A Despised Life

Thank you very much, Alice and Al. Good morning, everyone.

Really good to have you with us, whether you're in the building or watching at home.

You may not immediately see the connection between the two passages we've just read.

Hopefully that will become reasonably clear as we go along this morning.

We're finishing our series this morning that we've been following for the last four weeks,

which has been called The Christmas We Should Have Seen Coming,

looking at some of the prophecies from the Old Testament and how they were fulfilled in the life of Jesus.

And this morning, our topic is A Despised Life.

That might not sound very jolly and Christmassy. Indeed, it isn't.

This isn't going to be a particularly jolly sermon.

But it's really important that we recognise that the Lord Jesus came into a world that was hostile to him,

that was hostile to what he stood for, that was prejudiced against him,

and that he was despised as a result.

And we're going to be thinking about that this morning.

I think one of the things that very easily missed as we go through the Christmas story

is this last section we've read this morning.

And in particular, the fact that we all know, I'm sure,

but maybe don't think about very much,

that Jesus' hometown where his family were,

where he lived for almost all his life,

was Nazareth, a small town in Galilee,

probably no more than about 500 people living there.

And throughout his life, Jesus was known as Jesus of Nazareth.

Now, in some ways, that was just an easy way of identifying him.

They didn't have surnames like we do in those days.

And so Jesus of Nazareth was a fairly straightforward way of identifying Jesus

from a large number of other people who would have been called Jesus.

It was a relatively common name in that time.

But Matthew, as he looks at it, sees quite a lot more in it than that.

And what I want to do fairly simply, and hopefully quite quickly this morning,

is just three things.

We're going to start by walking through the passage in Matthew

and completing, if you like, the Christmas story,

trying to understand what is happening and what Matthew is saying to us.

I'm then going to have a little bit of a digression,

and I'm going to talk a bit about prejudice.

And that is as a preliminary, it's important in itself,

but also as a preliminary as we think about the prejudice

the Lord Jesus suffered as he led a despised life.

And we'll finish as we're talking about that in the passage in Isaiah

that Alice read to us.

So first of all, let's get up to speed with what's happening in the Christmas story.

So remember, Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea.

The wise men came, and last week we were thinking how they were warned

that Herod was out to kill the newborn king.

And so Mary and Joseph fled with Jesus to Egypt

before Herod slaughtered all the babies that had been born recently around Bethlehem.

And they stayed there probably for a reasonable length of time,

perhaps a couple of years even.

And then they heard that Herod had died,

and they thought they could go back to Bethlehem.

They seemed to have made their home there in Bethlehem,

despite having originally come from Nazareth.

Now Herod, who is referred to in the Christmas story,

the Herod we were hearing about last week,

is commonly called Herod the Great.

There are a number of Herods in the New Testament.

This Herod is commonly called Herod the Great.

That may sound a rather strange description of someone who was very cruel

and who was paranoid about others wanting to take over his kingdom.

But actually Herod, alongside his cruelty, was a competent ruler.

Among other things, he built a temple in Jerusalem,

a really grand temple that he built for the Jews there,

although he also built a temple to Caesar Augustus,

so it wasn't that he had any strong convictions about the God of the Jews,

but probably saw it as that kind of political thing.

But he was a competent king, albeit a very cruel one.

It was expected that when Herod died,

that his son, another Herod, Herod called Herod Antipas,

would take over his throne

and would be the ruler of all of what we now call Israel,

and probably a bit beyond that as well.

But at the last minute, Herod the Great decided he wanted to split his kingdom up.

He had three remaining sons.

He had already killed three because he thought they were plotting against him.

He had three remaining sons, and he divided the kingdom among them.

So the area of Galilee, and one or two other bits and pieces,

went to his son Herod Antipas.

And Herod Antipas is the Herod we read about in the life of the Lord Jesus,

and in connection with John the Baptist later in the Gospels.

There was another son called Philip,

who got a bit of territory we don't need to bother ourselves with.

And then the third son was called Archelaus.

And he got, I suppose, the prime territory,

the area around Jerusalem,

the area that would have been called Judea.

Now the best way to describe Archelaus

is that he had the cruelty of Herod,

but didn't have his competence.

