By David ReayTuesday 22 Mar 2016LifeWords DevotionalsFaithReading Time: 0 minutes
Transcript:
Read John 1:45-46
45 Philip went to look for Nathanael and told him, “We have found the very person Moses and the prophets wrote about! His name is Jesus, the son of Joseph from Nazareth.”
46 “Nazareth!” exclaimed Nathanael. “Can anything good come from Nazareth?”
“Come and see for yourself,” Philip replied. (NLT)
Nathanael was certainly not a member of the Nazareth Tourist Bureau. It seems that town didn’t have much going for it. And as for it being the home town of the promised Messiah, that was just way beyond belief.
Nathanael is echoing a common view we have of the workings of God. We imagine him to be most active in the great population centres and amongst the powerful elite. We imagine him to be working the levers of power at ‘the big end of town’ in order to smooth the way for the inauguration of his kingdom.
But God does no such thing. His supernatural operations occur in the most unlikely places, places like Nazareth. And occur within the most unlikely people, people like you and me. We tend to equate the supernatural with the spectacular and the miraculous. We are mistaken.
Let Eugene Peterson explain it: “Supernatural, in the biblical sources, is not a spectacularly coloured hot-air balloon floating free of awkward contingencies, but a servant God with basin and towel washing dirty and calloused feet.”
Blessings
David Reay