"Advent: Called a Nazarene" Matthew 2:19-20 Sunday Morning Worship Service

Well, tucked into a mountain in Colorado Springs is what used to be known as the Continental Air Defense Commands.

Now it is simply known as NORAD.

In the middle of the control and operations center of the Continental Air Defense Command used to be, in the 1950s anyway, a red phone.

This red phone was a direct line from the Continental Air Defense Command straight to the Pentagon.

This was the way the Pentagon could summon NORAD if they needed help or if there was an eminent attack.

There was only one person in the entire world with the phone number to that red phone.

It was a four-star general who was stationed in Washington, D.C.

And if they needed to use that phone, they had to find him.

That was the only way to make the to wake him up or track him down or do something, because he alone could dial that number.

But on the other end of it, in the mountain in Colorado Springs, there was always 24 hours a day a shift of colonels that manned that phone.

Their job, this colonel's job, was to stand next to that phone and answer it when it rang.

Imagine being a colonel and that being your job.

The point of this red phone is that it was never supposed to ring.

If it rang, something really bad was about to happen.

And so the story goes, it never actually did ring.

That is until December 24th, 1955.

Now I want to switch now and tell the story from somebody else's perspective.

Every year, Sears Roebuck took out full-page ads across the country announcing their hotline to find Santa's progress on Christmas Eve.

You could dial this phone number, kids around the country could dial this phone number and hear where Santa is at any given moment.

This was something Sears did on Christmas Eve.

They had their stores go into a contest with each other, and the Sears Corporation would award a certain store the right to staff that phone on Christmas Eve.

They'd bring their workers in, and their workers would answer phone calls from concerned kids all around the country, letting them know where Santa was.

Well, in 1955, the Sears Marketing Department misprinted the phone number for the Santa hotline.

It was one digit off.

And you can guess where the misprinted phone number rang.

Let me tell this story from a third perspective.

Was on duty Christmas Eve, 1955, when that big red phone in the middle of the command center at the Continental Air Defense location and the phone rang.

He answered it in his most gruff military voice, Colonel Shoop.

And what he heard on the other line was a small, quivering voice that asked, Is this Santa Claus?

Well, Shoop's daughter Pam tells the story in a Colorado newspaper shortly thereafter.

She said, My dad was very straight-laced, military voice, very self-disciplined, and he was annoyed and upset at this call.

His first thought that went through his mind is that some of his subordinates were playing a prank on him.

Since it was Christmas Eve, they thought it would be relatively safe to play a prank on him that night.

And so he was quite upset and began yelling at them on the other end of the phone.

And then he heard the child crying.

At that point, his daughter Pam writes, quote, Dad realized it wasn't a joke.

So he talked to him, and now Colonel Harry Shoop's sister picks up the story.

He talks to this child and said, Uh, okay, um, ho ho ho.

And then he asked the child at the other end of the phone, Have you been a good boy this year?

And found out that the child had, and then said, Can I talk to your mother?

Child's mother got in the phone.

Colonel Shoop asked what was going on.

The mother said, You haven't seen the paper yet?

This is the phone number to call Santa.

It's in the Sears ad.

Meanwhile, at the Sears department store, the phones were left silent.

The people there were wondering what was going on.

They tried calling the number from the newspaper once they realized it had been a misprint only to get a busy signal.

Well, the Continental Air Defense Command ran with this.

And a tradition was birthed when it became NORAD, North American Air Defense Command, in 1958.

They took over the responsibility of staffing the Santa Hotline, and they started giving out updates to the TV stations in our country.

And perhaps when you were growing up, when your kids were growing up, you maybe even remember turning on the TV, and all the major stations would give you Santa's progress.

For example, they usually most of the programs usually start at Santa's first station, NORAD's Northern Command Post in St.

Hubert, Canada, with the departure of Santa Claus early on the 24th.

His first visits are, of course, to the Pacific Islands in Australia, where he then works through Asia, Africa, Europe, coming into the U.S.

through Canada, and then down through South America.

They update this every year, sometimes with satellite coverage, sometimes with radar tracking.

One year, 1960, they introduced a little uh emergency.

Uh they announced that Santa had to make an emergency landing on the ice of Hudson Bay.

He'd been intercepted by Royal Canadian Air Force, RCAF interceptor aircraft.

They discovered that Dancer's foot needed a bandage.

Dancer was attended to, sent on his way, escorted by the Royal Canadian Air Force outside of Canadian airspace.

Today, the tradition goes on, it's no longer on TV, though, or maybe, I don't know, even if you have a TV.

But today, you can track it on NORAD.org slash Santa Tracker.

There's probably an app, even.

I don't know.

Well, we have our own version of Santa Tracker this morning in Matthew chapter two.

Instead of Santa, though, of course, we are tracking Jesus here.

This has been the plot line through Matthew 2 is where is Jesus?

Where is he going?

This has been the big narrative that is tied chapter 2 of Matthew together is where is Jesus?

What is his status?

Where is he?

His first confirmed location, Bethlehem.

The soldiers are scrambled to intercept.

However, Jesus evades them and is rushed off to Egypt.

That's his next confirmed location.

He then leaves Egypt and heads back up.

We have the encounter with the weeping at Ramah in verse 16 through 18, as Jesus remains in Egypt.

And now in verse 19, Jesus through the angel, through his earthly father, Joseph, the one who would raise him, of course, brings him back to Egypt.

The angel says, the one who is seeking your life is dead.

This is, of course, in verse 20, it speaks of Herod.

Herod had been trying to put Jesus to death.

Herod died.

And the soldiers that had been trying to put Jesus to death, they are no more.

Those in political power that wanted Jesus killed have faded away.

And so it is now safe for Joseph to bring the child.

Look at verse 20, the child and his mother back.

Whenever you see the child and his mother in Matthew's gospel, they're always in that order.

Joseph was always leading the family.

Then Jesus is noted because he's the focus of the narrative, and the mother third.

The child and his mother are now led back to Israel by the angel, it is safe for them to return.

By the way, this is a verbatim quotation.

Verse 20 is of Exodus 4, verse 19.