He was a very cruel man,

but he was a very bad king as well.

And he only lasted a few years.

There were complaints to Rome.

He got removed,

and they put governors in place.

And again, if we think forward in the story of the Lord Jesus,

by the time he had his ministry and his trial,

of course, Pontius Pilate was the governor.

But what we need to know about Archelaus

was he was as cruel as his father,

and it would have been as dangerous

for Mary and Joseph and the young Jesus

to go back to Bethlehem

as it was when Herod was still alive.

So we have the two dreams in the passage.

The one telling them that Herod has died

and that he had to go back.

And then the second one saying,

don't go to Bethlehem.

Go and make your home in Nazareth.

In some ways, that's all quite straightforward.

But then Matthew sees some deep significance

in the fact that Jesus grew up in Nazareth.

It wasn't just somewhere where he happened to grow up.

Nothing in the story and the life of the Lord Jesus

was just something that happened to come about.

And so Matthew says,

at the end of the passage that we read,

that as he came back to me,

they went to a town called Nazareth.

So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets

that he would be called a Nazarene.

As I said, our series has been called

the Christmas we should have seen coming.

I think this bit of Christmas

would be very difficult to see coming.

You can read through the whole of the Old Testament.

You won't see the town of Nazareth mentioned.

You won't see the word Nazarene mentioned.

There's a word called Nazarite,

but that is something quite different.

And so you look at this passage, this verse,

and you think, well, how can he say

that the prophets had forecast,

had prophesied that Jesus would be a Nazarene?

And there are a number of explanations.

In some ways, you could say

none of them is entirely straightforward.

Certainly not one that's clearly right or clearly wrong.

But there are two explanations,

which I think most of the scholars

look at these things think are possible.

One is that the word Nazarene

has the same root meaning

as a word that's used in the Old Testament

for a branch.

And the significance of that

is in the book of Isaiah.

We were looking at Isaiah earlier in the year

in our Sunday evening services.

And Isaiah chapter 11 and verse 1 says,

Isaiah 11 · chapter mention

And that will be very clearly understood by the Jews

and should be understood by us

as being a messianic prophecy.

Looking forward to the one

who would be great David's greater son

and would restore the kingdom of David.

And as I said, the root word for branch used here

is essentially the same as the word for Nazarene

used in Matthew chapter 2.

Matthew 2 · chapter mention

So that is one possible explanation.

The other explanation is to do

with the town of Nazareth itself.

Nazareth, I've said, was a small

and relatively insignificant place.

But for such a place,

it actually had quite a bad reputation.

And as you go through the Gospels

and you find references to Nazareth and Nazarene,

it is clear that people of Nazareth

weren't well thought of.

In John's Gospel,

in some of the discussions about Jesus

that the religious leaders had,

one of the things they said was,

well, he comes from Galilee.

No prophet has ever come from Galilee.

In other words,

someone from Galilee could never be the Messiah.

And Nazareth was in Galilee.

But even within Galilee,

it was looked down on.

In John chapter 1,

John 1 · chapter mention

one of the first disciples of the Lord Jesus,

Philip, goes and speaks to his friend,

Nathanael, and says,

we've found the Messiah.

He's Jesus from Nazareth.

And Nathanael says,

Nazareth?

Can any good thing come from Nazareth?

So the thought then,

that people would suggest,

is the fact that Jesus came from Nazareth

meant that people were naturally prejudiced against him.

Nazareth was seen as a place

that nothing could came from,

so how could the Messiah,

God's chosen one,

possibly come from a place like Nazareth?

A backwater in a part of Israel

was quite a long way from the capital in Jerusalem,

and a town that itself was looked down on,

even by those who lived in neighbouring parts of the country.

He was called a Nazarene,

and as a result,

he was despised.

And that, I think,

is the thought that Graham had

as he put together this series.

And the two probably come together

in the passage we read in Isaiah,

because it talks about the Lord Jesus being despised.

It also talks about the fact

he grew up like a tender shoot

and like a root out of dry ground.

And that, I think,

is the connection between the two passages we've read.

