Journey to Bethlehem Carroll UMC 12/7/19 (Saturday night only)

Journey to Bethlehem

Carroll UMC 12/7/19 (Saturday night only)

This week we focus like a laser on a story we all know very well:  the Christmas story.

Now you might think you know everything there is to know about birth of Jesus, after all you read it and hear it every year right.  You come to Sunday school and we learn about it every year, Right?

I know this is one of the most familiar stories in the Bible, but I think that is an even better reason to study it.  Because it is so familiar, it often goes in one ear and out the other without ever making contact with even one brain cell.

So, we’re only going to take a small bite.  Let’s start where the story starts, in Nazareth, and focus on the annunciation.

Nazareth is in the northern part of Israel.  In the part they call Galilee.  Do you see Jerusalem and Bethlehem way down at the bottom in Judea?  And Samaria in the middle?  Nazareth was just a little town.  Not Carroll Little… more like Lidderdale little.  In fact it was so little that in most of the lists of Galilean towns of the day, Nazareth is not even mentioned.

It was so unimportant that when Phillip told Nathaniel that they found the messiah and he was from Nazareth, he asked “Nazareth! Can anything good come from Nazareth?”

Nazareth was like most Lidderdales in one other way. Lidderdale is 5 miles from Carroll. Nazareth was 4 miles from its nearest neighboring city: Sepphoris.  In fact most of the people from Nazareth walked for an hour to travel the 4 miles to Sepphoris in order to work.  Sepphoris was a very important city with lots of jobs and theatres and stores.  Nazareth didn’t have any of those things.

We suspect that Joseph was among those who walked to Sepphoris to work. The empire had a big construction project in Sepphoris about that time and being in construction he certainly could have found work. I said he was in construction, rather than a carpenter, because although the word carpenter is not WRONG the word used in the bible is actually more like tradesman. Somebody who is more than a laborer, because they had skills. Historically we know that not too many things were built out of wood in those days.  Mostly they built with stone. So, some have suggested that he was more like a stone mason.

So, he probably traveled from unimportant Nazareth to important Sephoris for work. In fact, Nazareth was so small and unimportant that next to Sepphoris it was nothing.  For instance, the houses in Sepphoris had beautiful hand laid tile mosaic floors in, like the one we see up here.  They had all the latest and most beautiful things.   The people of Nazareth couldn’t afford those things.  In fact many of them lived in caves.  The rock was soft so people would find a cave and carve out the rock to make the rooms they needed.  If they had another child, they just dug out another room.  Sometimes the cave was also the barn.  The animals would stay near the entrance of the cave while the family lived in the next rooms back.

That is where Mary probably lived.  Mary lived in poor little Nazareth.  If her family owned a business or had any money they probably would have moved to Sepphoris.  But they didn’t.  They may have even lived in a cave which they might have shared with their animals.

   This is the church of the annunciation.   This church is built on the spot where we believe God spoke to Mary through the Angel Gabriel.     Inside the church is a little cave entrance.   Inside that cave entrance is what people say was Mary’s house.    Well it wasn’t really MARRY’s house.  It was her father’s house.  It wasn’t really her house because Mary was only 13 or 14 years old.  Does that surprise you?  Mary was just a little girl.  Now, you have to understand that women had a life expectancy of 25-29 years old.  So in order to have 10 or so babies before they died, they had to start when they were 15.  It was not unusual for a 13 year old to be engaged as Mary was.  

Think about that… when the angel told her that she was going to have a baby, He was telling her that she was about to become an unwed teenage mother.

If you were God, and could chose anyone in the world for one of the most important missions in the world,  Carrying  god’s son inside of her for 9 months, and then giving birth to him, wouldn’t you chose the wife of the emperor or the high priest, or the governor, or at least a rabbi or someone with some importance and prestige? 

Well… that’s not what God did.

If you were God, and you wanted to get the world’s attention, would you start in Sepphoris or Nazareth?  I would probably go to the big town to look for a wealthy family, or a one that was well known in the community.  One who could afford to give my son all the best things of life and perhaps introduce him around to some of the other important people of the region.  Wouldn’t that give him a good start in saving the world?

Well… that’s not what God did.

God chose a little girl from a lower middle class family who lived in a cave in a little Podunk Nazareth in northern Israel to be the mother of God.

Once again, just like when he chose Noah, or Moses, or David, or Amos God chose the poor, the weak, the young, and the disadvantaged to do the most important work in salvation history.  But that is the kind of God that God is.

 Do you know where the word Nazareth comes from.?  It comes from the Hebrew word Netzir.  Which means shoot.  It refers to the shoot that sprouts froth from a dead stump.   Have you ever seen anything like this?  A stump that looks dead, suddenly sprouting forth with green shoots and leaves?

I have many times.  Certain kinds of trees just keep doing that over and over.

Why do you suppose the founders of Nazareth called it Netzir or shoot?  I think they were looking back to the words of the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Zechariah.  They talk about a Shoot that shall spring forth from the stump of Jesse.  What they are saying is no matter how bad things may seem, God has a way of

•             bringing something good from something bad… well maybe not just bad,

•             bringing something big from something small,

•             something important from something unimportant. 

•             Bringing something strong from something weak.

 You might not be the biggest, or the best at anything.  You might not be the most athletic, or the best dressed, or the smartest.  You might not have much money.  You might think you are pretty unimportant or even kind of useless.  You know “what good am I?”

But God can use you.

You might be the last picked when they choose up kickball teams—I always was…  but God can use you.

You might be the one everyone teases, I was-- but God can use you.

You might never be wealthy, but you know what?... God can still use you If God can use an unwed teenage mother from Nowhere Nazareth…. He can use any one of us.

When God has a job for you, he might not come as an angel, or in a bolt of lightning or in a burning bush. 

•             God might just come as a friend asking for help. 

•             God might come in the lonely person you see at school or in the park.

•             God might come as an elderly person who needs help shoveling their snow.

•             God might come as the man with the red kettle standing outside of Walmart.

I don’t know when God will need you but he will.

I don’t know how God will call on you.  But he will.

I don’t know why God will call on you.  But he will.

Just Be ready, and like Mary say “Yes.”  “Yes Lord. Here I am “AMEN