ENTERING NAZARETH

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Jun 17, 1875

ENTERING NAZARETH.

I often felt as if it were a kind of violence to ride on horseback into the town where the Messiah lived and labored. Who were we, that we should rush in with our trampling steeds where he had humbly walked? I could understand how that Crusader felt, who refused to be crowned with gold where the Master was crowned with thorns. At our first entry into Nazareth this idea rushed upon me with overwhelming power. The night had come down just as we had finished our long gallop across the plain of Esdraelon, and it was quite dark when we begun the rough scramble up the long rocky glen that winds among the hills up to Nazareth. It was so dark, and the path so narrow and rough, that we trusted rather to our horses than to our own guidance; the solemnity of the place and the night pressed upon us all, and no one had much to say. Suddenly, like a thought unthought before, like a discovery, it flashed upon me, "Down this path the great God-man must have come many a time." I could not keep my tongue from speaking it. I was filled with a melting sense of the meekness and gentleness of Christ. If we ourselves could walk even as he walked! It was easy then and there to become as an infant before God, and to hear the baby song again:—

Gentle Jesus, meek and mild, Look upon a little child.

Why did I never so well understand before, how he humbled himself and took upon himself the form of a servant? How shameful appears that thing which we call pride, when we consider him! "He shall be called a Nazarene." So he was known among men by the lowest of titles. Jesus of Nazareth was the stigma that pursued him to the cross, and was written upon it. That one good thing that came out of Nazareth hath left a fragrance upon the very name of the Galilean town; a fragrance not to be dissipated by the years of a thousand generations. He was not called a Roman, but a Nazarene. O my Lord, with what weariness of feet didst thou climb these silent, solemn hills? If we could have been with thee then! If we could have put an arm of love around thee, to stay thy trembling steps, or could have spoken a word of love to cheer the sad Nazarene!

THE TOWN AND ITS OUTLOOK.

Nazareth is probably a larger town now than when Christ lived in it. It lies on the warm side of the hills, at a good elevation, and has some life and activity. There can be heard the sound of the hammer on the anvil, and other sounds of honest work. Here and there a new house was going up, seeming to testify that the little city has a future as well as a past. Yet there is nothing at all to keep the place alive; except that all men know that Jesus had here his home. But the name of Jesus is enough. We are told that Schliemann kept his Trojan excavation from being violated by inventing a story about Jesus Christ's having walked down the streets of Troy. If there be such power in the mere sound of the Messiah's name, what power must be in himself! There is a famous view to be had from the top of Nazareth hill. The ancient sea shines clear and broad, and the valley where rolls "that ancient river, the river Kishon." The mountains are round about Nazareth as they are about Jerusalem, and each of these "earth-works" has its own grandeur of outline and solemnity of color against that sweet Syrian sky. Tabor shows his round and shapely top over irregular masses of hills, like a helmeted head shining above a throng of common men. Carmel runs his long line seaward, his flanks shaggy with forests; and a forest-covered mountain is a welcome sight in this bare land, and reminds us of mountains we have seen beyond the sea. But in looking over "all that wide, extended scene," the one thought that blossoms like a flower in the heart, and leaps like a fountain to the lips, is: "The Lord himself looked upon this scene." Yea, that glorious landscape must have been painted in the depths of his pure eyes. What fountains of unfathomed tenderness were stirred within him, what urgent, quenchless fires of ambition to save were kindled as the shepherd's eye traveled from mountain to hill, and from valley to sea! He heard the sound of a prophet's voice, saying: "All Israel like sheep have gone astray; I saw Israel scattered upon the mountains." Then his heart made answer: "I am the good shepherd; I will bring again my sheep from all places whither they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day, I will feed them in a fat pasture, and in the high mountains of Israel shall their fold be." One real and solid delight which a Christian may have while traveling in the Holy Land, is that of thinking the thoughts of Christ after him. Of course, we may do this anywhere; but some of us will perhaps be more stimulated to think as he thought if we stand where he stood, and see what he saw. Farewell, then, to Nazareth, where the Son of God hid himself for thirty years! Farewell to the dun mountains of Israel! Farewell to its azure-flashing seas! Farewell to the rocks where, even in winter, the wind-flower tosses its various brightness! All these things may fade from the fresco of memory; or, like pictures in some dark hall, be lighted only by the rare and fitful fires of imagination. But the deep and gracious thoughts of sympathy with the Nazarene which we there cherished, these are written in the fleshly tablets of the heart, and cannot fail even when heart and flesh fail.