December 10 - Nazareth

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"There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch (ne'tser, ‏נֵ֫צֶר‎) from his roots shall bear fruit." - Isaiah 11:1

Nazareth is where Jesus lived in His younger years, but it was kind of like the manger in Bethlehem - not exactly fit for a King.

When Nathanael asks Philip, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" in John 1, he's asking the same kind of question the LORD asks in Ezekiel 37 - "Can these bones live?" What good are these small, insignificant, and dead things?

Historically, God has taken the leftover, given-up-for-dead, runners-up and remnants to accomplish His purposes. His glory is often covered or hidden in the mundane. Nazareth, as a second-class village in Israel, and the crucified Savior known to have grown up there, were no exceptions. Nazareth wasn't fancy, and Messiah is described as nothing special to look at (Isaiah 53). 

And, yet, we're given a clue from the Prophet Isaiah that the shoot, the new life promised to Israel, would come from a branch, a ne'tser, from which Ne'tser-eth or Nazareth is derived. When we're tempted to wonder if God CAN do a thing...we can look to what He has done already, while the world doubted.

Nazareth would be the unlikely branch where new life would appear. And, as people wondered what good could come from such a place, the tree of life on Calvary would bear the message for the world to see: Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews 

Pastor James Gomez
Prince of Peace Lutheran, Sturgeon Bay



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