Nazareth 

In many ways, Nazareth was the ideal place for Jesus to grow up. More than half of the caravan traffic of the known world passed through or near the little town of Nazareth in Galilee. And so Jesus was exposed from an early age to travelers from all over the world. He listened to the conversation and gossip of the caravan conductors and passengers from the four corners of the earth while spending time at his father’s repair shop, located near the caravan “parking lot.”

Nazareth was largely gentile in population; at the same time it was widely known as a center of liberal interpretation of Jewish traditional law. And of all the cities of Galilee, the Jews of Nazareth were most liberal in their interpretation of the social restrictions based on the fears of contamination as a result of contact with the gentiles. And these conditions gave rise to the common saying in Jerusalem, “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?”

As Jesus grew up, he heard many great thinkers of the entire Jewish world expound their views, and many also who were hardly orthodox Jews since the synagogue of Nazareth was an advanced and liberal center of Hebrew thought and culture.

As time passed, Jesus did much to modify the practice of religious forms within his family, such as the family prayers and other customs. And it was possible to do many such things at Nazareth, for its synagogue was under the influence of a liberal school of rabbis, exemplified by the renowned Nazareth teacher, Jose.

Jesus grew up as a normal boy but with unusual mental activity. In this year he met Jacob the stonemason’s son, who was his childhood friend and stalwart defender.

Jesus’ brother James was born when Jesus was 4 years old. And his father, Joseph, built his workshop in Nazareth near the caravan “parking lot.” It was in the location that Jesus became familiar with caravan conductors and passengers from the four corners of the earth.

By the time Jesus was six years old, he was being schooled in both Aramaic and Greek, with the help of a copy of the Hebrew scriptures – a complete version of the law and the prophets, including the Psalms – which had been presented to the little family on leaving Egypt.

There were only two complete copies of the Scriptures in Greek in all Nazareth, and the possession of one of them by the carpenter’s family made Joseph’s home a much-sought place and enabled Jesus, as he grew up, to meet an almost endless procession of earnest students and sincere truth seekers. Before this year ended, Jesus had assumed custody of this priceless manuscript, having been told on his sixth birthday that the sacred book had been presented to him by Alexandrian friends and relatives. And in a very short time he could read it readily.

But, fearing that the copy of the Greek scriptures might be discovered and confiscated by the tax collectors, Jesus, on his fifteenth birthday, presented it to the Nazareth synagogue library as his maturity offering to the Lord.

During this year, Jesus began to realize that his parents were not all-knowing, which was a shock to him.

His cousin, John (the Baptist) and his parents came to Nazareth to visit for the first time and the two boys got along like any other boys might have of that age.

Jesus developed a rich prayer life of communication with his heavenly father, and loved to spend his spare time studying flowers and plants by day and the starry skies at night.

In July of this year, Jesus fell down the stone stairs of the Nazareth home where there was a bedroom on the second floor. It was during a sandstorm and he was temporarily blinded by the blowing sand. It was an accidental fall and not anyone’s fault. But it prompted Joseph to put up a banister on the stairs

Because of Nazareth’s more liberal interpretations of the Sabbath laws, Joseph felt free to take Jesus out on Sabbath walks around town and into the hills. From the high hill near their home they could see all of Galilee. To the north they saw Mount Hermon and to the east the Jordan Valley. They could also observe the caravan trains going in and out of Nazareth

When they didn’t go to the hills, they walked through the surrounding countryside and Jesus became a devoted student of nature by observing her changeable moods through the seasons.

When Jesus was nine years old, he was artistically inclined; so much so that one day he drew a picture of the schoolroom teacher on the floor of the Nazareth classroom. One of his backward classmates discovered it and reported Jesus to the elders. It was against the commandments to draw such a picture. So, after they all had a look at it they went to Joseph and Mary with a demand that they do something about their “lawless” son. The elders blamed Joseph for not being more strict with Jesus, but Jesus defended his father and confronted the elders, throwing everyone into confusion. But in the end, he announced that he would obey his father, no matter what his decision. Joseph forbade him to do any more art, as it violated the second commandment against false idols. Drawing had been one of his favorite things to do, and it was a great disappointment to Jesus

When he was 13 years old, Jesus graduated from the local school that was connected with the Nazareth synagogue. He was pronounced “son of the commandment” and a “child of the Most High” and servant of the Lord of all the earth

When Joseph, Jesus’ earthly father died, Jesus was only 14 years old, the eldest of seven brothers and sisters and one still yet unborn. And when this happened, he had to take on the great responsibility of acting as father for these younger siblings and also caring for and protecting his widowed mother. He became their sole support and comfort. His responsibility for the Nazareth home and his Nazareth family became his primary focus and his primary purpose in life for the next twelve years.

