March 21

The Return to Nazareth

He came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. — John 4:47

It was a hard place for Him to visit and to preach in. He had lived there from infancy. The young people knew Him as schoolmate and playfellow, and as the village carpenter. One day He went away from home, and soon there began to come back strange reports about Him. Up in Jerusalem and in other places, it was said, He was performing miracles and preaching with wonderful power, and people everywhere were thronging to hear Him, and bringing out their sick to be healed by Him.

It requires no deep insight into human nature to know how His neighbours would regard all this. In their envy they would sneer at the reports about Him. He was only a carpenter! Then one day He came home again, and went to the village church and preached. But they could not endure to hear His words, and they were filled with wrath, and rose up and cast Him out of the town, and tried to hurl Him over a precipice to kill Him.

There are some lessons which we ought to gather from this visit of Jesus to His old home. One is that we ought to seek the salvation of our neighbours and friends, not turning our back upon our old home, though we may have grown great and famous elsewhere. Another is that as young people we ought to live so carefully that when we grow up we may be able to stand up in the midst of those who have always known us and bear testimony for Christ. There are some good men now whose preaching would have but little effect where they were brought up, because of the way they lived when they were at home in youth. But Jesus’ life had been so pure and blameless that he had no need to blush when he looked His old neighbours in the face and began to preach to them. Every young person should so live that he will never be ashamed to hear again of anything he has ever done.