Now, as I say in a few minutes,

I want to talk through the passage in Isaiah

and to learn some things from it

about the prejudice that the Lord Jesus suffered.

But it's been on my mind this week,

and I thought it was worth highlighting

the general thought about prejudice

and the danger that we have,

that we are prejudicial towards others.

And bear with me,

I think this is quite important,

even though it's not directly from the passage.

You'll see it's significant as we come to

think about Jesus in a few minutes.

I want to make two statements,

and you can think about whether you agree with them.

The first statement is that

if we're not very careful,

each of us is likely to be guilty

of prejudicial thoughts and actions.

If you're in the business role,

or probably in the world of government as well these days,

you will get training on something

that is called unconscious bias,

which is the thought that

although you may not deliberately

look down on particular groups

or treat them differently,

in practice it's very easy that we do.

And so we need to be careful.

There's no place for prejudice in the church.

We need to be careful

that we're not guilty of prejudice,

and we need to be actively making sure

that's not happening.

And the second thing,

and I suppose the reason for that,

is that I believe we most easily identify

with people who are like us.

And the corollary of that could be

that people who are unlike us,

people who are different,

we sometimes tend to look down on

and not treat as well.

Let me give you just a very trivial example.

One of the contestants in the recent series

of Strictly Come Dancing was Dan Walker.

Dan Walker, broadcaster,

breakfast television, sports news,

also known as a Christian,

and particularly for not working on Sundays.

And I was hoping that Dan Walker

would do well in the competition,

even though he wasn't, by a long way,

the best dancer.

You might ask, well, why is that?

Is it perhaps,

because I look at Dan Walker,

and I see a white, heterosexual,

male, evangelical Christian like me?

And because he's someone

who is in some ways similar to me,

it's easy for me to identify with him

and to hope that he does well.

Now, you may or may not think

there's any harm in that.

Where the harm comes

is if we go beyond that

and say, yes,

I identify easily with some people

because they're like me,

but there are some people

who are unlike me,

and I don't want anything to do with them,

or I want to treat them differently,

or I look down on them

and despise them.

And that is where

the danger of prejudice comes in.

Whether it's because of their race,

their religion,

their physical and mental health,

or whatever else,

as soon as we start looking down on others

because they're different from us,

then we're guilty of prejudice,

and that should have no place in the church.

Everyone who comes through the doors of our church

should be treated with the same respect

and dignity as everyone else.

They are people who are made

in the image of our creator.

They are those for whom the Lord Jesus died

and who, if they trust in him,

can be our Christian brothers and sisters.

And if we want to know an example

of how we shouldn't be prejudiced,

then we just have to look at the Lord Jesus,

perhaps most clearly in John chapter 4.

John 4 · chapter mention

John chapter 4,

John 4 · chapter mention

Jesus comes across a Samaritan woman

who is, let's say,

probably has dubious morals.

And he is an upright Jewish man.

And most upright Jewish men

would have run a mile

rather than associate with a woman like that.

And yet Jesus takes the time to speak with her,

to help her,

to show her who he is,

and she becomes a great evangelist

for those in her town.

No prejudice,

treating everyone with dignity and respect.

And that is how we should be as a church.

And we need to be careful

that people who are different from us,

we don't treat in a lesser way

from people who are like us.

Now with that digression,

I think it's quite important,

but let's think about how that applies in Jesus.

And we're going now to the passage in Isaiah,

Isaiah chapter 53.

Isaiah 53 · chapter mention

And Isaiah chapter 53,

Isaiah 53 · chapter mention

I think it is saying,

Jesus came into this world,

he was different from those,

particularly the religious leaders in the day,

and they looked down on him,

they were prejudiced against him,

they despised him.

Not just because he came from Nazareth,

although that was part of it,

but because in many ways,

he had different values

and different attitudes from them.

So three simple things,

and then we're finished.

Three things I think we can learn

from this passage.

And the first of these

is that Jesus showed different attributes

from others round about him,

particularly the religious leaders.

That comes across, I think,

with this picture that Isaiah gives us

of the root coming out of the dry ground.

