So there's a verse in Matthew's gospel, Matthew Chapter 2, and I just read it concerning Jesus. Just at the very last verse it says:

"And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene."

So it says Jesus would be called a Nazarene and it says that it was as spoken by the prophets. But there is nowhere in the Old Testament where it says that Jesus would be a Nazarene. You won't find that. So what is Matthew saying here?

Well, different people have different ideas, but the point is that Nazareth was an insignificant place. It was a place you didn't boast about coming from. You could boast about coming from Jerusalem, but Nazareth was a place in the north and nobody thought anything of it.

And the point is this: Jesus, though he is God, he became like you and me and became a person of no significance whatsoever. He lived most of his life in obscurity and total insignificance.

Mary's Story

So the story begins with Mary as just a young girl. She's about 16, I don't know how old she was, but she's obviously a really good girl and she's looking forward to getting married. She's engaged, she's betrothed, and she's got a good man, obviously quite a bit older than her, and he's a handyman.

Mary's just an ordinary young lady, and then suddenly everything changes because one day the angel Gabriel comes to her and says, "You're highly favored." And then he says to her, "You're going to have a baby, and that the baby will be called Jesus. He will be the son of the most high."

The Walk of Shame

When Mary went back to Nazareth, she went back with a baby in her womb. As that began to show, suddenly you can imagine the people in Nazareth—they look at this young girl and they think, "There she was, engaged to a good man, and look, she's gone away and come back in that state."

You can imagine people walked across the other side of the road to avoid her as it began to show more and more. She had to walk the walk of shame because of how the Lord was using her.

The Birth in Bethlehem

As the time comes for the baby to be born, there's a taxation decree, and Joseph had to go back to Bethlehem to register the family. They come down to Bethlehem, and the Bible says that there was no room in the Inn.

While they're there on that night, suddenly the contractions happen. The baby's born and everything seems very normal. They wrap the baby in swaddling clothes and put him in a manger—a little trough that's perfect for a cot.

The Shepherds

As they're settling down, not far away in the fields there are shepherds keeping sheep. It's to those shepherds that the angel of the Lord appears and says, "Behold I give you tidings of great joy because today in the city of David, Bethlehem, is born a Savior, Christ the Lord."

Those shepherds who were used to inspecting the sheep for sacrifice, the Passover lambs, now they say, "Come let us go and see this." And now they're going to go and see God's Passover Lamb—the Lamb that God has given to take away the sins of the world.

The Gospel for the Poor

The wonderful thing is that the gospel is given to the poor—not just the poor in money, but the poor in spirit. Mary said under the anointing of the Spirit that He sends the rich and the high and mighty away, but He reaches out to the humble and the lowly.

"He lifts the poor out of the dust and lifts the needy from the dunghill—the rubbish dump—to set them amongst princes, even the princes of his people."

God takes the poor out of the dust of their sin, their loneliness, their emptiness—and He lifts them to set them amongst princes. God defeated the devil not by some mighty army, but by a baby in an insignificant place to an insignificant family.