Wednesday, January 02, 2019

Can Anything Good Come From There?

"Can anything good come from Nazareth?"  That is what popped into my head when I saw this picture of my brother and sister in Christ, Larry and Peggy at Nazareth.  What a wonderful opportunity to be in Jesus' hometown!  This is where Jesus grew up!  This was Jesus' home town.  

Evidently, it was an insignificant city according to Nathaniel in John 1:46.  I wonder if people at the time did not think of Nazareth the way people around here think of some of the small, out-of-the-way towns in my area.  If it hadn't been for Jesus, Nazareth would have remained an obscure place.  Who would stop to see Nazareth in their travels if it had not been for Jesus of Nazareth?  Jesus put the Nazareth on the map for thousands of years!  The answer to Nathaniel's question is, "YES!  Something good did come out of Nazareth! - -  Jesus of Nazareth!"

I suppose you could have asked the same questions of many other places.  There are place names that we remember, or at least have heard of simply because of what Christ did through his people in those places.


Can anything good come out of Nicaea?  Can anything good come out of Wittenburg? Northampton? Cane Ridge? Bethany? Searcy? Can anything good come out of ___________?  Many places would be lost to obscurity were it not for what Christ did through people struggling to be faithful to his calling in those places. 

If Jesus is there, then yes, something good can come from there.  The significance is not in the place, but in the person.  The significance ultimately is Jesus of Nazareth.

In Christ, no one is obscure.  In Matthew 10:29-30, Jesus said that the God who sees each sparrow fall to the grown knows the number of hairs on my head.  In Matthew 18:1-4, Jesus said that the greatest in the kingdom are the least.  In 1 Corinthians 12:23, Paul wrote that in the church, the least are the ones with the greatest honor.

Something good always comes from wherever Jesus is raised up and people follow him.  Thank you Lord for coming to our humble world to save us and lift us up to the Father.