Nazareth Manifesto
Dr. John K. Mathew
It was at that obscure village he grew up, JESUS OF NAZARETH, the Savior of the world. It is so amazing that this solitary figure,'tender shoot' in the words of Isaiah, turned the world upside down.
His teaching was so simple.
His life was so humble
His stories were so effective.
his parables were so authentic.
His love so wonderful.
His transforming power so amazing.
Halley's Bible handbook reads: His appearance on the earth is the central event of all history.
The Old testament sets the stage for it. The new Testament describes it.
As a man, He lived the most strangely beautiful life ever known.
He was the kindest, tenderest, gentlest, most patient, most sympathetic man that ever lived.
He loved people. He hated to see people in trouble.
He loved to forgive. He loved to help.
He wrought marvelous miracles to feed hungry people.
He forsook food Himself, to relieve the suffering.
Multitudes - weary, pain ridden and heart sick, came to Him, and found healing and relief.
It is said of Him, and of no other, that if all the deeds of kindness that He did were written, the world would not contain the books.
That is the kind of man Jesus was.That is the kind of person God is"
Nazareth can be proud that the embodiment of love and sacrifice lived there and changed the world with his simple manifesto.
"Nazareth! Can anything good come from there? Nathanael asked. "Come and see", said Philip." (John 1:46).
Two towns, Nazareth and Capernaum, are given particular significance in the account of Jesus' time, in Galilee.
Nazareth was then little more than a village. It is a symbol of the Jewish rejection of Jesus, all the more piognant, because it was His home.
All the Synoptic Gospels record Jesus' teaching in the Synagogue there, the unbelief that greeted Him, and His response that "a prophet is not without honor except in his own country".
Nobody can blame Nathanael for his response because the village is not mentioned in the Old Testament as a place of importance in the Jewish history.
But Nazareth bacame the epicenter of a silent yet a profound revolution.