In other words, he's saying,

this is something that is unlikely to happen,

something where you've got arid land,

you wouldn't expect anything to grow,

and you get what looks like

a very tender shoot coming up,

something that's different,

something that demonstrates life.

When Jesus came to this earth,

by and large,

there was little or no life

in the religious establishment.

Yes, they knew the Old Testament.

They could quote huge sections of it.

They would try to be obedient to it

in the real minutiae of things

and make their own rules up

to go along with it.

But there was no real love of God.

There was no real concern for others.

And Jesus came,

and he was different.

He was different because as he spoke,

he spoke with vitality,

he spoke with life,

and he didn't just look back

and refer to lots of ancient authorities

and say, this is what's said here,

this is what's said there.

He says, here is what I say.

And he spoke with the authority

that comes from God.

He also claimed very clearly

to have a relationship of a father,

a son to a father with God,

and to be speaking himself

the words of God.

He was different in the way he was

and the way he lived

and in what he said

from the religious leaders of his day.

And rather than listen to him

and accept what he said

and believe the word of God,

as many of the common people did,

the religious leaders looked down on him,

they despised him,

and they wanted rid of him

because he was different from them.

And definitely what we would look back

and say was a good way,

definitely what they would say

was a bad way

because he exposed their hypocrisy

and because of that

would turn the common people

against the religious establishment.

He grew up like a tender shoot,

like a root out of dry ground.

Second thing I want to say

about the way in which

the Lord Jesus

led a despised life

was that he saw

different attitudes towards him.

He showed different attributes.

He saw different attitudes.

Now when we say

Jesus led a despised life,

you can find lots of instances

in the New Testament

where that's not obvious,

where actually people looked at Jesus

and they recognised something in him

that was really good,

that was worth following

and worth believing in.

So when he preached

the Sermon on the Mount,

you've got this group of people

listening in rapt attention

as he says these words

which have changed history

in many ways.

I saw a description that says

they're the basis of Western morality,

perhaps right.

And the people listened

and they marvelled at what he said

because they said

he speaks with authority.

He's not like the teachers of the law

who just refer to other people

and don't have any authority

of their own.

And because of that,

the people,

common people in Galilee

flocked to him

and they loved listening to him.

When the Lord Jesus fed the 5,000,

when he did that marvellous miracle

of taking a small amount of bread

and of fish

and of feeding the multitude,

the people were so impressed

and so enthralled with him

that they wanted to make him their king.

They didn't despise him.

They loved him

and all that he was

and all that he stood for.

Now, John 6,

they very quickly changed their attitude

but at that point,

they loved him.

By and large,

the common people,

the ones who weren't religious leaders,

had a lot of time for Jesus

and were those

whom he was able to help

and to bring into God's kingdom.

And he did, as we said,

without prejudice.

It didn't matter who they were.

If they were willing to listen to him

and to believe his word,

he would receive them.

But then you have the other attitude,

the attitude of the religious establishment.

And they very much saw Jesus as a threat,

as someone they didn't want to have among them.

And they despised him.

They looked down on him.

They wanted to have nothing to do with him.

And so the prophecy in Isaiah,

verse 3 of chapter 53,

we have it in front of him.

He was despised and rejected by mankind,

a man of suffering

and familiar with pain.

That certainly was true.

Jesus, during his lifetime,

was despised by those

who should have known better,

who should have known

and be able to interpret

the word of God.

Ultimately, he was completely rejected.

And he went alone to suffer on the cross.

So he saw different attitudes.

And then finally,

Jesus,

he showed different attributes.

He saw different attitudes.

And then the final thing,

he suffered different attacks.

And there's a progression,

I think,

isn't there,

as you go through Isaiah 53.

Verse 2,

and people are looking at him

and saying,

well, he's not much, is he?

Just like the tender shoot,

like the root of the dry ground,

nothing particularly attractive about him,

nothing in his appearance

that makes him special.

And perhaps that was originally

how the religious leaders

would have thought of him.

He's a prophet from Galilee.

He's not going to come to very much.

Let's just ignore him

and maybe he'll go away.

He's no one special.

Then in verse 3,

you get the progression.

He's not just being looked down on

and thought to be nothing.

He is actively despised,

and rejected.