Jesus seemed always to have an almost casual relationship with his heavenly Father, one that did not require formal, memorized prayers. And in his role of father/brother in the Nazareth home, he tried to encourage his brothers and sisters to express themselves individually and from their hearts when praying the way he liked to do. But they did not grasp this method of praying and would revert to their memorized prayers. He did try to to inject suggestive phrasing, and eventually he and his siblings developed a form of prayer from these suggestions. Jesus formulated this prayer for them and it became the beloved “Lord’s Prayer” that is still said by millions every day.

Jesus officially conducted his first service at the Nazareth synagogue when he was 15 years old. He selected the Scripture and read to the congregation. And afterwards, the townspeople pondered the words he had read to them. They were impressed by Jesus’ earnestness and his sincerity. They had never before seen this young man so authoritative or grown-up.

Later on this same Sabbath afternoon Jesus and James climbed the Nazareth hill together. And when they returned home, they wrote out the Ten Commandments on two smooth boards, which their sister Martha colored and decorated.

After his forty-day sojourn on Mount Hermon, Jesus returned to Nazareth with his first six apostles. And one of the most significant things he did there was to destroy the Ten Commandments board, along with all of his other writings that happened to be around the carpenter shop

This year, Jesus attained his full physical growth, as well as the full capacity of his human intellectual growth. He was handsome and virile, kind and sympathetic. He liked to smile, but his eye was searching. He was developing into a strong and attractive personality. He worked at manual labor at the workbench and his work was of a superior quality so that he was never idle. And when he was not busy at the workbench he spent every possible hour with the younger siblings, who truly loved him.

Jesus decided this year that he would enter into some sort of public life after his family duties were fulfilled. This public life would involve being a teacher of truth and a revealer of the Father to the world. But he kept these aspirations to himself.

When Jesus was just seventeen years old. A group of political activists called the Zealots came to Nazareth to recruit leaders for their cause which had to do with a rebellion against Roman taxation, among other things. They approached Jesus to become such a leader, but he knew he had to decline for more than just one reason. The pressure was great to join, but he was able to defuse the situation by appealing to the familial feelings of the people, who respected the fact that all of his time had to be devoted to the raising of his father’s family.

Jesus was very well-versed in Scripture and he was also a popular young man in Nazareth in his eighteenth year, although his popularity waned somewhat after the political crisis with the Zealots. When the local chazan started a philosophic discussion group, Jesus became a prominent member. And his participation in this group helped him to regain some of the prestige that he had lost.

In September of 12 CE, John the Baptist and his mother visited the Nazareth family for the second time. The first time was when the boys were only 6 years old, but now they were eighteen, and could talk seriously about their respective futures.

Rebecca, the daughter of a wealthy merchant of Nazareth, had fallen in love with Jesus. She was bold enough to propose marriage to him on the occasion of her seventeenth birthday which her father hosted at their home in Nazareth.

By the time Jesus was 25 years old, his little sister, Ruth, was about 5 years old. Jesus was the only father she had ever known, and he doted on her. He would allow her and her little playmates free access to the repair shop in Nazareth, where they played with blocks of wood, sand, and stones. And oftentimes Jesus would allow them to interrupt his seasons of meditation while he told them stories and helped them see and enjoy the lighthearted and playful side of life.

On a rainy Sunday morning in January of 21 CE, Jesus left his family and Nazareth. And he was never again a regular member of that family, or of the town of Nazareth. From time to time, he would come back to visit some family members, and he attended most of his siblings’ marriages, but he never lived there again.

Eight years later, in March of 29 CE, Jesus returned to Nazareth, which had been designated as the meeting place for himself and the apostles after their third preaching tour. They met at an encampment on the north side of the city and Thomas had arranged that Jesus should conduct the synagogue service in the Nazareth synagogue on the Sabbath.

After the service, Jesus was accosted by many of the townspeople, some of whom were quite hostile towards him. They had heard a lot about him since he left Nazareth, and they resented the fact that he did not include his hometown in any of his preaching tours, nor did he perform any of his great works there. Jesus did his best to keep the situation lighthearted, but some of his apostles created a disturbance, demanding that their Master be treated with more respect. This inflamed the crowd so much that they pushed and shoved him until he was at the precipice of a cliff, aiming to push him over. But Jesus simply crossed his arms and calmly turned to face them and they allowed him to pass safely past them.

But the message was clear. The people of Nazareth rejected Jesus, their celebrated one-time resident.