Goodness from Nazareth

   “Nazareth!  Can anything good come from there?”  Nathanael asked.

   “Come and see,” said Philip (John 1:46 NIV).

   I do not know why Nathanael was so negative about Nazareth.

   I do know Nazareth was the hometown of Jesus.

   Second, I do know many people in Nazareth were cruel to Jesus after He started His ministry.

   Third, I do know that even after a murder attempt, Jesus returned to his hometown to offer blessings.

   Fourth, I do know that Jesus offered all people in His hometown the ultimate blessing of eternal life!

   First, the Bible clearly reveals that Jesus was born in Bethlehem.  Then after a short stint in Egypt as a baby, Jesus grew up in Nazareth.  Nazareth was where He carried out a career as a carpenter, probably in His teens and twenties.  Soon after Jesus started His ministry, He moved to Capernaum, another town in the region of Galilee.  Now a hometown was important in that culture.  Not having last names, outside of His hometown, Jesus was called “Jesus of Nazareth.”

   Second, the ministry of Jesus started when He was about thirty years of age, as is revealed in Luke 3:23, beginning with His baptism by John the Baptist.  Soon thereafter, Jesus returned to His hometown of Nazareth, where He attended a synagogue service.

   The outcome: Many people tried to throw Him off of a cliff.  Seriously.  This is recorded in Luke 4:28-30.  Jesus had offended them with His statements in the synagogue, so they tried to murder Him.  Yet Jesus simply “walked right through the crowd,” thus He remained unharmed.

   Third comes an incredible act of compassion and courage by Jesus!  Sometime after the murder attempt, Jesus returned to Nazareth.

   Indeed a second effort of doing ministry work in Nazareth is recorded in both Matthew 13:53-58 and Mark 6:1-6.

   (Matthew 13 and Mark 6 record the same event, yet that event was after the incident recorded in Luke 4.  For example, the cliff incident took place before Jesus healed the paralyzed man who had been lowered into the room where Jesus was teaching after his friends ripped through the roof.  And it took place before the death of Jairus’ daughter, and the subsequent miracle by Jesus to resurrect the girl from the dead.  Yet Jesus’ return to Nazareth was after those two events.)

   Jesus was extraordinary.  Rather than responding with anger to the Nazarenes who tried to murder him out of anger, Jesus obviously forgave, and He returned on a second occasion to do more ministry work.

   Now this is no fairy tale.  Luke does not tell an account of Jesus returning to His hometown to encounter a reunion where people showered Him with apologies and hugs.  Rather look what happened when Jesus returned:

Matthew 13:54(a) Coming to his hometown, he began teaching the people in their synagogue, and they were amazed.

Mark 6:2(a) When the Sabbath came, he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were amazed.

HOWEVER:

Matthew 13:58 And he did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith.

Mark 6:5-6 He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them.  And he was amazed at their lack of faith.

   After Jesus returned to His hometown, there was not a bounty of fruit, because people stifled themselves.  Yet Jesus healed a few people.  The more I think about it, the more I realize how incredible His return was.

   Fourth, people of Nazareth had the offer of eternal life, just like the rest of us.

   The ultimate mission of Jesus was the ultimate act of love offered for all people which Jesus carried out at Golgotha.  Jesus died on a cross for the forgiveness of sins of anyone.  His sacrificial atonement on the cross was not limited by time or space.  Jesus died for all people who had lived since the beginning of creation, and Jesus died for all people until the end of the age.  All people of all time had, have, or will have the opportunity to accept or reject Jesus as their Savior and Lord.  Thus His atoning death included each and every person in His hometown of Nazareth in that very day and age.  Jesus even died for the people who tried to throw Him off of a cliff.

   Any person in Nazareth who believed in Jesus after Jesus suffered as the Lamb of God on the cross, was saved by Jesus, and is now in heaven for all eternity.

   Jesus loves everyone.  Jesus loves you and me!  Jesus loved folks from His hometown, even though some were cruel to Him.

   Have you ever been treated so badly by a person or a group of people in a community that you said, “I am never going back there again!”?  I have.  Now we followers of Jesus are supposed to “turn the other cheek,” which definitely entails not going for personal revenge.  On the other hand, when a person is being consistently abusive, we can leave!  There is a vast range of abusive situations, including verbal abuse, or what is sometimes termed mental abuse.  How can a person know whether they should leave?  Discernment from God is needed, and God can use certain people who love you, or who are counseling professionals, to give keen insight.

