Section 5
Jesus' birth foretold to Mary
Nazareth
Luke 1:26-38
26In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town of Galilee called Nazareth, 27to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin's name was Mary. 28The angel came to her and said, “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you! Blessed are you among women!” 29But when Mary saw him, she was greatly perplexed by his statement and began wondering what sort of greeting this might be. 30Then the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. 31And behold, you will conceive in your womb and give birth to a son, and you shall name him Jesus. 32He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David. 33He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” 34Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?” 35The angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the holy child that is to be born will be called the Son of God. 36And behold, your relative Elizabeth has also conceived a son in her old age, and this is the sixth month for her who was called barren. 37For nothing is impossible with God.” 38Then Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; may it happen to me according to your word.” And the angel went away from her.
Notes
Nazareth
The bustling city which seems to swarm like a beehive of activity around the Basilica of the Annunciation does not seem to fit our mental image of the insignificant village in which Jesus grew up.
One look from those hillsides of the Nazareth Ridge will erase a lifetime’s worth of impressions from sermons about the isolation of Nazareth. Here you have a panoramic view of the northeastern part of the Jezreel Valley. These hillsides witnessed the battles of Deborah and Barak against Sisera and the Canaanites from Hazor (Judges 4 5), Elijah’s raising of the widow’s son from the dead at Shunem (2 Kings 4:32-35), and Jesus’ similar raising of the widow’s son at Nain (Luke 7:11-15).
Nazareth is next to, but not directly on, the most important road through Israel. This is hardly the “out of the way” place that many people expect to see. In Jesus’ day, Nazareth was a village nestled in the “bowl” created by the higher hills surrounding it. The village could never sustain a large population, as it had only one good spring and the soil was not very fertile. The spring trickles from a limestone crypt; it would have been here that Mary drew water for her family.