January 11 Daily Devotional

Bible Reading

Luke 2:46–52

Devotional

The humiliation of Jesus begins in His youth. Nazareth was a town of lower Galilee and the boyhood home of Jesus. As a boy of Nazareth, He was fulfilling the prophecy that He would be a Nazarene. This becomes clear as we read in our text that Jesus went down to the town of Nazareth with His earthly parents. Nazareth was a despised place and was of no importance to the religious leaders of the day. The center of Jewish religion was Jerusalem. The study of God’s Word had diminished in Nazareth and the orthodox Jews despised the Galileans. Indeed, Nathanael had every reason to ask if anything good could come from Nazareth. Nobody would ever expect the Messiah to come from Nazareth, for although Scriptures foretold He would be a Nazarene, the prophet Micah stated that He would come from Bethlehem.

To this place of contempt Jesus goes with His parents. He goes to live in a town that people shunned. No one had any expectation of Nazareth. In those days if you came from Nazareth, you were considered unworthy in religious circles. This was a deep humiliation for the Son of David. He had just witnessed that God was His Father and now He had to descend from Mount Zion to this obscure place in order to go to Galilee. All the disciples of Jesus, with the exception of Judas Iscariot, came from Galilee. Later, His disciples would be called ignorant Galileans. Judas came from Judah and became the Lord’s traitor.

Jesus was called the Nazarene. The name alone told the pious Jews much. It was a name that portrayed His obscure descent. When Philip says, “We have found him” (John 1:45), Nathanael, who seeks the Messiah, is deeply disappointed. He hears from Philip that the One they found comes from Nazareth. Christ had everything against Him according to man’s judgment. He had “no form nor comeliness” (Isa. 53:2). The Nazarene had “no beauty that we should desire him” (Isa. 53:3). That is how His life started in His youth and it would end worse. All people would, as it were, hide their faces from Him as He hung naked on the cursed cross. He went from Jerusalem to Nazareth. He went from the city of God to the place of contempt. Jesus, the Surety, went from the heights of glory to the depths of humiliation.

Do we want to have anything to do with such a Jesus? In all honesty we do not, for we also prefer to ascend to the heights than to descend into the depths. How shall we, proud creatures that we are, ever meet the Savior if He dwells in low places and we live in high places? That distance is far too great. Moreover, we do not love Him. He is contemptible to us just as He was to the Jews. We can do nothing with “the Nazarene.” He is too low for a proud person.

We are sinful and fallen creatures. We are contemptible in the sight of God. We must bow in humility before the God of heaven. We must consider our sinful nature for we are castaways before God. We have been cast out of the city of God, out of His holy temple, out of His communion. And it is our own fault. We are lost in the depths. But, the Surety descends to the depths of our lost condition. And in our humiliation, Christ can then be seen. He has no use for the proud but to the humble He gives everything. He descended to earth for sinners; for castaways He gave all. Jesus is where the sinner is. The deeper we realize our pathway of sin, the closer we are to Him. In the depths we realize our need for “the Nazarene.”

 

From The Everlasting Word by Frans Bakker, compiled and translated by Gerald R. Procee. Reformation Heritage Books and Free Reformed Publications, 2007. Used by permission. For further information, click here.