Exodus 4:19

When Moses had fled off into the wilderness after he murdered the man, he hid in the wilderness for forty years.

And then the Lord appeared to Moses and spoke to Moses and said, Arise, for the ones who are seeking to put your life to death are dead themselves, and you can return back and get Israel.

So Moses returns back to Pharaoh's palace to take Israel to freedom.

I just point that out, unless you think that the connection between Jesus and the true Israel is too subtle for you.

Chapter 2, verse 20 is an exact quote of Exodus 4, verse 19, as God summoned Moses back to go rescue Israel.

Exodus 4:19

Those that sought to kill Moses are dead, and now those that sought to kill Jesus are dead, and it is safe for the true child to return to the promised land.

And so Joseph arose and took the child and his mother and went back to the land of Israel.

This is the fourth dream we've had, and these little few verses here are an advent study.

This is the third angel we've seen.

God is protecting Jesus through the angels.

It's letting you know that Jesus is lower than the angels, to use the language of Hebrews.

He's lower than the angels.

In other words, he needs the angels' help, and yet he has authority over the angels.

The angels are meant to serve him.

He needs their help and they are dispatched to serve him.

You see the humanity of Jesus on full display, and that the angels need to serve him, and you see the deity of Jesus on full display, and that the angels are, of course, sent to serve him.

And now he is brought back to Israel.

This is all going according to plan.

The question is, where will Jesus go when he gets back to Israel?

If we're tracking his whereabouts, all of chapter two is tied by geography.

I hope you've noticed that.

It's each little paragraph of chapter two has been a geographic location.

Have you picked up on that?

We've started in from the wise men in Persia who go to Jerusalem.

They're sent to Bethlehem, and then from there to Egypt, from there the weeping in Ramah, and now back to Jesus.

Where will he settle?

What will his location be?

Well, God intervenes through providence here.

Joseph hears that Archelaus is reigning over Judea.

So Herod, the quote, king, the butcher of Bethlehem, had several people that would take his throne.

Archelaus thought that he would reign over all of Herod's land, but Herod divided his kingdom.

His son Archelaus got Jerusalem, but other people got different other areas, quadrants of Herod's reign.

He divided it into fourths.

Really, the best ruler of the group was the one that was dispatched Herod Antipos, who was given leadership of Galilee up in the north.

He was the most competent of those rulers.

The least competent of the four was Archelaus.

Archelaus was Herod's son.

He was brutal.

He took a lesson from Herod and thought if you want to keep control of the Jews, brutalize them.

Show no mercy on them.

In fact, he was such a wicked ruler that some of the Jews secretly sent a delegation to Augustus Caesar and pled with him and told him all that Archelaus was doing in Jerusalem.

And Augustus Caesar sent his own contingent of military soldiers from Rome who deposed Archelaus, banished him from the crown, and did not replace him with another governor.

Instead, he gave him a protectorate, which would eventually be Pilate, the one who would oversee Jesus' crucifixion.

But this all took place in 6 A.D.

It was 6 A.D.

when Caesar overthrew Archelaus, banished Archelaus.

And so we know that the events here happened before 6 A.D.

I let you know that just so you know that Jesus, he's coming back to Israel, is a little boy.

Don't picture a teenager, don't picture even a 10-year-old.

If he was born in, let's say, 3 BC, which seems reasonable enough around then, then he would be, I mean, he'd have to be less than really six here, would be probably the appropriate age, probably even younger than that, because this is early on in the reign of Archelaus.

Remember, Archelaus was overthrown in six, but he began reigning back closer to 3 A.D.

So Jesus is a little boy.

He's brought back by his dad, and they're headed to Jerusalem.

Instead, they hear that Archelaus is there, and so his dad diverts course and goes up to the north, up to the tribe of Naptali, a city, it says in verse 23, called Nazareth.

And Nazareth was really no city.

It was a little hamlet.

There's no Greek word for that.

It's a little collection of, you know, there's maybe a hundred people that live here.

It's less than a village, but the Greek word we have we translate in the New Testament city for it.

But it's a tiny, tiny place.

It is not mentioned anywhere else in the Bible before this event.

You can do a word search for Nazareth.

There is no Nazareth in the Old Testament.

There's no prophecies about Nazareth.

There's no prophets that are from Nazareth.

There is nothing in the Old Testament that takes place there at all.

It's not even worth mentioning.

Naphtali is the tribe who has that land.

It's a small, it's one of the smaller land allotments of all the tribes.

There's no major roads that go by it.

There's no major cities there.

It is isolated.

And this is an isolated part of that isolated tribe.

And that's where Jesus ends up going.

He goes there, it says, verse 23, so that what was spoken of by the prophets might be fulfilled.

That he shall be called a Nazarene.

Now I mentioned that nowhere does the Old Testament have that language.

Nowhere in the Old Testament does it say he shall be called a Nazarene.

Those exact words aren't used.

Nazareth isn't mentioned in the Old Testament.

You get a little hint that something, it's more obvious in the Greek than it is in the English here, but you get a little hint that something is askew in verse 23, because the language that's used in the other fulfilled geographic prophecies is slightly different here.

If you draw your eyes up to chapter 2, verse 5, they told him, the scribes and the Pharisees spoke to Herod, saying, He's being going to be born in Bethlehem, for so it is written by the prophet.

There is something written by the prophet that would be fulfilled.

And then down in verse 15, that Jesus will flee to Egypt so that it would fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet.

Now you have words of the Lord written by the prophet that will be fulfilled.

And then in verse 17, thus was fulfilled what was spoken by Jeremiah.

So notice that in all of these you have specific speakers, the Lord, Jeremiah, it's David back up in verse 6, that are speaking something that is then written down and is then fulfilled.

Well, verse 23, it switches to a passive voice here.

That was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled.

So it's giving you something even more vague.

Prophets is plural, saying there's several prophets have taught this.

They didn't say it exactly this way.

It wasn't written down as it's noted in the other verses.

Instead, it's generally what was spoken by the prophets that might be fulfilled by him moving to Nazareth.

Now, what do I think is meant there?

I want to talk about that this morning.

In fact, first let me tell you a couple common ways that this verse is handled before we'll look at how I'm going to handle it this morning.