He is held,

says the writer Isaiah,

in low esteem.

So at this point,

you have the religious establishment

attacking Jesus.

And you can see,

as you go through the Gospels,

how time and again,

the religious leaders would come

and they would say,

how can you do this?

Or how can you say that

if you are who you say you are?

How can you heal on the Sabbath day

when that is against

our interpretation

of God's law?

They came to him

with trick questions

and tried to catch him out

and to demonstrate

that he wasn't who he said he was.

And they failed miserably.

But they attacked him

and they tried

to turn the people

against him.

And then,

that didn't work.

Didn't achieve it.

So then,

they took him

and they tried him

and they nailed him

to a cross.

And that's in verses 4 to 6

in Isaiah 53.

Religious leaders thought

in some way

they were doing God's will

and this was God's punishment

for the Lord Jesus.

And they were willing

to hand him over

to the Romans

to allow him to be tried,

to allow him to suffer

the most horrible of deaths

as he was crucified

on the cross.

And they thought then,

this is the person

who we despise,

we've got rid of him now.

But the glorious truth

that Isaiah brings to us

is that it wasn't them

who were nailing Jesus to a tree,

although physically it was.

It was the Romans

leading him to a tree.

Rather,

he was there

so he could take

the punishment

of God

against sin.

And yes,

he led a despised life.

Ultimately,

he was completely rejected

by those who should have

known better

handed over

to the Romans.

And yet,

that life was lived,

a life of perfection,

a life of pleasing God

so that he could die

on the cross

and there he could take

the punishment

that should be ours.

And that is the ultimate

message of Christmas,

is the ultimate message

of Christian faith.

That Jesus came into the world,

he lived a life

where he was looked down on

by many,

he was ultimately rejected

and handed over

to be killed.

But he was doing God's will

and he was taking

the sins of the world

on himself.

As we look at Christmas

and as we come in a few months

to look at Easter,

the two are very intrinsically linked.

Christmas is the first step

on the road

that would ultimately lead

the Lord Jesus

to the cross.

And we need to recognise

that this baby

who came to Bethlehem

is lovely to rejoice

in Christmas,

to share presents,

to have time with family

and to think about

the birth

of the Lord Jesus.

But ultimately

it was so he could die

on the cross

and take the penalty

for our sins.

And so our message this morning,

quite simply,

do you recognise

recognise who Jesus is?

Do you recognise him

as the son of God

who came into the world

and who died

for your sins?

Or do you see him

as someone

who's not worth

bothering about?

Someone even

that you would look down on?

And I hope we'll be able

to see the error of that,

that we all should recognise

Jesus as God's son

and put our trust

in him.

There's a great hymn,

we sang it at the earlier

service this morning,

which I think summarises

a lot of what we've been saying.

Man of sorrows,

what a name,

for the son of God

who came,

ruined sinners

to reclaim.

Hallelujah,

what a saviour,

bearing shame

and scoffing rude,

in my place

condemned he stood,

sealed my pardon

with his blood.

Hallelujah,

what a saviour.

May that be

our experience

this morning,

that we see him

as the one

who came to save us

from our sins

and we put our trust

in him.

Let's pray together.

Father,

we thank you

for your word to us

this morning.

We thank you

for this final

bit of the Christmas story

and for the way

it points forward

to the life

of the Lord Jesus.

That as he was

rejected in many ways

at his birth,

as he had to,

our parents

had to flee

to save his life.

So he came back

and he lived

in a town

which was held

in no regard

and he lived

a life

where he was

rejected

and despised

by many.

But we thank you

that he came

to bear our sins.

We thank you

he died

and rose again

and today

he is in his

rightful place

at your right hand.

Help us

this Christmas

we come

to the end

of the Christmas

period

to be able

to look beyond

the trappings

and the rather

sentimental view

sometimes we have

of the Christmas

story

and help us

to understand

it was the beginning

of a glorious life

and it was

the beginning

of a life

that would

ultimately lead

to the cross

and the Lord Jesus

taking our sins

on himself.

We thank you

for your presence

with us.

We commit ourselves

to you now

in the name

of the Lord Jesus.

Amen.