December 28th, 2019

It is not surprising that the Gospel text for the First Sunday after Christmas stays very near to the beginning of the Gospel according to Matthew [2:13-23]. And there is an extremely interesting fulfillment passage within that text. At the very end of chapter two, Jesus makes a move to a ‘memorable’ city. And this is how the last verse of chapter two describes the situation:

And [Jesus] went and lived in a city called Nazareth, that what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled: He shall be called a Nazarene (ESV).

When Matthew lays out an Old Testament fulfillment, he usually quotes only one prophet. But now he is pointing out more than one, and, to make matters worse, there is no Old Testament bible verse that says what the text above says. This has bothered people for literally centuries.

The easy way out would be to say that there were prophets who said this, but we simply do not have that in writing. That would be a more historical answer. A more literary AND theological answer would be to look at the rest of scripture to see some connections.

Before we look back into the past, it may be helpful to look into the future. This naming of Jesus as a Nazarene happens in the Gospel according to Matthew when Jesus is on trial, when Peter is challenged by yet another servant girl. In Matthew 26:71, she (literally) says to the bystanders, ‘This man was with Jesus the Nazarene.’ The first servant girl had said that Peter was with Jesus the Galilean.

Connecting Jesus to both Galilee and Nazareth were not very positive connections. This gospel account even details that Jesus made the move from Nazareth to ‘Galilee of the Gentiles’ (4:15; this is the very next fulfillment passage after 2:23) ‘when he heard that John had been arrested (4:12).’ And actually, the text does not say that he simply moved, but he ‘withdrew’; in a sense, he retreated.

These are not the actions of a leader. This is the actions of someone who is despised, and you have many Old Testament predictions of the Messiah being despised.

You probably did not know that, very close to the word ‘Nazareth’, is the word for ‘branch’ (nezer; a Hebrew word, the ‘base’ part of it, usually has three consonants.). And the Jews definitely saw the Messiah predicted in verses like Isaiah 11:1. (‘Then shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit’; ESV; see Concordia Commentary, Matthew 1:1-11:1, by Jeff Gibbs, Concordia Publishing House, 2005, page 132.) The Messiah was to be related to King David. And do not forget that he was the youngest son of Jesse. And he was also the despised one, in a sense, since he was the one who ended up being the shepherd for his father’s flock.

Very close to the word ‘Nazareth’ is the word for the special vow that a few people in the Old Testament took, the Nazarite vow (see Numbers 6). And, of those who took that vow, Samson, one of the judges, was probably the most famous.

So usually we think of Samson as a hero and being well supported by the other Israelites. After all, he fought and killed all those Philistines. But he also acted alone. Other judges worked with various sizes of armies. But Samson usually fought those Philistines by himself. You might say that he was despised as well.
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When you combine the references to the Nazarite vow, along with the references to a despised Messiah, along with references to David, the Old Testament DOES talk a lot about Jesus. He was the VERY Good Shepherd, and he was the one who ALONE defeated the devil.