Saturday is a day we remember Mary, the Mother of Jesus, in our liturgy. She remained in the town where Jesus spent most of his life. He was rejected there when he began his mission in the towns along the Lake of Galilee. But Mary remained in Nazareth, occasionally visiting her Son, the gospels indicate. What was it like for her to live there then?
Archeologists and historians piece together some facts about the place where the Word made flesh dwelt. John Meier’s, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, Vol 1, New York,1991, offers a lengthy assessment of what the gospels and other early sources say about his parents, his family status, the language he spoke, his education, his own place in society.
In his book, Meier criticizes the popular over-reliance on apocryphal literature like the Gospel of Thomas–which colors so many media presentations about Jesus today– and asks why more attention isn’t given instead to the more reliable New Testament and patristic writers of the “great church.’
For the gospel writers, especially Mark, leaving your own town and place was part of a prophet’s mission, Meier says, and so they have little to say about any connections Jesus had with his hometown during his ministry. Besides the story of his rejection there, Mark records some unpleasant visits from his family to Capernaum. (Mark 3, 21; 3,31-35) That explains somewhat the silence about Jesus’ hometown.
John’s gospel, though, mentions that after the wedding at Cana in Galilee, Jesus “went down to Capernaum with his mother, his brothers, and his disciples and remained there for a few days.” (John 2,12)
So there wasn’t a radical break.
Later, some from Nazareth took up his cause. Though not part of his public ministry, people from Nazareth were there when he died. In John’s gospel, Mary, his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clophas–all presumably from Nazareth– stand beneath his cross with one of his disciples, and Jesus gives his mother into the disciple’s care.
The Acts of the Apostles say that Mary, his mother, along with “certain women’ and “his brothers” join in prayer with the eleven disciples after Jesus ascends into heaven. (Acts 1,14)
James, called the Just, likely one of those brothers mentioned in Acts, became a leader of the Jerusalem church. Paul met him a number of times, beginning shortly after his conversion . “Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to confer with Cephas and remained with him for fifteen days. But I did not see any other of the apostles, only James the brother of the Lord.” (Galatians 1,18-19)
Paul notes too that Jesus appeared to James after his resurrection. “…He appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles”
James continued to be a highly respected leader of the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem and probably met his death there in 62 AD, for resisting the pressure of the Jewish authorities to limit the growth of that faith in the city.
He’s the author of the Epistle of James, a hard-hitting appeal for social justice. “If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,’ and you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that. So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.” ( James 2,15-17) Besides James, a number of relatives of Jesus became leaders in the new Christian movement.
What about Joseph, considered the father of Jesus? The silence of early sources seems to indicate that he died before Jesus began his ministry.
Others from Nazareth must have found Jesus “too much for them.” Early sources speak of the Ebionites, Jewish Christians who thought that Jesus of Nazareth was indeed the messiah, but not the Son of God born of a virgin. There must have been some too from his native place who considered him a fraud. Jesus of Nazareth cast a dividing fire on the earth. “From now on five in one house will be divided, three against two and two against three…” (Luke 12,52)
But what about the Nazareth itself? The town was certainly affected by the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, which reduced the presence of Jewish Christianity and Judaism throughout that land. When Jerusalem was rebuilt, gentile Christians became leaders of the Christian church there. Some relatives of Jesus still lived as farmers in Nazareth and kept memories of him alive, but their relationship meant less and less as time went by.
Hegesippus, a Jewish Christian writer of the 2nd century, says that at the end of the 1st century, Zocer and James, descendants of Jude, a relative of Jesus, were called to Rome for questioning by the Emperor Domitian, because of suspicions that as descendants of David they might lay claim to his throne.
The emperor’s fears vanished when he saw the poor bedraggled farmers with callused hands standing before him, and he immediately sent them home.
In the 3rd century, another relative of Jesus, Conon, was arrested and stated that he was from Nazareth and was related to Christ. He was put to death; a shrine to him was built in the town and remains can still be seen.
Today Nazareth is a sprawling new city, the regional capital of Galilee, with over 60,000 people, the majority Moslem. Ancient and modern Christian shrines have been built over the old town. and remnants of the houses like the one where Jesus and his family once lived have been unearthed.
As with other great places of the past–Rome, Athens, Constantinople–the right kind of eye lets you see great things in this ancient town.
We should think on Saturdays about what was it like for Mary in Nazareth. It must have tested her faith.
