Contents Introduction: Preparing for Christmas................9 Week One: Nazareth ...........................13 1. The Genealogy of Jesus.......................17 2. A Town in Galilee Called Nazareth..............20 3. An Angel Named Gabriel .....................23 4. “You Will Conceive and Bear a Son” . 27 5. “Here Am I, the Servant of the Lord” ............31 6. “They Will Call Him Emmanuel” ...............34 7. He Will Save His People from Their Sins.........38 Travel Notes ..................................41 Week Two: Bethlehem..........................43 8. Little Town of Bethlehem .....................47 9. Joseph the Carpenter .........................51 10. The Doubter?...............................54 11. Being a Righteous Man.......................57 12. Joseph’s Dreams ............................60 13. Joseph Did What the Lord Commanded ..........63 14. Elizabeth Said to Her, “Blessed Are You…”.......66 Travel Notes ..................................70 9781426778827.indd 7 8/9/13 2:24 PM Week Three: Ein Karem ........................73 15. How Mary Found Her Joy.....................77 16. A Most Unnerving Song ......................80 17. Who Is Your Mary? Who Is Your Elizabeth?.......84 18. The Unplanned Wedding That Scripture Doesn’t Mention ............................88 19. The Journeys We Don’t Want to Take ............91 20. No Room in the Guest Room ..................95 21. Night-Shift Shepherds........................99 Travel Notes .................................103 Week Four: The Journey ......................105 22. A Message to the Shepherds ..................109 23. The Angelic Chorus.........................113 24. The Shepherds’ Response ....................117 25. The Meaning of the Manger ..................120 26. The Visit of the Magi........................123 27. The Light of the World ......................126 28. The Christmas Story in Matthew and Luke.......131 Travel Notes .................................135 9781426778827.indd 8 8/9/13 2:24 PM Week one nazareth t’s been said that the Holy Land is the fifth Gospel—that Iin walking its streets and tracing its terrain you have a chance to see the biblical story with fresh eyes and hear it with fresh ears. During this Advent season, we will visit four locations in the Holy Land, one per week. Then we will reflect each day on the events that took place in that location and their meaning for our lives. This week we will visit Nazareth, the hometown of Mary and later of Jesus. To get there, we’ll travel through the nearby town of Sepphoris, from which you can make out the tiny village of Nazareth to the south. Sepphoris had existed for hundreds of years before the birth of Jesus. There were several main streets in Sepphoris with shops on either side. Scholars believe that Nazareth was named after the Hebrew word netzer. The word can mean either the branch of a tree or a shoot that comes up from the stump of a tree. In the Book of Isaiah, the prophet said that God would raise up a leader, a shoot, a branch that would give new life to the people of Israel. Of course, Christians understand that 13 9781426778827.indd 13 8/9/13 2:24 PM Walking the Road to Bethlehem leader to be Jesus. Little did the founders of Nazareth know that one of their own children would be the shoot that God would raise up! The town of Nazareth was looked upon with some dis- dain. We hear that disdain in John 1:46, thirty years after the birth of Jesus, when Philip told Nathanael that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah.” Nathanael replied, “Can any- thing good come out of Nazareth?” The site that Christians visit as Mary’s childhood home in Nazareth—at least the lower level of it—is a cave. Seeing this modest dwelling reminds us that when choosing the mother of the Messiah, God went to a tiny village consid- ered insignificant by most, likely named after the hope of a Messiah, and invited a young woman of very humble means to bear the Christ. It was in this cave, tradition says, that Gabriel came to Mary and announced that she was with child. It was here, in this place, that the Word became flesh in Mary’s womb. Mary lived in a little, out-of-the-way town. She was uneducated and probably came from a poor family who may well have been servants in Sepphoris, a larger town near Nazareth. She was likely about thirteen years old. As she stood by the spring of Nazareth, listening to the sound of water bubbling forth from the rock, she was no better prepared for the visit of an angel than any of us might be. You can imagine that after hearing the words of Gabriel, she tried desperately to take it all in. Yet, with her head spinning, 14 9781426778827.indd 14 8/16/13 12:58 PM Nazareth filled with questions, uncertain of what it all meant, Mary said yes. Her response to the angel was simple and pro- found. She said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word” (Luke 1:38). As we begin our journey through the story of Jesus’ birth, my hope and prayer for you is that each week you will come to learn more about who God is, who we’re called to be, and who the child was who would be born to Mary. This week especially, ponder the way God chooses unlikely characters to bring about great purposes. Adapted from Chapter 1 of The Journey: Walking the Road to Bethlehem (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2011). 15 9781426778827.indd 15 8/9/13 2:24 PM Thoughts and Reflections 9781426778827.indd 16 8/9/13 2:24 PM Nazareth 1. the Genealogy of Jesus An account of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, and Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, and Perez the father of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Aram, and Aram the father of Aminadab, and Aminadab the father of Nahshon, and Nahshon the father of Salmon, and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of King David. And David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah. (Matthew 1:1-7) q My great aunt, Celia Belle Yoder, keeps our family his- tory. She’s ninety-five years old but sharp as a tack and shows no sign of slowing down. I went to visit her a few weeks ago. We spent an hour together as she walked me through our family genealogy. She’s a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, and she can trace our family history back at least four hundred years. She tells me of well-known circuit-riding preachers who started churches a hundred fifty years ago, about Civil War soldiers, 17 9781426778827.indd 17 8/9/13 2:24 PM Walking the Road to Bethlehem and about pioneers on the Oklahoma prairie. She wants me to know who I am and where I came from. We begin this book of reflections about the stories sur- rounding the birth of Jesus precisely where Matthew begins the story—with the genealogy of Jesus. Scholars agree that Matthew does not give us a complete genealogy. He gives us just the highlights that he thinks are important. I’ve included only a portion of the genealogy above, but I would encour- age you to read all seventeen verses (Matthew 1:1-17). Most people just skim them when reading Matthew, but there are important things to notice. Here are a few. Matthew’s genealogy is a summary of nearly the entire Old Testament, from Genesis 11 to Malachi 4, cap- turing the stories of the patriarchs, the Israelites’ slavery in Egypt, and the exodus from Egypt to the Promised Land; there is David and Solomon and the divided kingdom, the destruc- tion of Israel and the exile of Judah, and finally the return from exile. Here’s the point: Jesus’ birth is the climax of this entire story of God’s relationship with Israel. Jesus is the end to which the entire biblical story was moving. It is also often rightly noted that Matthew’s account of Jesus’ genealogy is nearly unique in that it includes five women. Putting women in a genealogy was not unheard of in the first century, but it was unusual. Who are these women, and what do they tell us about Jesus? Tamar, the mother of Perez, played the role of a prosti- tute in order to have children after her husband died. Rahab, 18 9781426778827.indd 18 8/9/13 2:24 PM Nazareth listed as the mother of Boaz, was a prostitute when she first entered the biblical story. She was also a foreigner. Then there was Ruth, who, like Tamar, was a widow and, like Rahab, was a foreigner. Bathsheba is mentioned next. She was the wife of Uriah the Hittite, which means that she may have been a foreigner, and she was an adulteress (or the vic- tim of rape) at the hands of King David, after which David had her husband killed. She too was a widow. The last of the women mentioned in the genealogy is Mary, a peasant girl whose life we will examine in greater detail in the next reflection. When my Aunt Celia Belle tells me our family’s his- tory, she describes pioneers, soldiers, and preachers. When Matthew tells Jesus’ genealogy he lists two prostitutes and an adulteress, women who were outsiders. Matthew is, in this genealogy, pointing us toward Jesus’ identity and mission.