Some people think that he'll be called a Nazarene is a reference to Isaiah 11, verse 1 that says the Savior will be the branch that sprouts out from the stump of Jesse.

Isaiah 11:1

The word for branch in Hebrew is Natzer, and so you can see how Natser can sound like Nazareth, Nazareth.

They are different words though, so I don't really buy that connection.

That seems to be a big stretch.

It'd be like saying the Old Testament says the Savior will be rich, and he was born in Richmond to fulfill the prophecy.

Doesn't really work, does it?

Or it's not even spelled the right way.

The Nazir, for the branch is spelled differently even than Nazareth.

It'd be like saying the Old Testament says the Savior will be poor, and so he is born in Burke, which sounds like broke.

Also doesn't work.

But that's kind of what's a some people want to argue that it's you know it's the branch prophecy, and so it's Nazareth is like not Sarah.

As you can tell, I don't really buy that uh answer.

Some see a connection in number six, which is the Nazarite vow, where uh somebody can make a vow of the Nazirite not to cut their hair or to drink wine or to touch a dead body.

They're separated from society for to be dedicated to the Lord.

And so, hey, this is the fulfillment of that vow, but I don't buy I mean that might be John the Baptist, but it's not Jesus, because he we don't know much about his hair, but we do know, judging by his first miracle, that he did not take a Nazarite vow.

And he turned the water into wine and he went to funerals and touched dead bodies, and you know, so I don't think that's it.

I think the focus rather should be on the what the prophets said could be fulfilled in that he shall be called.

And the word called I think is critical.

That he will be called a Nazarene.

The people throughout his life would call him a Nazarene.

That I think is the prophecy, and what I mean by that is that he would be uh dismissed, that people would say negative things about him, and by speaking harshly of him or speaking negative things about him, by calling him names, they're fulfilling the prophecies that speak of it such in such a way.

There certainly are prophecies that said that Jesus would be from an isolated place, they would be from nowhere, that he would be despised, that he would be rejected, and yet his light would go to the nations.

Those are all prophecies that are given about Galilee.

They're prophecies that are given about Jesus, that because he's despised and because people reject him and they mock him, that fulfills the prophecies.

And they reject him and mock him by calling him a Nazarene.

Now, let me explain.

Well, I'm gonna give you just a brief outline of four things we learned about the Messiah from this.

Fourth, four truths about the Messiah, that he's called a Nazarene.

It's not gonna be in the screen, I'll just read them as we go through.

The first is that the Messiah will be from nowhere.

The Messiah will be from nowhere.

What I mean by that is that Nazareth is a no-name village in a no-name place, part of the tribe of Naphtali, which is about as isolated as you can get.

The Messiah will be from nowhere.

It's going to be his second coming, where he comes as a glorious king, but as his first coming, he is coming in really relative anonymity.

And this is a a big difference from how the Jews were expecting the Savior to be.

The Jews were expecting the Savior to come like a conquering king.

They're expecting the Savior to come with an army and overthrow a Roman rule.

They were expecting him to come with recognition and power.

And you might ask yourself, how do you expect the Savior to look?

How do you expect Jesus to look if he is a savior?

How do you expect the savior to that God would send to save you from your sins?

What would you expect him to look like?

What would you expect him to do?

The Jews certainly had their expectations.

He would be powerful, he would be wise, he would be a religious scholar, and he would overthrow the Roman Empire.

Instead of those things, though, God has him go to Nazareth.

Nazareth, as I mentioned, is a nowhere place.

Now, in the American culture, you're not really defined by your location, correct?

Um, like we have stereotypes about locations, like we have a stereotype of somebody from the south, or we have the stereotype of you know somebody from Hawaii, or a stereotype of somebody from New York City, and these different people have their stereotypes associated with them, but we recognize that they're stereotypes, and you probably wouldn't say out loud anyway, that oh, that person couldn't amount to much because they're from Alabama.

Like you wouldn't say that.

You might think it in your heart, but you wouldn't say that.

Or how could that person be that powerful or wealthy?

They're from Hawaii, you know, like you mean like in a dismissive kind of sense.

As I mentioned, Americans don't really have that kind of concept, but the Jews certainly did.

Like you couldn't be a king if you weren't from Judah.

You couldn't be a rabbi, you couldn't be any kind of intellectual, if you were from Naphtali, or if you're from Galilee, I mean, who's from Galilee that amounts to anything?

Galilee is the whole state, the whole province up there that goes around the Mediterranean, or that goes around the uh Sea of Galilee.

Nothing good comes from fishermen are in Galilee, and fishermen are disgusting.

Fishermen are businessmen, they're wrestling dirty, slimy fish, they're probably unclean.

You don't want to have anything to do with them, it's an immoral lifestyle.

That's Galilee.

So by Jesus going to Galilee, he is eliminating himself from the kind of life that the Jews were expecting the Savior to have, that they were expecting the Messiah to have.

And where would the Jews want Jesus to go?

Probably Jerusalem.

It seems like Joseph was headed there.

He seems like he was on his way back to Jerusalem, which would make sense.

Remember what Joseph knows at this point?

At this point, Joseph knows that his son is the Savior.

He knows his son is named Emmanuel from chapter 1, verse 23, that he is God in human flesh.

He knows his son is going to be the king of Israel from the gift that the wise men gave him.

He knows his son is going to be a priest from the frankincense.

He knows these basic things about Jesus.

He's going to want to bring him to Jerusalem because that's where the temple is.

That's where the action is.

And he was on his way there, it says in verse 22.

But then he heard of the danger that would have awaited Jesus there.

What would Jesus' life have been like had he been in Jerusalem?

I mean, he would have been famous.

He would have been hugely popular.

We know this just from his few years of ministry in Jerusalem.

He had massive crowds around him.

People were hanging on every word he said.

There were huge crowds around him.

He could have grown up with that.

He could have grown up teaching in the temple.

Instead, he goes to Nazareth, which is three days away from Jerusalem, three days back then to get to Jerusalem.

As far as we know, Jesus went one time as a little boy and he taught in the temple and had everybody captive then as a 12-year-old in the temple.

