So the people of Galilee varied from being extremely poor to extraordinarily wealthy. During the reign of Herod, even though the taxes were high to pay for all of his building projects, like the Temple in Jerusalem, almost everyone benefited from the economic activity. The standard of living was raised for everyone across the board. The truth is that around the time Jesus was born, people were doing very well financially. Even the peasants, which is the group Jesus was a part of, were doing very well.

Unlike today, where there are so many different types of jobs a person can find, there were only a handful of jobs in the ancient world. So at the bottom end were things like farming and agriculture. This is what 70% of the population did. A little higher up were things like construction and stone masonry. A little higher after that were things like fishing, metallurgy and glass works.

You probably remember that most of the people who Jesus recruits to be his disciples are fisherman. Fisherman made good money. Although it’s a bit of an anachronism because there was no such thing as a middle class, fisherman made enough money that, in today’s world, they would be thought of as middle class. At the top of the heap were the merchants who bought and sold goods. Beyond the merchants, you then jumped to families who owned lots of land and held extraordinary wealth.

Now I told you all in my last sermon that directly after Herod died, there was a man named Judas the Galilean who attacked the city of Sepphoris. This was a city that was home to these ultrawealthy Jews. When Judas attacked the city and raided Herod’s royal armory, the Roman army came after him and, as I detailed for you last time, decimated Judas and his followers. The Roman army then burned the city to the ground because they were angry at these wealthy Jews for not better guarding these weapons.

Interestingly, Sepphoris is only five miles away from the town of Nazareth, which of course is where Jesus is from. I told you in the last sermon that Jesus was likely born around the time of the destruction of Sepphoris. So if Sepphoris was home to some of the wealthiest citizens in Galilee, Nazareth was home to some of the poorest.

If you look at maps of ancient Nazareth, you will notice that Nazareth is located in a hill region. In Jesus’ day, Nazareth was home to about 100 families. It was so remote that if you look at the lists of towns in Galilee, which were used by the Roman government for the purposes of taxation, Nazareth isn’t even mentioned.

Nazareth was so remote and so inconsequential that the Roman government didn’t even to bother to log it into their official records. Nazareth was, for lack of a better description, a backwater town in the middle of nowhere. A good analogy might be to think of the hill country of West Virginia (no offense to anyone who might have grown up there). There are towns in West Virginia that are up in the mountains and so off the beaten path with so few people living in them that Google maps doesn’t even register their existence.

So this little village of about 2-300 people is in the middle of nowhere and they didn’t have a lot. Most of these people would have lived off the land, which, by the way, wasn’t very farmable because they were up in the hill country. Living in Nazareth would have been a very hard life and, the community, for the most part, would have been isolated from the rest of the world.

If we think of Nazareth as being like a town in the hills of West Virginia, there’s other similarities as well. Growing up in Virginia, West Virginians are known for their accents, which are very thick and hard to understand. This would have been true of Nazareth. The people of Nazareth would have had a very thick drawl when speaking Aramaic. For lack of a better description, Jesus would have sounded like a hick.

Another way that West Virginia is a good analogy is the lack of education in the hill country. I’ve done a lot of mission trips to West Virginia and the schools there are deplorable because they don’t have sufficient resources. The people of Nazareth were horribly uneducated. Although the gospels refer to a synagogue in Nazareth, which is where learning would have taken place, archaeologists who have excavated ancient Nazareth have never found one. Therefore, it is likely that everyone in Nazareth was illiterate and uneducated.

They were what we would have referred to as cultural Jews. They didn’t really know the scriptures, but they followed a lot of the traditions. One of those traditions was that, if you were a girl and you got pregnant out of wedlock, the elders of the town would stone you to death. We don’t often think of Mary as being subject to such harsh punishment because she’s giving birth to Jesus, but consider the fact that she’s pregnant before she’s married. That’s a dangerous proposition, particularly for a teenage girl living in such a small, isolated community, like Nazareth.

Now the scriptures tell us that once it becomes known that Mary is pregnant with Jesus, one of two things happens allowing her to avoid the punishment of stoning. According to the gospel of Matthew, Joseph, her fiancé, revokes his right to have Mary executed. Basically, the scripture says that, because Joseph was a good guy, he was just going to divorce her quietly so that she wouldn’t be killed.

The other explanation, which is given by Luke, is that Mary goes and lives with her cousin Elizabeth so she can come to term outside of the community of Nazareth. In essence, her parents find out that she’s pregnant and, in an effort to save her life, send her away so that the family doesn’t have to deal with the disgrace. The truth is that we don’t know what actually happened. We don’t know if Matthew is right or if Luke is right or maybe they’re both right or maybe they’re both wrong.

Another plausible scenario is that Mary got pregnant with Jesus before she was engaged. Under these conditions, Mary would not be stoned to death. Yes, it would be a hit to her family’s reputation, but the law of stoning only applies if you are engaged or married. As long as neither of those things are a factor, then you’re off the hook. The biggest challenge for Mary would have been finding a husband. Being pregnant out of wedlock would mean she’s no longer eligible for marriage. However, if there is any truth to the story of Joseph, then he was willing to marry her regardless.

