The Nazareth

John 1:46

Can anything good or just
Can one faithful and true
One we trust
Come out of Nazareth?

Nazareth
The low parts of Palestine
A ghetto of Galilee on Beulah’s backside
Unmentionable, unintentional
Most forgettable and avoidable
Nazareth.

No King had risen
No Prophet resided
In this hamlet of dusty farmers
Muddy potters, lowly shepherds
And occasional carpenters.

No wonder one would wonder
Stumbling at the word
That honor had risen with power
From the poor and quiet folk
Of Nazareth.

It’s this muddied thinking of our mannish minds
That often blinds us
And binds us
To handicapped reasons
And asinine assumptions
That great people only come from great situations.

And so we miss it
And dismiss it
Looking for God in the light on the left
We fail to see His hand on the right in the dark
Forgetting that He often grows lilies of the valley
In ghetto alleys and slum cities
Like Nazareth

But there rose one like a bright sun.
God’s Son.
Breaking the darkness like a cloudless dawn
Divinity in flesh came the Nazareth
His likeness unmistakably, undeniably God.

A carpenter’s son cutting hearts of men
Fashioning faith from foolish failure
The Creator and Orchestrator
He built a church on the strength of His name
And now fame is known
By Nazareth.

Now the ghettos sing glory
As they follow the grand story
Of the Nazareth
Who fought death
Rising from the hood and the grave
Overcoming poverty, obscurity and iniquity
Reigning at the right of absolute majesty.

The lowly shudder in the throes of hope’s dope
The forgotten remember their redeemer who delivered them
From Ghetthoic grieving
Seeing and believing that troubles are not binding
No concrete confining
Or circumstances continuing
When you think like the Nazareth
Ignoring what the rest expect
Pleasing God rather than man

His life is their proof
His existence our evidence
That the Most High
Comes to low places
Taking residence
Lifting low spaces to great heights
Blessed be the Nazareth
And Nazarites.


David Wilson