Imagine if he had lived down the street from that, and that was the experience every day in Jerusalem.

Maybe it would have been too dangerous.

So where could he have gone instead if not if Jerusalem was too dangerous, close to the temple, but too dangerous?

He could have gone to Bethlehem.

That's small, and it's right next to the temple.

It's five miles away.

He could still walk to the temple practically daily if he wanted to.

He would be safe from the Romans because for the Romans to come snatch him out of Bethlehem, there would have been a warning system.

You'd see a group of Roman soldiers coming down to Bethlehem, all kinds of opportunity to escape over the mountains to act towards the Dead Sea.

That's the way the wise men escaped.

That's the way Jesus got to Egypt before.

Why not Bethlehem?

And Bethlehem would make sense because that's where David's family is from.

That's the line of David goes through Bethlehem.

David was from Bethlehem.

That would make perfect sense.

Maybe it's still too close to Jerusalem.

How about Jericho?

Jericho would be a great city for the Savior to be from.

It's one day away from Jerusalem.

One day away, right over the hills.

There's a lot of Roman money there.

The Romans that were wealthy and didn't like Herod, the butcher of Bethlehem, they fled to Jericho.

Remember when Herod murdered his brother-in-law?

He did that in Jericho.

That was where his wife's family had their swimming pools and their palaces and whatnot.

I mean, that's where the Roman money that didn't like Jerusalem went.

They went to Jericho.

The city of palms everywhere.

It's beautiful out there.

It's next to the Jordan River.

That would be a great place for the Savior to grow up.

Powerful, influential, and safe from Rome, only a day away from the temple.

Or Beth Seda would be the other.

It's the only other place I can think of.

Besseda is a Jewish city.

It's up the highway a little ways from Jericho, strongly protected by mountains around it and hills, a wonderful seat of Jewish influence.

That would have been another very good place for Jesus.

It's King Saul's city.

King Saul spent time in Beth Seda.

That would be a great place for Jesus to be.

But he doesn't choose any of those places.

All of those could have worked according to the Jews.

Instead, he went to Nazareth.

Now, you might think I'm making too much of this because again, Americans, we don't really think that way geographically, but for the Jews, I'm telling you, this is a big deal.

Nothing goes from Galilee except fishermen and zealots, and nothing at all was from Nazareth.

If Jesus went to Nazareth, let me tell you what his life would be like.

He wouldn't have an education.

There's no schools there.

There's a synagogue there, one synagogue that eventually will try to kill him, by the way.

But as a kid growing up there, that's that's the one place.

There's not visiting rabbis that come through Nazareth.

You know, the synagogues in Jerusalem, it's a big deal.

The Jews took so much pride in who their synagogue leader was.

You could boast in who your leader was.

And you could have visiting rabbis.

Other famous rabbis could come and guest teach in your synagogue.

And if a famous rabbi taught in your synagogue, you could brag about that to your friends for months, years even.

Those visiting rabbis, if they were powerful and influential enough, you could have them into your house for Shabbat dinner, for the meal that marks the start of the Sabbath.

They could be in your home for that.

And man, if you had a famous rabbi in your home and you got to sit next to him at dinner, that is big time bragging rights.

Big time.

You know somebody who had a friend that had a famous rabbi at his house for dinner, you'd brag about that.

Instead, Jesus goes to Nazareth where there is no famous rabbis.

There is no famous anything.

It's Nazareth.

There's nothing there.

That's what his life will be like.

Nobody educating him.

No rabbis in the synagogue.

That synagogue probably didn't even have a rabbi.

It was probably a rotating group of people.

The men of the area probably took turns leading in that synagogue.

That's what his life would have been like there.

Fifty miles away would be Caesarea, a massive Roman city with almost no Jews in it.

38 miles the other direction, next to the Sea of Galilee, would have been Tiberias.

That was the capital of Galilee.

The Roman capital was Tiberias, massive Roman city.

No Jews lived there.

Story says they built it on a graveyard to keep the Jews out.

That's where the Roman governor would have would have lived.

No Jews there.

And still, it would have taken several days to walk there, three days to walk to Jerusalem.

That's where Jesus goes.

He won't know anybody there.

Nobody will know him.

Nobody in Israel will know anybody from Nazareth.

That's the kind of life Jesus signs up for by going to Nazareth instead of Beth Seda, instead of Jericho, instead of Bethlehem, instead of Jerusalem.

He goes to nowhereville.

In fact, zoom out a little bit.

Why should the Savior even come to Israel?

Israel's a backwater place.

In terms of the Roman Empire, why doesn't the Savior, why shouldn't he be born in Rome?

That's where the real action is.

That's where the real power is.

Why not the port city of Alexandria, Egypt?

I mean, there's so many good places for the Savior to be born.

Instead, he goes to Israel and then he goes to Nazareth guaranteeing that he will be anonymous.

The scripture says his dad was a carpenter.

Carpenter is kind of an unfortunate translation.

If you've been to Nazareth, there's not a lot of trees there.

You know, there's some olive trees.

Maybe he did.

Now the only kind of carpentry in Nazareth is like you can buy tourist things made out of olive wood.

There's probably not a lot of carpentry happening there.

It's more stonework.

Everything there is built of stone.

Joseph probably would have spent his life as the Puritans called it a tinker, somebody who fixes things.

Like you have a hole in your fence, you would call Joseph and he could fix your stone fence.

You need a watchtower built in your little vineyard.

You could call Joseph and he could pile up rocks and make you a tower, a guard tower, or something like that.

That's what he spent his life doing.

He built terraced walls, likely.

Nazareth is on hills.

Terraced walls, that's what Joseph would have done.

And Jesus wasn't even fortunate enough to be known as the carpenter.

Jesus is known as the carpenter's son or the tinker's son.

Again, the closest American analogy to this would be like a day laborer.

And Jesus isn't even powerful enough to be known as the day laborer himself.

He's the day laborer's son.

That's the life he gets by going to Nazareth.

And this plays out in Jesus' life, in that Jesus learns humility.

And not only does he learn humility, which is fitting with his incarnation, of course, but he teaches on humility.

