What I Couldn't Say

Those of you who were at church Sunday get the meaning of the title of this blog.  Truly, I couldn't talk ... a condition which came upon me quickly and got worse as the morning progressed.  I appreciate all of the help from Josh, Jerry, Leah and everyone who basically put up with my laryngitis attack.  It was difficult for me because I had lots of Mary and Nazareth facts to convey ... so this blog will, I hope, give you a start on our Christmas Journey through the characters and places of the first Christmas.

First, Mary ... 12 or 13 ... scared ... hearing the news from the angel that she was with child ... traveling to stay 3 months with Elizabeth (her formerly barren cousin, also pregnant with a child who would become John the Baptist) ... returning to Nazareth where she would have probably (at the very least) been an object of scorn and (at the most) could have been in danger for her life since she was pregnant and unmarried.  Her last statement in the story of the annunciation (the announcement by the angel that she would bear the Son of God) was "I am God's servant."  Pretty mature resolve for an early teen.

Then. Nazareth ... the site of a spring that became a town (reminds me of Isaiah's prophecy about "streams in the desert").  This town with a few hundred shepherds, laborers, workers and (according to John 1) folks with a poor reputation would become Jesus' boyhood home and the place where he would begin a Galilean ministry that would change the planet.  Nazareth was halfway between the Sea of Galilee and the Mediterranean Sea.  The people were generally poor and would have lived in simple shelters such as limestone caves.  It was a meek and humble beginning for our journey to Bethlehem.  The town's name might have come from the word 'netzer' which means sprout or shoot ... the growth from a chopped-down stump.  Some believe that the prophecy in Isaiah 11 ("A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse;  from his roots a Branch will bear fruit. The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him—the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of might, the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the Lord—and he will delight in the fear of the Lord." Isaiah 11:1) relates to this obscure name for Nazareth since Mary (thus Jesus) was from the lineage of Jesse, descended from King David.  Both the Northern Kingdom (Israel in 721 BC by Assyria) and the Southern Kingdom (Judah in 586 by Babylon) had been chopped to the ground, this prophecy was a hope that the nation of Israel would be restored.  It is interesting that this restoration comes from a lowly place and will take shape in a much different way than was expected.

As I take in and savor this story, I am reminded that God's great work happens in ways that we would never choose never expect.  Mary's comment about being God's servant reminds me, like Sunday when your preacher couldn't say much, that God doesn't need much to work with.  Just our willingness and our action (not so much our words, our knowledge or our resume').  As John 1 states, "could anything good come from Nazareth?"  I would say what the story of the annunciation (Luke 1:26-38) states ... "Nothing is impossible for God."