Do you ever wonder how you would have reacted had you been in Nazareth when Jesus returned home after beginning his public ministry? Remember, you wouldn’t be looking at him through the lens of 2000 years of Christian history. You’d be his neighbor; maybe at some time in the past, he made something for you in his carpentry shop. You knew him when he was growing up; you know his whole family who lives and works in the village along side you.

It is easy for us to think how fortunate those were who knew Jesus, to imagine what a privilege it would have been to be able to talk to him face to face. Yet those who were so near to him in his hometown were the very ones who thought he was trying to be too big for his britches, who disparaged his ministry, who rejected him and his message. I hope that, had I been there, I would have had a heart open enough to glimpse something new and to welcome it into my life, that I would have been aware enough to recognize the presence of God in our midst. My fear, however, is that I would have been as blind as those who were so near and yet so far, that my heart would have been as closed as theirs were, that I would have gone along with the crowd in taking offense at him.

We are blessed in this day and age to have God’s holy scripture to open our eyes to the truth of God’s Word and the tradition of the Church and all the saints who have gone before us to show us the way to draw near to Christ Jesus, regardless of how far away from him that we may seem in time. If we reach out to the Lord with love in our hearts, we will find God reaching out to us to draw us into the arms of Love. As the Epistle of James puts it: “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.” (4:8)