boy with a mix of languages, racial types, aromas, animals, and varieties of commerce. It was not the stopping point that Sepphoris was, but it was a busy pass point, creating a more cosmopolitan culture than most have imagined. And Nazareth and the area surrounding it was primarily gentile. We know that there was a synagogue in Nazareth, but we do not know if there was more than one.
What a great place for Jesus to grow up!
Why spend time talking about Nazareth? It was the village Joseph and Mary grew up in, and largely shaped the way the young, growing boy saw and understood the world. It shaped the way he spoke, the way he dressed, and formed the community he held dear. It was in Nazareth that he went with his father to the synagogue, was educated in the Hebrew language, and learned to read from the scriptures. It was in Nazareth that he learned his father’s craft, formed friendships and relationships, and grew, as Luke said, in stature and in wisdom and in the grace of God.
I think it is so cool that Nazareth was his boyhood home rather than the center of Jewish faith, Jerusalem. I know it sounds a bit odd, but if Jesus had grown up in Jerusalem, the center of his people’s faith, he would have been in a more provincial environment; more ethnically focused, surrounded by people who were more alike and less open to new ideas.
But in Nazareth the savior who came for the whole world heard its languages, saw its differing peoples, and grew up in a more diverse human ecology. One of my favorite scriptures is in Revelation 7: “After this I saw a vast crowd, too great to count, from every nation and tribe and people and language, standing in front of the throne and before the lamb. They were clothed in white robes and held palm branches in their hands, and they were shouting with a great roar, ‘Salvation comes from our God who sits on the throne and from the lamb!’”
First a sojourn in Egypt, then growing up in Nazareth, the “Lamb of God, come to take away the sins of the world,” saw and interacted with peoples and tribes and languages and the spiritually dry and impoverished hearts of the whole world. Begun in quietness, this young life rushed to the destiny that would capture the whole globe.
Prayer: “Great Father of all people, I am grateful that your love and purpose are vast and eternal…that you did not send Jesus for a few, but for all. I am eager to join that vast crowd, too great to count, and to add my voice to their great shout. You are the God of my salvation, the hope of this desperate heart. Amen.”