   Many years ago, in my home church, somebody said something so mean that I left that church and I said I was never going to return.  A few months later, I had a gentle urge to return.  One Sunday morning, I sat in my car not wanting to get out.  Getting out to walk to the entrance of that church was one of the hardest things I have ever done.  The outcome?  People truly welcomed me back, and I carried on with unique ministry work at that church for another long stretch.

   On another occasion years later, in a completely different church, I was treated so badly by someone that I was terribly hurt inside.  And no apology ever came.  I will probably never go back, and I remain thankful to God for enabling me to simply “walk away” in my heart, and to forgive.  And God used that ordeal for something good, which is a long story.

   Whatever God guides us to do, we are always called by Christ to forgive.  Rather than harboring anger in our hearts whether or not we physically move on, we need to rely on Christ to forgive those who were mean to us.  Forgiving brings healing, and then you and I can get back to doing the work Jesus has called us to do.

   I am a fan of two people from Nazareth in this day and age who carry out ministry work for Jesus.  Sergio and Rhoda are Internet stars due to their videos which educate people about many biblical and interesting sites in the region of Israel.

   The ethnicity of Sergio is Jewish.  The ethnicity of Rhoda is Arab.  What is the spiritual bond between those two?  They both follow Jesus as their Savior and Lord.  Meeting in a Christian community in Nazareth, they soon fell in love with each other, and then they were married.  Those two proud citizens of Nazareth are witnessing the love of Jesus to millions of people worldwide, about two-thousand years after Jesus found few people of faith in Nazareth.

   Back to Nathanael’s response criticizing Nazareth, Philip remained calm, cool, and collected.  A hometown was not Philip’s primary concern.  His focus was on the person of Jesus Christ.

   Philip simply said, “Come and see.”

   Nathanael did.

Hunter Irvine

Scripture Love Blog

Philip anticipated the Messiah

   The next day Jesus decided to leave for Galilee.  Finding Philip, he said to him, “Follow me.”

   Philip, like Andrew and Peter, was from the town of Bethsaida.  Philip found Nathanael and told him, “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote - Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph” (John 1:43-45 NIV).

   Authors of Scripture had to be frugal with the amount of papyrus they used.  We are given few details in this passage, so we must focus on the details we do have.

   I suggest Philip was anticipating the Messiah.

   First, Philip was swift to follow Jesus.  I do not think he was making a rash decision, rather he had probably listened to Jesus teach at some juncture the previous day or so.

   Second, Philip’s statement shows he realized Scripture foretold of a Messiah.

   Examining Philip’s statement, I ask the question: Where did Moses write about the Messiah in the Law?  Here I will focus on one prophecy Moses gave in Deuteronomy 18:15-19.  Moses told of the Prophet to come.

   As a student of Scripture for many years, I do not think there was consensus among the Israelites as to whether the Prophet and the Messiah was the same person.  (Messiah is a Hebrew word which means Anointed One, and Christ is a Greek word which means Anointed One.)

   For example, John the Baptist told priests and Levites that he was not the Messiah.  Yet look at their response:

   They asked him, “Then who are you?  Are you Elijah?”

   He said, “I am not.”

   Are you the Prophet?”

   He answered, “No” (John 1:21).

   They seemed to think the Christ and the Prophet were two separate people.

   A second example:

   After Jesus gave an offer of living water, look at the response of some people: On hearing his words, some of the people said, “Surely this man is the Prophet.”

   Others said, “He is the Christ…” (John 7:40-41a).

   Again, there was a conviction that the Prophet and the Christ were two separate individuals.

   On the flipside, (yes I remember when vinyl ruled), after Jesus did a mass feeding with only five barley loaves and two fish, look at what the apostle John stated: After the people saw the miraculous sign that Jesus did, they began to say, “Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world.”  Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself (John 6:14-15).

   Apparently, those people understood that the Prophet would also be the Messianic king they were expecting.

   Back on September 18, 2022, I preached a sermon on the passage I just quoted above as a guest preacher in Morrison, Colorado.  I explained the Messiah was the Great High Priest, the forever Sacrifice, the Prophet, and the King of heaven.  The position of Messiah encompassed all four.

