My apologies. I realized today that I hadn't posted Stop #4 this past Sunday, so I'm doubling up today.
Stop #4: Nazareth (again)
Historical Notes:
Then Jesus went to
Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath he went as usual to
the synagogue. He stood up to read the
Scriptures and was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah. He unrolled the scroll and found the place
where it is written, ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has chosen
me to bring good news to the poor, He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the
captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free the oppressed and
announce that the time has come when the Lord will save his people.” (Luke
4:16-19)
When Jesus began his public ministry, he returned home to Nazareth and preached in the synagogue. His sermon on that occasion is best understood as the inaugural proclamation for his entire ministry, for in identifying himself with Isaiah 61:1-2, Jesus provided the context for all his subsequent actions. Other than when it is used to identify Jesus – Jesus of Nazareth – the town does not appear again in the New Testament. Its insignificance is evident in Nathanael’s remark, “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” (John 1:46). Nazareth today is anything but insignificant. As a major Christian city in Israel, it is visited by thousands of pilgrims each year. Indeed, Nazareth is so linked with Christianity that the modern Hebrew word for Christians is derived from the name of the town – Notzrim.
Read Luke 4:16-30
You can watch a short video on Nazareth. Watch for what the carpenters are making in
the reenactment village.
Stop #5 – Sea of Galilee
Historical Notes:
Following his baptism,
“Jesus returned from the Jordan full of the Holy Spirit and was led by the
Spirit into the desert.” (Luke 4:1).
Just as the site of Jesus’ baptism is uncertain, so is the site of his
wilderness sojourn. Tradition has placed
the scene of Jesus’ wrestling with temptation in the barren hills of
Jericho. Upon his return from the
wilderness, Jesus sojourned north to Galilee and chose his disciples.
How appropriate that Jesus used the language of fishing to call these new disciples! Since they depended on fishing for their livelihood, he used an image from their everyday struggle to call them to a vision of the new struggle. Fishing has taken place in the Sea of Galilee for centuries. An early name for that body of water was the Lake of Chinnereth, named after a nearby town. The word Chinnereth means “lyre,” and either referred to the shape of the town or the shape of the lake. Other names in the New Testament, referring to the same body of water, are Lake Gennesaret (Luke 5:1) and the Sea of Tiberius (John 6:1). Today the visitor to the Sea of Galilee finds a lake much larger than expected, yet as beautiful and peaceful as hoped for. F.F.Bruce wrote, “the modern visitor finds it difficult to envisage the thriving towns which surrounded the lake in Jesus’ time. The lake teemed with fish, which provided a living for many of the inhabitants of those towns. The fish they caught were not only sent to other parts of Palestine and Transjordan, but were salted and exported to other lands.”
Read Matthew 4:18-22
Watch this YouTube teaching video of Dr. Todd Fink explaining the importance of the Sea of Galilee during Christ’s life.
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