Jesus - His Home, His Journey, His Challenge

A Lenten Companion

David Bryan

• Publisher: SPCK Publishing
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780281071081
• eBook ISBN: 9780281071098
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Rituals & Practice

This book explores a sequence of important questions about Jesus that have relevance to our own faith journeys; • Where did Jesus start from? • What did he meet on the way, both in the annual journey with his family to Jerusalem for the Passover and also in his inner spiritual journey? • How did these encounters shape his life, activity and message? To help readers with these questions, 'ground-level insights' are offered, both from recent advances in the historical Jesus studies and from the author's own research visits to Israel-Palestine. Part of the author's aim is to show, in a respectful but honest way, that there is plenty of evidence in the Gospels that Jesus himself grew and developed in his own life journey. At each step of the way, he considers how this relates to Christian discipleship, particularly in relation to our attitudes to those who are strangers.

1

Jesus: his home

Introduction

Throughout the Gospels Jesus is identified as Jesus of Nazareth (Mark 1.24). This might seem obvious to us but it is actually very surprising that someone who came to be seen by his followers as the Christ or Messiah should be so closely associated with what was then a tiny village in Lower Galilee. In view of the stories about his birth in Bethlehem, we might have expected him to be remembered as Jesus of Bethlehem. Equally, given that he was not a prominent public figure until his baptism when he was about 30 years old (Luke 3.23), we might have expected him to become known as Jesus of Capernaum, which seems to have become his main base during the years of his public ministry. But not so: he was known as Jesus of Nazareth. How are we to respond to this? Was it significant? Was it an association that arose from his long connections with the village that he could never quite shake off?

Matthew and Luke both knew that Jesus was raised in Nazareth but they both wanted to say to us that there was more to this Nazarene than met the eye. So they told stories that relate how Jesus was born in Bethlehem, the birthplace of King David (1 Sam. 16) and the location from which an ancient prophet said a future, royal messianic figure would come (Mic. 5.2–4). Plainly Matthew and Luke wanted us to understand that Jesus came to fulfil the hopes and dreams surrounding the long-since defunct royal house (cf. Matt. 1.1–17; 1.20; Luke 1.27, 32; 2.4, 11). Their accounts of how his birth took place In Bethlehem are markedly different, and so are their explanations of how he came to be known as Jesus of Nazareth.

If you were to read Matthew’s story of Jesus’ birth without reference to Luke’s, you would have the distinct impression that Bethlehem was the home base for Joseph and Mary (see Matt. 1—2). When the magi visit the family to pay homage to Jesus, they call upon them ‘in the house’ – we might say, ‘at home’ (Matt. 2.11).

Matthew narrates how King Herod came to perceive the news about Jesus’ birth as a threat to his dynasty (Matt. 2.1–8). As a result of his plot to slay Jesus along with all the male children in Bethlehem who were under two years old, Joseph, Mary and Jesus flee to Egypt. When they return later to settle in the land, it is in Galilee that they make their home rather than Judea:

Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus was ruling over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. And after being warned in a dream, he went away to the district of Galilee. There he made his home in a town called Nazareth, so that what had been spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, ‘He will be called a Nazorean.’

(Matt. 2.21–23)

This is the first mention of Nazareth in Matthew’s account of Jesus. As with the flight to Egypt, the choice of location is not simply Joseph’s. He has responded to divine guidance and sought a place far away from the threat posed by a Herodian ruler who will not welcome a new heir to David’s throne. So, quiet little Nazareth is presented as an ideal hideaway for a child who is destined to rule. As is his wont, Matthew regards the decision to settle in Nazareth as having been foretold by one of Israel’s ancient prophets. The only problem is that we have no idea which prophet he had in mind!

The bafflement posed by Matthew 2.23 has not stopped intrepid New Testament scholars from offering suggestions:

• Did Matthew have in mind the legislation surrounding those who made special vows of dedication to God, the so-called vow of the ‘Nazirite’ (Hebrew: nazīr)? See Numbers 6.2–8. Certainly Matthew would have considered Jesus to be especially set apart for a divine purpose, and he might here be making a play on nazīr. However, Jesus’ lifestyle did not conform to that of the Nazirite, at least not in respect of abstaining from alcoholic drink (Matt. 11.19).
• A second possibility is that Matthew is making links with the noun used in Isaiah 11 for a messianic figure, ‘the branch’ (nētser), which would grow from the roots of the stump of Jesse, David’s father (Isa. 11.1).

Obviously the second suggestion is much more promising, but quite how Matthew got from the Hebrew nouns of nazīr or nētser to the Greek Nazōraios, and from the latter to the Greek noun for the village, Nazaret, is anyone’s guess. However Matthew did it, he wanted to make the point that the period of residency in Nazareth fulfilled God’s purposes and plans for Jesus’ life. And it was a place of safety or sanctuary away from the dangers posed to Jesus, the son of David, son of Abraham and son of God, by the rival king of the Jews, Archelaus, the son of Herod.