   I think Philip realized the Messiah involved a multifaceted position, since he did not solely say, “We have found the Prophet,” rather he said, “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote…” (John 1:45).

   Remember the definition of a prophet is someone who listened to God and then spoke for God.  Now Jesus stated He would speak what His Father told Him, such as is recorded in John 14:10.  And the prophetic action of Jesus centered on His foretelling of His death and resurrection!  I add that Matthew records such foretelling by Jesus at least four times.  Thus Jesus fulfilled His position as the Prophet.

   Plus Hebrew prophets throughout previous centuries there in Israel gave revelations of an expanded role of the Messiah beyond the office of prophet.  Israelite prophets foretold the Messiah would be so much more.

Take a prophecy of Isaiah for example:

For to us a child is born,

to us a son is given,

and the government will be on his shoulders.

And he will be called

Wonderful Counselor,

Mighty God,

Everlasting Father,

Prince of Peace

(Isaiah 9:6).

   Philip was anticipating the Messiah!

Hunter Irvine

Scripture Love Blog

Anticipating the Messiah

   The next day John was there again with two of his disciples.  When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, “Look, the Lamb of God!”

   When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus.  Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, “What do you want?”

   They said, “Rabbi” (which means Teacher), “where are you staying?”

   “Come,” he replied, “and you will see.”

   So they went and saw where he was staying, and spent that day with him.  It was about the tenth hour.  Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, was one of the two who heard what John had said and who had followed Jesus.  The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, “We have found the Messiah” (that is, the Christ).

   And he brought him to Jesus.  Jesus looked at him and said, “You are Simon son of John.  You will be called Cephas” (which, when translated, is Peter) (John 1:35-42 NIV).

   Andrew sure was swift in coming to a conclusion that Jesus was the Messiah.  Why was he anticipating the Messiah in the first place?

   First, anticipation of the Messiah had swelled due to a prophecy of Daniel.  The angel Gabriel told Daniel: “Know and understand this: From the issuing of the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One, the ruler, comes, there will be seven ‘sevens,’ and sixty-two ‘sevens.’  It will be rebuilt with streets and a trench, but in times of trouble” (Daniel 9:25 NIV).

   Thus over 550 years earlier, Gabriel said the Anointed One is coming.  (Messiah is the Hebrew word for anointed one, and Christ is the Greek word for anointed one.)

   Plus, Gabriel gave a time period!  The term “seven” translates to a period of seven years.  (Sometimes the term is translated “weeks,” with a day symbolizing a year, so again, a “week” is seven years.)

So, wise Hebrews who adhered to the Scriptures anticipated the Messiah at that time in world history.

   Second, Magi, a sect of Persians, had traveled from the east to worship a person they referred to as “king of the Jews,” about thirty years earlier.  It is possible they knew of an anticipation of the Christ among the Israelites based on Daniel’s prophecy.  Yet their direct motivation for traveling to Judea was the astronomical phenomenon of a mobile star in the sky.  That visit by the Magi surely was remembered by wise Israelites.

   Third, in a more “ground roots” manner, there were surely some people who remembered the testimony of the shepherds, again about thirty years earlier, who gave a witness regarding a revelation by an angel of the Lord.  That angel told them about the birth of the Messiah, and those shepherds went and saw the baby in person.  They were witnesses that the Messiah was born.

   The more I ponder the book of John, the more I consider that such Messianic anticipation was strong.  Take John the Baptist for instance.  That gentleman was from the tribe of Levi with parents in the lineage of Aaron, thus he was in the priesthood lineage.  He should have been serving in the temple.  Yet he was living out in the desert eating locusts and wild honey, and then he started baptizing Israelites in water.  Previously, baptism was a rare practice reserved for foreigners who were converting to Judaism.  Seems to me most people would have avoided John the Baptist.  Why were so many people attracted to his preaching and his practice of baptizing?  I think it was due to the Messianic anticipation.

   And that Messianic anticipation is just what led Andrew and a friend to become students of John the Baptist.  And as his students, they listened to him proclaim that Jesus was the Lamb of God.  And after spending only so many hours with Jesus, by about four o’clock in the afternoon modern Western time, Andrew was convinced Jesus was the Messiah.

   Another person besides Andrew who was anticipating the Messiah was a Samaritan woman.  Simply carrying out her daily routine of drawing water, that woman ended up having the conversation of a lifetime with Jesus.  Near the end of their conversation, the woman stated: “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming.  When he comes, he will explain everything to us” (John 4:25).

