Day 6, The Christmas Story, Nazareth

A LITTLE HISTORY LESSON FOR YA

Happy Monday! I hope you had a great day with your family and friends and at your church yesterday. It’s my favorite day of the week (Sunday, that is, not Monday!!). I just soak it in like a sponge. I am blessed to be a part of a ladies class that spans every age group and every walk of life, yet we are sisters in the truest sense and God always shows up in there with us. Yesterday was no exception.

So, today, we continue with day six of our story. I hope you have been able to read the previous days on Zechariah. These stories of each person all tend to build upon each other.


26 In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a village in Galilee, 27 to a virgin named Mary.

Today, we shift our focus to Mary. We have studied about Zechariah and Elizabeth, and the Christmas story is well under way now in our studies. As you’ve seen, the Holy Spirit has been quite active, making sure Zechariah got to burn the incense, sending Gabriel to show up in the temple, making people deaf and dumb, old women bearing children, a baby like John on his way to prepare the way for the Messiah. Elizabeth has spent the last five months in seclusion, spending time alone with God. If you were to do the same, starting today, you would be secluded alone with God from today until May 7 of next year! Don’t you know her relationship with him was deepened in a huge way during that time?! A lot has happened in the lives of these people in a short amount of time. And now the story gets even more overwhelming.

Today we head over to a little town called Nazareth where we find a young girl named Mary. I have found some interesting facts about Nazareth that I want to share with you today, as a background for you getting to know Mary’s life during that time better. So, today will be a little of a history lesson for us all, hopefully enlightening and not boring. It helps me to know the background when we read a story, and I hope it will you too, so here goes....

Nazareth was a long way from Jerusalem (which was the center of Jewish life and worship). Nazareth, in rural Galilee, was located on a major trade route and it was visited often by Gentile merchants and Roman soldiers. It was near a caravan route linking Egypt and Mesopotamia. It was a very arid, dry, hilly climate. They often lacked water and no one knew if enough rain would fall that year enough to provide abundant crops. They were hard workers and because of struggling in this uncertain environment, were a close-knit community.

Mary likely lived in a small family house of stone and mud-brick. She worked like any young girl, grinding wheat and barley into flour, preparing dishes of beans, vegetables, eggs, fruits, nuts, and occasional chunks of mutton. Wool had to be made into clothing. Bread had to be baked. A few chickens and a donkey had to be fed. And in the village, small as it was, there were always little children to care for.
Almost daily she carried a large jar of water from the town well for washing and cooking (the well still supplies modern Nazareth today and is called "Mary's Well").
Early on, the Jews found that cleanliness prevented disease, so frequent washing -- an important chore of women -- became part of their religious practice. The well also was a favorite spot where women talked and traded bits of everyday news.


Just as for the other women of Nazareth, the seasons and times of harvest determined what Mary had to do. With the first downpour of rain in October, the vital wheat crop was sown on the mountain fields, to be gathered -- if all went well -- in May. Small dark olives, knocked from dull green trees in September, had to be pressed into oil for lamps and food. In May or June, early figs were picked; in July, the softer juicy fruit. Grapes and pomegranates ripened in September and October. God blessed the hills of Galilee with his bounty, but it could never be taken for granted. The unpredictable land could just as well give nothing to those working it.
The people of Nazareth had a strong Jewish faith. As descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the Jews believed this land was theirs, given to their ancestors whom Moses led out of Egypt. They knew by heart the deeds of kings like David and Solomon and the words of prophets like Isaiah and Elijah. Even though the Romans, with Herod's family as their puppets, now occupied Palestine, the Jews of Galilee believed God would someday send a Messiah who would free Israel from her enemies.
They lived in a war-torn land. For centuries before the Roman occupation, conquering armies of Babylonians, Assyrians, Persians and Greeks fought over Palestine. Despite their wars, revolts and riots, the Jews remained a subject people -- taxed, bullied and despised by succeeding rulers. Like their compatriots, the Jews of Nazareth were never far from the dangers of political violence. During the Jewish uprisings in Galilee around 6 A.D. -- when Jesus was a child -- Roman legions captured the city of Sepphoris, sold all its inhabitants into slavery and burned the city to the ground. (Now I understand much better why the Jews were looking for a military Messiah to set them free from oppression!)

Mary's faith was strong. Yet, in fervently religious Nazareth with its high moral standards, she hardly stood out at all, even in the eyes of those who knew her best. Besides, as a woman living in a society where men counted most, she would be little noticed except as a mother and a wife.

When she was 15 or so, Mary's parents made plans for her to be married, as was customary in those days. They chose Joseph of Nazareth, a carpenter, for her husband. The engagement took place and Mary returned home to wait about a year before she would go to live with her husband as his wife. But then, something happened...


I want to end here today with the history lesson. Now you know the background of Mary’s town, Nazareth. Sometimes history can be dull and dead, but think with me for a few moments about some things I find very interesting today about the place the God chose for his son, Jesus, to grow up. I believe God purposefully chose Nazareth, and that everything he does is with a plan and a purpose in mind.

Think about it, Nazareth was actually nowhere near the center of Jewish worship. It was a place far removed from the center of Judaism, just like it's inhabitant, Jesus, would be. People there were familiar with Gentiles traveling along their routes. Jesus would be raised in a town far removed from the center of Judaism. He himself would later rebuke the legalism of the Pharisees, the laws which they had added to and made unbearable for his people, their “religion”. He would not be isolated from Gentiles, and his people of Nazareth would possibly be a lot more open to Gentiles because of their location along the trade route. (Remember, he was also the Messiah to the Gentiles, and he grew up watching them, knowing their ways and beliefs and lifestyles, knowing them as people, maybe even befriending a little Gentile boy who came through with his father on the trade route.) He had a heart for others not like him, for all of mankind. Remember the story of the good Samaritan, remember he himself going through Samaria instead of around it, remember his discussion with the woman at the well, his going to a tax collector's home forlunch. He was very comfortable around those that the rest of us are maybe not so comfortable around. Maybe Nazareth was instrumental in this. Maybe we need a Nazareth experience in our lives today.

But the thing that struck me most today was that, in a land that needed water and never knew if it would be available or not, in that dry, arid place, God chose to send the LIVING WATER, Jesus Christ, to live as a child, their “eternal living water” growing up right in the midst of the people who likely prayed for water fervently every year. There is a well to this day named after his mother, Mary. But it probably never crosses their mind to this day, that Mary’s son, Jesus, is their Messiah, their living water, the well that never runs dry. As they draw from Mary’s well water to sustain them, we now draw from Mary’s offspring, Jesus the Messiah, to sustain us with his living water! Amazing!

I will return tomorrow. Love you all. Teresa