This colors so much of his life that he's from Nazareth.

And I'm speaking from a human perspective here, of course.

You know that from a divine perspective, Jesus didn't learn humility.

From a divine perspective, Jesus didn't learn anything.

But if we're talking about Nazareth and where Jesus was raised, we're certainly talking about him from a human perspective this morning.

And he would have been raised in humility because he's from Nazareth.

And so when he teaches on humility, you listen to him because his language is just so different from the Pharisees.

You know, the Pharisees in Jerusalem, it was so important to them where they sat at meals.

It was so important to them what Pharisees they knew.

And if you knew somebody in the Sanhedrin on the ruling council, well, how advanced in he was the ruling council?

Was he the 30th guy in the ruling council or the 15th?

Because that's a big difference right there.

And if you got to have a meal with one of them, did you sit next to him or did you sit four seats down?

I mean, they tracked this kind of thing.

And then comes along Jesus and says, Hey, if you get invited to a fancy feast, don't sit in the front of the room.

Who do you think you are?

Go sit in the back table.

You know those kind of banquets of the round tables everywhere, and there's like the one back table that's like behind the buffet line.

You know, the waiter keeps bumping in the table every time he walks in and out, and two of the chairs have their back towards the speaker at the front of the room.

Do you got this picture?

Jesus says, When you go to a banquet, just sit down in those chairs at the very beginning.

Go take those chairs.

Get to know the waiter, kind of thing.

And then he gives a little dig at the Pharisees.

He says, that way, when the honored guest arrives, when the real rabbi arrives and sees you sitting back there, he'll say, Oh, why don't you come sit with me in the front and march you by all of those other rabbis, and they will just be so angry at you.

It's delicious.

I mean that's what you get from Jesus.

Be humble.

Sit in the back of the room.

He washes his disciples' feet.

No rabbi would do that.

Nobody from Jerusalem would do that.

That's Jesus.

And this is fitting because he is, you know, he's descended from David, the last of Jesse's sons.

When Jesse lined up his sons to see which one would be king, he didn't even invite David in the room.

Remember this?

David was out in the sheep somewhere in some field elsewhere, and Samuel's looking at these guys, going, wait, one of these is the king?

I don't think so.

Where's the other son?

And Jesse even at first says, I don't have another son.

And imagine being David and finding that out later.

Samuel says, You sure you don't know the son?

And I was like, Oh, I do have one other son, but there's no way that guy's the king.

I mean, have you seen him?

He's out in the field with the sheep.

And that's the one that is the king.

And that's the one that's in Jesus' line.

And this is all in the background of Jesus will be called a Nazarene.

So the first thing we learn about Jesus from this is that he will be from nowhere.

He will be anonymous, he will be from nowhere.

Nobody will know him.

He grows up in anonymity outside the watching eyes of every rabbi, every Pharisee, every Jew of any importance would have no idea who Jesus is as he grows up.

Well, secondly, we learn not only that he will be from nowhere, but secondly, that he would be despised.

And this really gets to the crux of the issue.

It says he will be called a Nazarene.

And I'm making the word called to do some work here.

I'm saying this prophecy, what the Old Testament prophecies about Jesus are that he will be despised by the Jews.

They will call him names, they will mock him.

That's what I'm saying this means.

Not the actual insult.

The actual insult they use is Nazarene.

The Old Testament doesn't say they'll use that word as an insult, but the Old Testament definitely says the Jews would think lightly of him, think low of him, that they would insult him and ridicule him.

Psalm 22, the Savior speaking in first person, it's a messianic psalm written by David, but looking forward to the life of the Savior.

Psalm 22, the Savior says, I'm a worm and not a man.

I'm scorned by mankind and despised by the people.

All who see me mock me.

They make mouths at me, it says.

They wag their heads.

So the Old Testament says, the Savior will be mocked with words by the Jews hurled at him.

He says, My people will mock me.

My people will despise me.

In fact, Psalm 22, verse 8, they say, He trusts in Yahweh.

Psalms 22:8

Let Yahweh deliver him.

Let God rescue him, for he delights in him, which is literally fulfilled on the cross.

The Jews hurled insults at Jesus on the cross, saying, You trust God, let God rescue you.

And do you remember what sign hung over Jesus while he was on the cross?

They put him to death, they convicted him as a traitor, they sentenced him to death, executing him in the most humiliating way imaginable, and they hung a sign over his head that said, the king of the Jews, but above that sign, do you remember it said, Jesus the Nazarene?

They called him a Nazarene on the cross as a way of mocking him, a way of highlighting that he was nobody.

The Nazarene thinks he's the king of the Jews.

That's what's in mind by Psalm 22, Psalm 22, verse 13.

Psalms 22:13

They open wide their mouths at me like a like a roaring lion.

They open their mouths at me.

In other words, they're hurling insults at him.

They're calling him things like as bad as a Nazarene.

Psalm 69, verse 8.

Psalms 69:8

I've become a stranger to my brothers, an alien to my mother's sons.

It's his own Israelites that are turning against the Savior, Psalm 69 says.

Psalm 69, verse 20.

Psalms 69:20

Reproaches have broken my heart, so I'm in despair.

I look for pity, there was none.

I look for comforters, I found none.

It's a prophecy about the Israelites turning their backs on him and mocking him.

And then it says, Psalm 69, verse 21, they gave me poison for food, and for my thirst they gave me sour wine to drink.

Psalms 69:21

That's Psalm 69, verse 21.

Psalms 69:21

Again, that's another one of those prophecies.

It's about his whole life.

They mock him his whole life, but it's fulfilled in a very vivid way on the cross when he calls out he's thirsty and they hand him the sour vinegar to drink.

They're mocking him.

Isaiah 53, verse 2.

Isaiah 53:2

He grew up before him like a young plant, like a root out of dry ground.

It says the Savior.

It doesn't say the Savior is going to look like a rose.

It doesn't say the Savior is going to look like a beautiful flower or a vibrant plant.

It says the Savior is going to look like a dried root, you know, like one of those extraneous roots from a vine or something that shoots out of the ground somewhere, but the ground is all dry around it.

