Nazareth in Galilee

At that time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. (1:9)

Mark explained that Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee to the Jordan River where Baptist John was baptizing. It means that the hometown of Jesus is Nazareth in Galilee. Galilee was the whole area of northern province in Israel. The central province was Samaria, and the southern part was Judea. Judea was the province with legitimacy as descent of King David's royalty, Samaria was not acknowledged for their impurity of blood because of interracial marriages with Gentiles, and Galilee was regarded as the legitimate Judea's people but it was again discriminated because of the faraway locations from the Jerusalem, the capital city with the temple.

Throughout history of ancient kingdom, Galilee including Samaria had been having hostile relations with Judea. After King Solomon died, the kingdom was divided with the north and the south. The broad provinces including Galilee as well as Samaria were where General Jeroboam founded a country as the name of Israel, when King Solomon was still living. It was a big land and there were lots of people. It was the result of public alienations from the ruthless administration of Solomon, who was known as the king of wisdom. Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, could have a small land of southern Judea. Northern Israel was conquered by Assyria before Southern Judea was. Maybe at that time many people in Galilee and Samaria were captured as prisoners and those provinces must be colonized by Assyria. Then Samaritans got married with the Gentiles, and henceforth, they were looked down upon by other Israelites.

Galilee also was governed by Assyria but they were different from Samaria. They did not marry interracially. Probably people in Galilee might have some resistant tendency. When we see that the central government in Rome regarded Galilee as very dangerous place, we could guess how fearful their tendency could be. We didn’t know how strong their resistant tendency was, but there was a beautiful lake in Galilee. It was the Lake Galilee. Jesus declared the good news of God's kingdom near the Lake Galilee. Capernaum, Bethsaida, Gennesaret, Magdalene, and are the towns surrounding this lake. This lake might cleanse the harsh hearts of Galilee people. When Jesus was a child as well as a youth, the environmental factors in this Galilee region might give some strong impact on him. Nazareth in Galilee, being looked down with cynical criticism like "how could anything good come from there?", was the hometown of Jesus, where it had decided the fate of Jesus.

The fact that the hometown of Jesus was not Jerusalem but Nazareth in Galilee means that salvation of God have started from the unexpected place by an unexpected way. Jesus was not such a special person with any social privileges, fame, and any special achievements. In this point of view, it is necessary for us to have eyesight which could peel off the stereotyped viewpoints built upon by society. We'd better change our way of living in which we regard living in the big cities like Seoul as very worthwhile, even though there could be inevitable circumstances. Where could Nazareth in Galilee be to us today?

Lord, give us wisdom to find out our spiritual hometown. Amen.