In our Wednesday night services, we’re looking
at the sacrifices of Jesus. We know that Jesus sacrificed his life on
earth, dying on a cross, taking the punishment that should have gone to us for
our sins, making it possible for our sins to be forgiven. But Jesus
sacrificed other things, too, and we’re looking at some of those other
things. Tonight, we look at something
else Jesus sacrificed. He sacrificed
having a home.
As we know, Jesus was born in Bethlehem. Then,
because his family was on the run, trying to escape King Herod, they moved to
Egypt and stayed there for a while, maybe as much as two years. But they
moved back to Nazareth when Jesus was about three or four years old. And Jesus lived there until he started his
ministry, which we think he did around age thirty.
It’s pretty safe to say, then, that Nazareth was really the
only home Jesus had ever known. Now, Nazareth, in Jesus’ time, was a
small town. People think it had around
four or five hundred people. So, smaller than Gettysburg. Smaller than Onida. Probably more-or-less the size of Hoven. And, like a lot of our small towns, many of
the people who lived there were related to each other.
That’s the town Jesus grew up in. We don’t know
anything about his early life, but we assume that he was probably pretty much
like the other little kids in Nazareth. I mean, maybe he did not get into
trouble as much as some of the other kids--he might have been different in that
way. But it’s not like he was out preaching
and teaching and baptizing when he was six years old or something. At
least, it sure seems like we’d know about it if he had.
So, Jesus presumably would’ve done what a lot of other
little kids did. He’d have played games like hopscotch and jacks--they
had games similar to that back then. He’d have played with whistles and
hoops. Maybe Mary and Joseph had to tell
him to stop blowing that whistle and be quiet, I don’t know.
As he got older, he’d probably
have gone to help Joseph at the carpenter shop. Eventually, he took over
the shop from Joseph. I read that
tradesmen wore symbols so people could immediately recognize who they were and
what they did. For a carpenter, it was a wood chip behind the ear. It’s kind of interesting to picture Jesus
walking around with a wood chip behind his ear.
We’re told in the Bible that
Jesus had four brothers. You heard their names: James, Joseph, Judas, and Simon. These
would not have been the same James, Joseph, Judas, and Simon who later became
Jesus’ disciples. I assume those were probably common names at that time,
so there may have been lots of men with those names. There’s also a
reference to sisters, although we don’t get their names. It appears that Nazareth was their home, too.
So that was Jesus’ life through
age thirty. Living in the same town he’d grown up in. Knowing everybody there, the way you do in a
small town. Probably not leaving it very often, because travel was not very
easy. An annual trip to Jerusalem for
the Passover, and maybe sometimes trips there for various holy feasts.
Probably living by a routine. Get
up, have breakfast, go to work, eat lunch, work some more, come home for
supper. Maybe relax a little in the
evening, then go to bed and do it again the next day. A life just like
most people’s lives.
Most of us can relate to a life
like that. Some of us have lived here in Gettysburg pretty much all your
lives. And of those who have not, some of us have lived here quiet a long
time now. And we live a life pretty much like Jesus’ life. It’s easier to travel now, but most of us do
what Jesus did. Get up, have breakfast, go to work, eat lunch, work some
more, come home for supper. Relax a
little in the evening, go to bed, do it again the next day. And most of
us are pretty much okay with that. I
mean, we might complain about our jobs--most of us do that once in a while. But they’re okay, and we’re used to them.
We’re used to the life we have, and we’re comfortable with it.
Jesus was probably comfortable
with it, too. But he knew it was not going to last forever. We don’t know at what stage he knew that, but
at some point along the line--maybe when he was young, maybe when he was
older--Jesus knew who he was at what he was supposed to do. He may not
have known exactly when it was going to happen, or he may have. But Jesus knew he would have to give up his
quiet, comfortable life in Nazareth. He
knew he was going to have to do what he’d been sent here to do. He knew he was going to have to set out on
the road--a road that would, inevitably, lead to his death on a cross.