It doesn't have life in it.

It's just a little root that comes up out of the ground.

That's what he's going to look like.

Not even the plants, but the dead root.

Isaiah 53, verse 2 goes on to say, He'll have no form or majesty that we would look at him, no beauty that we should desire him.

Isaiah 53:2

He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.

He's this one from whom men hide their faces.

He was despised, and we, it switches the first person plural here.

We esteemed him not, this Isaiah says.

In other words, we looked at him and we say he doesn't look like anything.

He looks like a dried groot coming out of a dried root coming out of dried ground.

There's nothing to this guy at all.

Let's just dismiss him.

There's nothing about him that would even make us think that we could have anything in common with him.

That's what they say, and they mean this to mock him.

Let me show you another time they mock him.

Matthew 21 on the screen, when Jesus enters the Jerusalem for the Passover week, the last week of his life.

He's coming from Jericho with all the palm branches from Jericho, and the crowds following him from Jericho, and the crowds are shouting, Hosanna to the Son of David, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

Hosanna in the highest.

When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up, of course.

They'd never seen anything like this before.

And they're saying, Who is this?

And the crowd said, This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth of Galilee.

He's entered into Jerusalem.

I'm sure some took this as a way to identify him.

Most obviously took this as a way to mock him.

And once you start seeing this, it is all over the place, isn't it?

When Nathaniel was summoned to go see Jesus back in John chapter 1 by his brother Philip.

John 1 · chapter mention

Philip said, Come, I think I found the Savior.

I think I found the teacher of Israel, the Savior, come see him.

Nathaniel says, Who?

And Philip says, He's from Nazareth.

And Nathaniel, Nathaniel is the one, by the way, he's the good of the Twelve Apostles.

Like he's the nice guy on the Twelve Apostles.

There's no guile in him.

He's kind.

He doesn't mean this in a bad way.

He's like the polite dude.

Nathaniel's response is, Do you remember, can anything good come from Nazareth?

Like that's what his friends said about him.

His friends said he can't be the Savior because he's from Nazareth.

Imagine what his enemies said about him.

They meant it to mock him.

As Jesus was put on trial at the end of his life.

He was arrested and put on this mock trial in front of totally a kangaroo court.

He's in there when their questions don't make any sense.

The accusations against him don't make any sense.

Peter tried to follow him to the trial, do you remember?

And didn't have enough courage to follow him when the other disciples went away, but not enough courage to actually make it inside.

He's standing outside by the fire warming himself.

And the little girl comes up to the fire.

And she's looking at Peter through the fire, and she says, Wait a minute.

I know you.

This is Mark 14, verse 67.

Mark 14:67

Weren't you also with that Nazarene?

That's how she asks him the question.

Weren't you with the Nazarene?

Again, they mean it as an insult.

And Peter takes it that way, of course.

He says, No, no, no, I don't even know who you're talking about.

I don't know a Nazarene.

I've never seen a Nazarene before in my life.

Mind your own business.

This was a real stumbling block for the ministry of Christ.

They mocked him because they said he could not be the Savior because he's from Nazareth.

So first we saw the Messiah will be from nowhere.

He'll be anonymous.

People won't know him, and that's exactly true.

When Jesus steps on the stage in his ministry, he's introduced to Israel for the first time, really.

Second, we saw the Savior will be despised.

The people despised him and they hurled insults at him because of who he was, where he was from.

Thirdly, we see that the Savior, the Messiah, will be rejected.

He will be rejected because he is from Nazareth.

They reject him.

In fact, you can even flip over to John chapter 7.

John 7 · chapter mention

I want you to see this with your own eyes.

You can flip a few pages.

Right in your Bible, all the way to John chapter 7, Jesus enters Jerusalem for the feast of Sukkot, the tabernacles, or the feast of booths, where people build their tents, and it's a festive time.

John 7 · chapter mention

It's a very festive time.

People are sleeping outside at night, and it's kind of a celebration time.

It'd be the most festive period all of the year in Israel.

And Jesus goes to it.

He had uh um said he wouldn't go because the Jews were trying to kill him back into chapter seven chapter seven, verse one.

He said he wouldn't go in because the Jews were seeking to kill him, but he came in anyway and snuck in, changed his mind yet.

In verse 6, he said, My time hasn't come.

And then a few days later, okay, my time's here, and he goes in.

And everybody is shocked to see him.

And the Jews are hunting for him.

The Pharisees have his picture on every post office box, you know.

Every nail, every uh post office has the, you know, the Sanhedrin's most wanted.

There's Jesus of Nazareth.

He's number one through ten on their most wanted list.

Um, there's a reward for him.

They will put him to death.

And this big festive time, he shows up in the temple and he starts teaching in the temple.

Look at verse 25 of John 7.

The people in Jerusalem saw him teaching in the temple and they said, Isn't this man who they're trying to kill?

And here he is, speaking openly.

And they say nothing to him.

Can it be that the authorities really know that this is the Christ?

Do you catch what the crowd is thinking here?

They have been talking all year long how they want to arrest him and put him to death, and now he's teaching in the temple.

It's not like he's hiding, he's not in the alleys, he's in the temple, the most, literally the most noticeable place in all of Jerusalem, and there's Jesus, and he's teaching, and none of the Pharisees are talking to him.

And so the crowd deduces, you know what, the Pharisees probably think he's a savior.

You know, there was somebody that the police were looking for, and it's like all points bulletin, we're looking for this guy, we're looking for this guy.

And then you drive around the corner to the Mason District police station, and there's the guy teaching on the steps of the police station, and all the police officers are sitting at his feet taking notes.

You would deduce that maybe the police don't really think he's a criminal.

Maybe they're a little bit on his side.

That's what the crowd decides here.

And they say in verse 27, well, we know where this man comes from, meaning Nazareth.

When the Christ appears, we won't know where he comes from, which is not the best theology.

The Bible teaches that the Christ will come from Bethlehem.

But they say, He's from Nazareth, he can't be the Savior.

He can't be the Savior.

And then you can jog your eyes uh down a little bit to verse 41, verse 40, when the heard these words, some of the people said, This really is the prophet.

