Back to Nazareth
Scripture Reading: Luke 2:39-40
When Joseph and Mary had done everything required by the Law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee to their own town of Nazareth. And the child grew and became strong; he was filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was on him.
Christmas Day is behind us now. Soon, the tree will be down, the decorations packed and stored for next year, and the leftovers from Christmas dinner will be gone. In a few days, the kids will be back in school, work will have resumed and returned to normal, and the parties of December have disappeared as the curtain was pulled on 2023. Nothing on the immediate horizon except taxes and a yearning for the Spring which will come with stubborn resistance against the long winter days.
In other words, now, as the young folks say, we do life. We get up, go to work, do the laundry, wash the dishes, and attend church.
There is something of this rhythm in the birth narrative of Jesus. Mary and Joseph had lived through some exciting and sometimes terrifying days. Angels show up with grand announcements, a miraculous pregnancy, strange prophecies, a coerced temporary migration to Bethlehem, visiting dignitaries from the East, another forced migration to Egypt, and finally a return to their home in Nazareth.
After all that, what then? Joseph picked up his hammer and saw and went to work. Mary tended to the home. They gave birth to more children. They made a living, raised their family, attended the synagogue, and made trips to Jerusalem for feast days. They did what every faithful Jewish family did. Except for what happened during the Passover when Jesus was 12, it was all quiet and normal.
The day would come in God’s timing when Jesus would bring His mission to its inevitable and ordained climatic moment. That would come after Joseph died, and after John had become John the Baptist, a radical preacher of repentance, and when Jesus would lay down the carpenter’s tools he inherited from Joseph and went out to meet John at the Jordan and was baptized by him.
Until then, it wasn’t very radical. It was all very normal.
And normal is the address where most of us live most of our lives.
This is good. That is exactly what the Bible says about it. We are even supposed to pray that the world will allow us to live that way. Paul wrote and instructed Timothy to make “supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgiving…for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior…” (1 Timothy 2:1-3).
Don’t let the return to normal after the holidays get you down. Don’t allow post-Christmas blues to set up camp in your heart. If you can return to Nazareth, pick up your work, start up a load of laundry, and cook dinner; if you can lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way, know that this is good and God is pleased by it.