Think about how that must’ve
felt. He did it willingly. He did
it because he knew it was what God the Father wanted him to do. But
still, Jesus was fully human as well as fully divine. I assume he’d have had some of the same
feelings you and I would have. Now, maybe he was eager to get started--the
thought of starting a new adventure can energize us sometimes. But he also may have been kind of scared.
He may have been kind of reluctant to leave. He knew it was what he was supposed to do. He knew it was what God the Father wanted him
to do. He did it willingly. But he
still may have wished he did not have to do it.
He may even have been kind of sad about it.
Could you do it? Would
you do it? Would you just walk away from
the only life you’d ever known? Would you just walk away from your job,
from your home town, from your family, from your friends? Would you just
walk away from everything and go into an unknown future?
There are some of us here
who’ve packed up and moved, of course. We’ve left our home towns for
something different. But most of the
time, we left knowing what we moving toward. We left knowing that we were
moving to something better. We moved
because it was our choice. We may have
felt God prompting us, but still we made the ultimate decision. We sat
down and weighed the pros and cons and made the decision that moving was what
we wanted to do. And we made the
decision having some idea what was waiting for us. We might not have known all of it, but
usually, when we move, we know what our new job is going to be and where we’re
going to live.
Jesus did not have that.
Jesus walked away with no place to live. He walked away alone,
maybe not having any idea who he’d meet along the way. He gave up the
certainty, the solidity, the quiet calmness of life as a small-town carpenter,
for an unknown future. The only thing he may have really known for sure
about it was the ending, and that ending was not a pleasant one. That ending was dying on a cross. When
you think about it, that was quite a sacrifice Jesus made.
And if he ever thought about
going back to his old life, our Bible reading tonight probably ended that
thought. Jesus goes back to Nazareth, back to his home town. We’re not told why he went there or what kind
of reception he thought he’d get. But it was not good. Jesus taught in the synagogue, and the
reaction of the people was “Who does he think he is, anyway? What’s he doing up there, acting like he’s so
smart and so holy? He’s no better than the rest of us.” Jesus was rejected in his home town. He was rejected by the people he’d grown up
with and had known all his life. Even if
he knew it would happen, even if he was expecting it, it had to hurt.
Leaving home, leaving the only
life he had ever known, leaving all of his friends and family behind, was quite
a sacrifice Jesus made. He made it because he knew it was what God the
Father wanted. And he made it out of
love. Love for God the Father, and love
for you and me.
God the Father asks us to do
things sometimes, too. And sometimes, they require sacrifices of us. Those sacrifices may not require us to leave
behind our entire way of life, although they may, too. But those
sacrifices may require us to give up our quiet lifestyle. Those sacrifices may require us to step out
in faith. Those sacrifices may require
us to give up the certainty we think we have in our lives and take a chance on
an unknown future. And those sacrifices may require us to risk rejection,
too.
It’s not easy to do that.
It may not have been easy for Jesus. It’s no more easy for us. Stepping out in faith, trusting God, leaving
the comfortable and the familiar behind, trusting Tod to take care of us in an
unknown future--that’s all hard. It’s especially hard when we don’t know
how things are going to go. It’s also
especially hard when we have no guarantee of what we’d call a happy
ending. Following God the Father
certainly did not lead to a happy ending for Jesus. Again, it led to
death on a cross.
But you know, that’s not really
true. Jesus’ death on a cross did lead to a happy ending. Jesus
death was hard and painful and awful. I
don’t mean to minimize it at all. But it led to Jesus’ resurrection,
conquering death itself not just for himself, but for all of us. It led
to the chance of salvation and eternal life for everyone, if we accept Jesus as
the Savior. That’s about the happiest
ending there could be.
And if you and I follow God the
Father, if we go where God wants us to go and do what God wants us to do, we’ll
have a happy ending, too. That happy ending may not happen on earth. But if we stay faithful to Jesus and follow
God, we most certainly will have a happy ending in heaven.
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