After listening to Jesus teach for a few hours, they say, This really is the prophet.

Others said, This is the Christ, verse 41.

But some said, Is the Christ gonna come from Galilee?

That can't be.

Like, if we judge Jesus by his words, we would say, okay, he's the Savior.

But he's from Galilee.

That's impossible.

Verse 42.

Hasn't the scripture said that the Christ comes from the offspring of David and comes from Bethlehem?

So notice that between verse 26 and 42, there are theology improved.

Did you notice that?

That's what happens when you listen to Jesus talk for a few hours, your theology gets better.

By verse 42, they're like, Yes, Bethlehem.

That's what it was.

We knew it.

The village where David was.

So there was division among the people over him.

Anyway, the officers intervene.

And they say, verse 46, no one ever spoke like him.

The Pharisees say, You guys have been deceived.

Have any of the authorities or Pharisees believed in him?

Nicodemus, who had, speaks up.

Imagine being Nicodemus there.

You know, it's a massive, it's a mob.

And the Pharisees are saying, Listen, you don't have to believe him because none of the Pharisees believe in him, right?

And you're Nicodemus.

Like, uh kind of?

So Nicodemus disguised.

This belief in the form of a question.

Does our law judge a man without first giving him a hearing and learning what he does?

So Nicodemus says, Is it right to sentence him to death before we at least have a trial?

Like, look, I know you found him guilty, but shouldn't we at least come up with charges first?

And they replied, Are you from Galilee too?

Search and see that no prophet can come from Galilee.

So they are actually, you can return back to Matthew 2.

They're actually rejecting Jesus because he is from Galilee.

They reject him because he is from Nazareth.

They cannot tolerate that at all.

And this is what is prophesied in the Old Testament, Isaiah 53, verse 8 again.

Isaiah 53:8

By oppression and judgment he will be taken away.

As for his generation, who would consider that he is cut off from the land of the living?

He is stricken for the transgression of my people.

The Jews reject him because of where he's from.

Daniel 9, verse 26.

Daniel 9:26

After 62 weeks, this is the Daniel 70-week prophecy.

After 62 weeks, the anointed one will be cut off and will have nothing, the scripture says.

Jesus himself, Matthew 8, verse 10, says, Foxes have holes, birds have nests, the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.

Matthew 8:10

That's Matthew 8, verse 20.

Matthew 8:20

The foxes have holes, birds have nests, the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.

They reject him outright.

They put a sign on him that says he's from Nazareth.

They dismiss him, saying the Savior cannot be from Nazareth, the Savior cannot be from Galilee.

It's disgraceful to even think so.

But that's Matthew's point.

That's Matthew's point.

That he will be rejected because that is what the prophecies said.

Verse 23 of Matthew 2, that's what it's getting after.

He'll be called a Nazarene.

It's another way of saying that the Old Testament with one voice declares that the Jews will reject their Savior.

They'll reject him by dismissing him and insulting him and making fun of where he's even from and saying he cannot be the Savior.

And so when Matthew sees Jesus settle in Nazareth, he says, this is exactly to fulfill those prophecies.

And he was right.

It did.

But there's a fourth thing we learn about the Savior from this.

We learn that he's from nowhere.

We learn that he is despised.

We learn that he's rejected.

And fourthly, we learn that he will be a light to the nations.

That he will be a light to the nations.

And this, I think, this prophecy is also in mind.

It's Isaiah chapter 9, verse 1 and 2.

Isaiah 9:1

There will be no gloom for her who is in anguish.

In the former time, he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and Napoli.

And this is talking, by the way, Zebul and Napte, these are the northern ten tribes, the Israel part of Israel.

These went into captivity with the Assyrians.

They were idol worshippers.

They rejected the line of David.

They were brought into contempt.

And that contempt remains in the life of Christ.

Remember, they said the Savior cannot come from Galilee.

That's Zebulun and Napptali.

The Savior cannot come from there because they're the ones that worship idols.

There's the ones that rejected King David.

They cannot produce the Savior.

But the prophecy is not done there in verse 2.

In the latter time, the former time, the first coming of Christ, Zebulun and Naphtali are derided.

But at the second coming, that land will be made glorious by the way of the sea.

The main highway, see the Dead Sea comes up through Galilee, the main highway from the Mediterranean cuts over and meets in Tiberias with the other one.

The highways to the sea come together in Galilee.

At the second coming, those highways will be glorious.

The nations will be streaming into Galilee, the land beyond the Jordan.

Galilee of the nations, they call it.

Nobody would call it that in Jesus' lifetime.

It would be funny to say, oh Galilee, what a cosmopolitan place.

That's where the nations really come together in Galilee, you know?

It'd be ironic.

But Isaiah 9, verse 1 and 2 says, No, at the second coming that will happen.

Isaiah 9:1

And it'll happen for this reason.

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.

Those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them the light has shone.

Matthew 4, by the way, cites this prophecy of verbatim, says it's fulfilled when Jesus walks into his ministry and begins prophesying at the Sea of Galilee.

He begins preaching.

Listen, the Jews were so ashamed of Jesus being from Nazareth.

They're ashamed of his title.

Not everyone was ashamed, though.

The angel at the tomb, remember the women run into the empty grave.

Jesus is crucified.

Our sins are placed in him.

He suffers and dies in our place, bearing the wrath of God that we deserve.

He suffers rejected by men because he was from Nazareth, rejected by God in a sense, because our sins were placed on him.

God accepts his sacrifice.

His body is buried in the grave.

Three days later, the women come to anoint his body with the spices.

The stone is rolled away.

There's an angel sitting on the stone.

The women are crying and weeping because Jesus' body is gone.

And the angel says, I know why you're here.

Smart angel, I know why you're here.

You are looking for the Nazarene, aren't you?

He's risen just like he said.

Go, find Peter, and head up to Galilee, and he will see you there just like he told you.

The angels were not ashamed that he was from Galilee.

And this becomes the invitation that was given back in John chapter 1.

John 1 · chapter mention

Come and see the Nazarene.

Come and see the Galilean.

Come, Philip tells Nathaniel, come for yourself and see the Galilean.