Now, I’ve spent a lot of time so far talking to you about Nazareth, which is where Jesus grew up. In fact, as Jesus’ fame grew in the region of Galilee, he was known as Jesus of Nazareth. So that’s how important Nazareth was to Jesus’ identity. And yet, the scripture we read this morning tells us that Jesus is born in Bethlehem, not Nazareth. The reason for this is that, according to Luke, Emperor Augustus required that a census be taken of the whole Roman Empire.

Like here in America, the whole point of a census is so that you know how many people you’ve got and how many people you can tax. According to the story, there is a requirement that every person go back to the town of your tribe. Joseph takes Mary, who is basically at full term, with him to Bethlehem so that he can be counted in the census.

There are a few historical problems with this story. The first has to do with the census itself. So it is true that Augustus ordered a census be taken of the subjects of the Roman Empire. No problem there. The issue is that a census is taken based on where people are currently living, not where they’re originally from. So if you live in Bethlehem, I want count you as living in Bethlehem so my tax collectors can find you and collect taxes from you in Bethlehem.

If everyone had to travel back to their town of origin, it would be total and complete chaos keeping track of who lives where and how much tax revenue I can expect to gather from a particular area. The second issue, which is actually much bigger than the first, is that the census took place in 6 A.D. That’s ten years after Herod the Great died. And what the gospels tell us is that Jesus was born when Herod was still alive, which means Jesus was likely born around 4 B.C.
You can’t have it both ways. You can’t have Jesus be born while Herod is alive and have Jesus born during the census. Doesn’t work. Clearly, the purpose of having Jesus born in Bethlehem is that Luke wants the readers to associate Jesus with King David. David was from Bethlehem and became king of Israel. Jesus being born in Bethlehem signals to the readers that, as the messiah, Jesus will be the new King David. Jesus will be the new king of Israel.

The other story we read is from the gospel of Matthew. After Jesus is born, an angel appears to Joseph, his adoptive father, and tells Joseph to flee with Mary and Jesus to Egypt because Herod is going to kill all the baby boys in and around Bethlehem. Again, this is historically suspect. There is no record of Herod ever doing this and we have records of him doing lots of horrific things. So had he committed mass infanticide, I think it would have made the list for sure.
Again, this is a literary feature. Matthew wants the reader to associate Jesus with Bethlehem because of David, but he also wants an excuse for Jesus to end up in Egypt. Jesus’ father is named Joseph and, of course, in Genesis, Joseph is taken as a slave to Egypt. For those familiar with the stories in Judaism, the parallel would have been obvious. Joseph rose up from slavery to become the savior of the Jewish people by saving his family and the Egyptians from death. Jesus will rise up from nothing to do the same for his people.

So all this raises a really interesting question: if we were writing out Jesus’ birth certificate, what would we put as his place of birth? Where exactly was Jesus born? I think most of us would write Bethlehem, but knowing what we know now, that’s not such a sure bet. Well, personally, I don’t think it’s real hard to figure out. It’s attached to his name. Jesus was born and raised in Nazareth. That’s why he’s called Jesus of Nazareth.

And the fact that Jesus was born in Nazareth is actually really important. In fact, in my opinion, it’s more important than Jesus being born in Bethlehem. The culture of Nazareth and how Jesus would have been treated as a child born out of wedlock would play an important role in defining the Christian faith. As a child who was the product of infidelity (or at least perceived infidelity), not unlike American culture 70 years ago, the people of Nazareth would have treated Jesus as an outcast. No family of standing would have wanted their daughter to marry Jesus. Therefore, he was among those rejected by society, which is why Jesus’ message is catered towards the downtrodden and the outcast.

I think this is something we need to keep in mind as we are barreling towards Christmas Eve. Jesus’ birth is a day to be celebrated. Jesus’ birth is good news for the world. But what I see happening in many churches is how that good news is watered down or completely whitewashed. What you will hear in many churches is that the good news of Jesus’ birth is that Jesus came to save us so we wouldn’t suffer an eternity in hell. To me, that completely misses the point of why Jesus’ birth is good news.

For me, Jesus’ birth is so critically important because his life, which begins in Nazareth, defines everything about how I am supposed to live my life. Jesus was born an outcast and he tells me that I am to be a friend to the outcast. Jesus was born into poverty and he tells me that it is my responsibility to help raise people out of poverty. Jesus was born into a harsh and violent world and he tells me that I am to love my enemy, turn the other cheek and embrace radical kindness.

Jesus’ birth was revolutionary because, from the moment he was born, the world would never be the same. That day, 2000 years ago, would begin a movement that has transformed each subsequent generations of his followers. If you declare yourself to be a Christian, a follower of Jesus, then you are part of that revolution. You have dedicated your life to a cause that promises, over a long enough period of time, to transform the world into God’s kingdom where everyone has enough food to eat, everyone has a roof over their head, everyone is treated for their illnesses, no one is forgotten.
That’s what began in Nazareth on Christmas Eve 2000 years ago and that’s what I look forward to celebrating with you Friday evening. I look forward to seeing you on Christmas Eve and, for those of you travelling out of town, if I don’t get to see you, may I wish you a very Merry Christmas! Amen.