We turn now briefly to Luke’s account of Jesus’ origins. He tells us that Mary and Joseph lived in Nazareth in Galilee before Jesus’ birth (1.26). He portrays both as having links with Judea – Mary’s kinswoman Elizabeth is married to a priest who is active at the Temple in Jerusalem (1.36), and Joseph’s family are evidently from Bethlehem. The latter provides the occasion for their being in Bethlehem at the time Jesus is born. They had to come south from Nazareth to take part in a census (2.1–7) and remained there for 40 days after Jesus’ birth, until they had completed the purification rites required by the law (2.22–38; cf. Lev. 12.1–6). Then they ‘returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth’ (2.39).

Luke never provides an explanation of why Joseph and Mary were living in Galilee, but it is clear that Nazareth was their home town, and the census provided a somewhat unexpected reason for their being in Bethlehem for the birth. Historians are as puzzled about Luke’s claim that the whole Roman world underwent a census as they are about Matthew’s account of a massacre by Herod of infants in Bethlehem, and his mysterious prophecy in the Old Testament that the Messiah ‘will be called a Nazorean’ (Matt. 2.23). Somehow or other they both manage to get Jesus into Bethlehem for his birth, and back to Nazareth for his emerging years towards adulthood. But you are left with the distinct feeling that it was the stubborn connection between Jesus and Nazareth that required the extra elucidation of his identity provided by their birth stories. Perhaps they were aware of the kind of pejorative attitude to Nazareth evident in the question posed by Nathaniel: ‘Can anything good come out of Nazareth?’ (John 1.46). Be that as it may, while their stories add another layer of mystique to the identity of Jesus, they did not dislodge the title Jesus of Nazareth from the record, and that is surely significant.

We turn now briefly to Mark. At various points in his Gospel, Jesus is referred to as Jesus of Nazareth. Mark introduces Jesus to us as an adult who comes from ‘Nazareth of Galilee’ to seek baptism by John in the Jordan (Mark 1.9). After his testing in the wilderness, Jesus calls the fishermen Simon and Andrew, James and John, to follow him. The location of this event is no more specific than ‘along the sea of Galilee’ (v. 16), but Mark must have intended us to think they were close to Capernaum (v. 21), where Simon and Andrew have a home near to the synagogue (v. 29). In a subsequent episode Mark portrays Jesus as one who does not want to be limited to one location (vv. 38–39). Even so, Mark also comes to describe Jesus as being ‘at home’ in Capernaum (2.1). This implies that Jesus rented a property here and that it functioned like a base camp for his public ministry (see also 3.19). But as noted above, the title Jesus of Nazareth still sticks to him like glue – indeed, it seems to be thrown in his face by the demonized man during his first visit to the synagogue in Capernaum: ‘Just then there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, and he cried out, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?”’ (1.23–24). Despite the underlying aggression, the demonized man also calls Jesus ‘the Holy One of God’ (v. 24). Thus this story draws our attention to the mystery at the heart of Mark’s Gospel, namely that the man from Nazareth is also the Son of God.

Mark reminds us of this paradox a little later by narrating a less than successful visit by Jesus to his home town and its synagogue (6.1–6). His humble origins are underlined by the local people, who refer to Jesus as the ‘carpenter’. They name members of his closest family – Mary, his mother, and James, Joses, Judas and Simon, his brothers. They also refer to his sisters, who are unnamed.

The title Jesus of Nazareth features once again in Mark as the story begins to draw to its close. It is the inspiration for an importunate plea for help as Jesus exited Jericho on his final journey to Jerusalem:

As he and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the roadside. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth (Greek: Iēsous ho Nazarēnos), he began to shout out and say, ‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!’

(Mark 10.46–47)

The variations between Mark, Matthew and Luke are worth considering here. Matthew recounts that the crowd said, ‘This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee’ (Matt. 21.11), whereas Luke’s crowds use a term very close linguistically to Matt. 2.23: ‘Jesus of Nazareth (Greek: Iēsous ho Nazōraios) is passing by’ (Luke 18.37).

The Nazareth connection of Jesus is next underlined in Mark’s narration of Peter’s betrayal of Jesus (Mark 14.66–72). Although Mark does not tell us that Peter’s accent gave him away (Mark 14.70; cf. Matt. 26.73), the servants of the high priest recognize that he is from Galilee, and he is accused of being ‘with Jesus, the man from Nazareth’ (Mark 14.67). Finally, Jesus’ link to Nazareth is referred to for the last time in the story of the empty tomb on Easter Day. The young man, whom the women encounter in the tomb, announces to them:

Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.

(Mark 16.6–7)

So Mark frequently reminds us that his central figure is Jesus of Nazareth. This title stresses his humble origins but is not reserved for the mouths of Jesus’ antagonists. Rather it underlines the mystery that Jesus is much more than a carpenter from Nazareth. And yet he is still Jesus of Nazareth, even a...

Table of contents

• Cover page
• About the author
• Title page
• Imprint
• Table of contents
• List of illustrations
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1. Jesus: his home
• 2. Jesus: his journey (part 1)
• 3. Jesus: his journey (part 2)
• 4. Jerusalem, journey’s end
• 5. Jesus: his challenge
• 6. Jesus challenged at the boundaries
• 7. Faltering footsteps with Jesus
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Select bibliography
• Suggestions for further study