Well, verse 19 to Matthew 2 says Herod died.

He'd featured so prominently, he's one of the most uh rock solid figures, really, at the beginning of these Gospels and world history at that time in the Roman Empire.

He was he was a pillar.

He cast a long shadow.

Everybody in the Roman Empire knew who he was, and he's gone now.

He spent the last years of his life trying to kill the Savior, and now he is gone.

Those who followed him are also gone, replaced by other kings who will also be gone.

But do you know how who outlives all of them?

The Nazarenes.

At the end of the Gospel, or the end of the book of Acts, when Paul is put on trial, the governor is trying to figure out what to do with Paul.

The Jews are arguing to the governor that he Paul should be executed.

They say Acts 24, verse 5, we have found this man to be a plague.

Acts 24:5

And that takes on meaning now, doesn't it?

They're saying, deal with Paul because he's a plague.

He's a one-man plague.

He stirs up riots among all the Jews throughout the world, and he is the ringleader of the Nazarenes.

That's what they say.

They mean it to be so insulting.

And Paul doesn't argue with them.

Paul takes the title for himself and says, All right, call me a Nazarene.

I embrace it.

If it was good enough for Jesus, it is good enough for me.

Today, Nazareth has grown.

It's between 30 and 40,000 people.

It's mostly a Muslim, an Arab community now.

There are some Christians there, but mostly, the reason tourists go there, the only tourists, secular tourists don't go to Nazareth.

There's nothing to this day that you don't go to Nazareth.

There's nothing to do there.

They just recently built a highway to get there that zigzags up the big hill that gets there.

Before they built that highway, it was practically impossible to get to.

So tourists don't go there.

Christian tourists go there because Jesus was from there, and there's nothing from Jesus' life left there.

There's a little village that's there that is reconstructed.

So it's a basically Americans have rebuilt a little, you step into it like going to Nazareth village.

What Nazareth would have been like 2,000 years ago?

And there's terraces and a water tower, and you can get lunch there.

And you know, it's cool.

I think it's worth going to.

I've loved seeing there because it does feel like you're going back in time.

You just have to forget that outside the wall are 40,000 people that weren't there 2,000 years ago.

And you go there, you wouldn't spend more than an hour there, and you get back on your bus and you get out of there.

Secular tourists would not go to Nazareth.

I read in a travel blog this week that somebody wrote, Hey, can I find a true guy to take me to Nazareth?

And other Israeli true guys were mocking him in the travel forum.

Like, who would want to go to Nazareth?

Are you kidding?

Come to Israel for 14 days, you want to go see Nazareth?

Let me give you a list of 400 places it'd be better to go to than Nazareth.

That's the tone to this day.

Even Muslims look down on the Muslims that live in Nazareth.

They call them Nazarenes jokingly.

Nobody wants to be there.

And the word lives on, of course, and perhaps you remember when ISIS expanded their control in the Middle East in 2014.

Remember when Russia annexed is the word we're using, but stole a part of Ukraine and then shot down the Malaysian airliner, killing 300 people that crashed in Ukraine.

During that, you know, the whole national stage is turned towards that big fiasco.

ISIS used that distraction to expand their territory, claimed much of northern Iraq, much of Syria, even some of Turkey, and set up their caliphate there.

They said that for Christians that lived there, and there were a lot of Christians that lived there when ISIS took it over, they had four options.

They could convert to Islam, they could pay a tax by forfeiting everything they own, they could flee, or they could be put to death.

And after a two-month period, they took out the option of conversion.

They said you can no longer convert to Islam because you resisted it for two months.

Now your choices are dying, having all of your property seized or fleeing, and that's all gonna happen at once.

In other words, if you're here in 48 hours, they said you'll be put to death.

And that started on Saturday.

They released an edict that said, any Christians that are still in this caliphate on Monday will be put to death.

Leave, leaving all of your stuff behind.

Churches met that Sunday and decided they were gonna ride it out.

Most believers decided to ride it out not to flee.

But then they woke up Monday morning and all of the Christian houses, all the Christian businesses in that part of Iraq, in Syria, perhaps you remember the story, but they were all graffitied.

They were all tagged.

People spray painted an N, then Arabic N, but the N as the sign on all their houses.

That was the overnight they appeared.

It was marking everybody that was a Christian with an N.

The reason they used the N was to call them Nazarenes.

And they do not mean it in a kind way.

Jews to this day will still look at Christians with a sense of disdain because they worship the one from Nazareth.

Muslims look at Muslims that live in Nazareth with disdain because they live in Nazareth.

And when Muslims persecute believers, they often do so, calling them the Nazarenes.

That's a title that is meant to be an excuse to reject Christians because they use it as an excuse to reject Christ.

It's meant to be an insult.

But our Lord took it as a virtue because he exalted humility, not power, he exalted service, not being served, and he exalted his very words over his education.

I pray that when you think about who your Savior is, you would see to his heart.

You would see the heart of a humble man who came to serve not to be famous, but who came to serve and who was ultimately rejected by men and received the sins, our sins on him which he paid for.

Lord, we're thankful that we are known as Nazarenes.

The Jews hurled it as an insult at Paul in Acts 24, but we receive it as a label.

It's not shameful for us to be connected to the Nazarenes.

We recognize that the gospel is the foolishness of mankind.

People look at the gospel and dismiss it out of hand because it's ridiculous that God would become a man, and if he did, that he would live in Nazareth.

But Lord, we see in that foolishness of man, we see the wisdom of God.

We see the plan of salvation from before the foundation of time unveiled in time, ultimately with Jesus arriving in Nazareth, making his way from there to the cross, to the empty grave, where he resurrects from and lives in heaven at this moment.

So, Lord, we worship you, the Nazarene.

We give you thanks for this.

In your son's name.

Amen.

And now for a parting word from Pastor Jesse Johnson.

Thanks for joining us today.

If you're in the Washington, D.C.

area, I would love to meet you personally at Emmanuel Bible Church.

Our service times and other church information is on our website at ibc.church.

If you want information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.

location, go to tms.edu.

I hope this resource has been an encouragement to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel of Jesus Christ with boldness.

May the Lord bless you.