Christmas has come. Christ has brought joy to the world. Now what? As much as we’d love to stay by the manger adoring the child that is born to us — who doesn’t love to just sit and look at a sleeping newborn — we can’t stay here. He is not staying here. As we ponder our next steps as Christmas rolls into Epiphany, perhaps we could take some direction from Mary and Joseph and what they did after their pride and joy brought joy to the world.
So what did Mary and Joseph do after the most significant event in their entire lives? After the shepherds showed up with stories of angelic armies singing….after the magi arrived from Babylon with tales of guiding lights and valuable gifts…after the prophets in the temple…after the dream warning them to escape to Egypt for their lives. After all of that, what did they do?
“When Joseph and Mary had done everything required by the Law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee to their own town of Nazareth. And the child grew and became strong; he was filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was on him.” In short, they went home and went about the business of a quiet, normal life devoted to God. I think there is a valuable lesson in this less than memorable verse.
God works through ordinary faithfulness. Sometimes we forget that the bible is a sort of greatest hits of history as it pertains to the majestic or miraculous works of God. Interspersed between talking snakes and talking donkeys, between parting seas and walking on water, between lions that are put on a boat and prophets that are put in lion’s dens, there is thousands of years and countless days of not much worth reporting. Washing dishes, doing laundry, cooking dinner, taking naps, praying, working, traveling. All the same things we do on a regular basis. Not even most of the Bible is walking on water or parting the sea, it’s just living life.
Mary and Joseph went back home and followed the will and wisdom of God as loyally as the magi followed the star from Babylon to Bethlehem, and you know what, God worked through ordinary faithfulness more than extraordinary circumstances, even in the life of His own Son. With the exception of one story of Jesus in the temple when He was twelve, we know nothing of the life of Jesus from around two to thirty.
The holy is hidden in ordinary places. They went about living normal lives, they returned to Galilee to their own town of Nazareth. Jesus grew up far away from palaces and priests and the temple, in a place people didn’t think was good for much of anything. We all dream of doing big things for God and making a huge impact for Jesus on a large scale and in a big venue — and that very well may be your lot in life — but even most of the life of Jesus was unremarkable enough to include in the story of Scripture. Perhaps our biggest contribution to the story of Jesus is just showing up and sharing your lunch on a day Jesus decides to throw a banquet for a few thousand people. What God is looking for is people who are willing to show up in the middle of nowhere, when no one is looking, to do a little thing that many would find beneath them. Places like hospitals, nursing homes, and prisons. Places where someone is sick, or lonely, or scared. He wants people to show up and do simple things like mow a lawn, take out trash, wash dishes, cook a meal, hold a hand, or say a prayer. He that is faithful over a few things I will make ruler over many things.
He wants these things because spiritual growth is a process without shortcuts. Even Jesus had to grow and mature and it took time. Growth is slow, formation is gradual and God is not impatient with us in the process. Before Jesus teaches, heals, or saves, he grows—in a faithful family, in a forgotten town, under the favor of God. He learns to obey His parents. He learns to read scripture. He learns to pray. He learns to do carpentry. Obedience matters, obscurity is not abandonment, and growth is holy work. If God was at work in Nazareth, God is at work here, wherever and whenever “here” is.
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