   She was anticipating a Messiah, and she was not a Hebrew.

   So were other Samaritans.  When she was telling townspeople about her conversation with Jesus, as recorded in John 4:29, she said, “Could this be the Christ?”

   Jesus ended up staying with those folks for two days.  And as Scripture records: They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world” (John 4:42).

   Wow!

   Thus some people, whose hearts were open to the truth of God, were prepared to hear the gentle statements by Jesus that He was the Messiah they had been waiting for.

   Jesus is the Messiah!

Hunter Irvine

Scripture Love Blog

Marriage to a daughter of the King

I share my hope

I share my life long dream

I’ve waited all these years

Living by Love’s holy beam

Gleeful daughters

Of the mighty King

Of His honor

Those cheery women sing

Stunning daughter

Of the mighty King

Honoring me

My lover sings

My joyous lover

Right by my side

Gold on her finger

My faithful bride

I did hope

For this day all my life

God’s love prepared me

For a loving wife

I share my hope

I share my life long dream

I’ve waited all these years

Living by Love’s holy beam

An original poem by Hunter Irvine

Scripture Love Blog

Pure Nard Poured Out

A special dinner in Bethany

Honor bestowed by family

Martha, Mary, and Lazarus

Showing true love to Lord Jesus

Lazarus was alive and well

In his hometown he could dwell

Martha was the serving host

Was a mighty celebration toast

Then a shock poured out with ease

Sister Mary was on her knees

At a time of joy and cheer

Poured out a savings of many years

Pure nard poured out on Christ’s hair

And on His feet, wiped with her hair

A great scent hovered in the air

Stunning people is how she fared

A rebuke from Iscariot

Said Mary did what she should not

Cause of the poor was his front

His own wealth was his real grunt

Others joined in degrading her

Not viewing the nard as myrrh

They cried out, “What a waste”

With insults they did baste

“Leave her alone!” said Jesus

She did a beautiful act

Poor folks will always be here

My time to leave is quite near

Foretelling of His burial

And of the Gospel to come

Of a worldwide preaching

And Mary’s honor, no beseeching

Among the pilgrims word did spring

Seekers arrived to gawk

Those seekers swiftly arrived

They sought to see the bro alive

A breathing man was to be seen

A joyous hope for all the keen

There was a surge of faith

There was a shower of faith

Hunter Irvine

An original poem based on John 12:1-11

(With additional details from Matthew 26:6-13 and Mark 14:1-9)

Scripture Love Blog

Hope of Caiaphas

Lazarus did rise from the grave

It was seen by family friends

Some Hebrews put their faith in Christ

Death need not be the end

Pharisee leaders soon found out

Yes their stature was fleeting

What were they so prone to do?

Summon folks for a meeting

Their power and authority

Was fragile in the shadow of Rome

Chief priests, elders, and plenty more

Set to fight for their own throne

The high priest Caiaphas prophesied

For anyone Christ would die

The nation was at a turning point

Israel’s hope was in his eye

Both peers and subjects rejected him

To that priest they failed to submit

Determined to kill the healing man

Execution became their fit

Discreet in His interactions

Near a desert north of Bethany

No move for the Passover cleansing

Jesus had no such need

Hunter Irvine

An original poem based on John 11:45-57

Scripture Love Blog

Born Again by Love

Nicodemus was a Pharisee

Not blinded by pride so easily

He was seeking true insight

He visited Jesus at night

Though a leader of Hebrews

He opened up and gave his views

He addressed Jesus as Rabbi

Called Christ a teacher without a sigh

Nicodemus knew He came from God

He did not know that Christ was God

Other Pharisees had come undone

Yet miracles truly had been done

If you want to know the kingdom

Be born again, that’s the full sum

Nicodemus was quite confused

A carnal meaning he had fused

Jesus addressed the physical

Jesus addressed the spiritual

His concern remained the kingdom

In heaven, where He came from

Now in the womb, there is water

A baby is born, a son or daughter

What about a spiritual rebirth?

The Holy Spirit gives such a birth

Wind will blow, you can hear its sound

Its source eludes as it blows around

A person born of the Spirit

Lives by a rush of Love legit

Hunter Irvine

An original poem based on John 3:1-13

Scripture Love Blog