This is the second post in a 3-part blog series. Please click on the link below this article for Part 1.

Whom was this God first announced to? 
Let’s go back about 30 years in the life of Christ and see who first received the news that the very Son of God, the long-awaited Deliverer of the people had been born.  We find this story in Luke 2:8-14 .

An angel appears to a few shepherds looking after their income, sheep.  This angel announces good news of great joy that is for all people.  In the town of David, the town prophesied about for hundreds and hundreds of years.  The town that all Jews knew would be the birthplace of the Christ; “Christ” is the same word as “Messiah,” both meaning the Anointed One.  The greatest event in all of human history has just occurred.  As one writer puts it, “The hinge of history is on the door of a Bethlehem stable”.  Not some Caesar in Rome, but truly the Son of God, God-with-us, is born.  And who is worthy of receiving this incredible news? King Herod? The religious leaders of the day? The business owners, the prophets, the Roman centurions, Caesar himself?  No, the most unlikely of people receive this news - shepherds.  Shepherding was a lowly profession amongst ancient occupations.  Shepherds were considered outcasts, often not allowed in some cities.  The general public did not trust them, as many shepherds were thieves.  Religiously speaking, because of their profession, they were ceremonially unclean.  Just ordinary people doing the lowly work of the day.  Insignificant, not even a footnote in human history, yet this good news of great joy has come to them from a great company of angels praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests.” An announcement of universal and eternal importance, made to lowly shepherds. 

The Dropouts of Jesus’ Day
John, the writer of this book, and his friend Andrew, had been following John the Baptist, but when they heard what John said about Jesus, they wanted to check it out and began to follow Jesus.  Both of them call Jesus “Rabbi,” meaning teacher, inquiring about where he is staying.  There are two reasonably familiar words in these verses we need to bore down deeper into.  First, the word “disciple.”  Typically when we hear this word, the twelve disciples of Jesus come to mind.  And they were, in fact, his disciples. But as we see in the text, John the Baptist had disciples too, and discipleship was very much a part of the culture of the day.  In the original Karate Kid movie, young Daniel LaRusso wants to learn karate and so he becomes a student of Mr. Miyagi, a master karate teacher.  But Daniel doesn’t just sit in a room to learn from his master teacher, he spends time with him, washes his cars, and paints his fences; he eats with him and learns how to catch flies with chopsticks.  Daniel or Daniel-san as Miyagi calls him, becomes a major part of Miyagi’s life far beyond just learning the martial arts.  This is an excellent picture of a disciple in Jesus’ day.  We often think of a disciple more in terms of someone sitting in a class with a teacher, and that is what we call discipleship, but that was far from the discipleship of Jesus’ day.  It was a Miyagi / Daniel-san kind of relationship and experience.  There was definitely teaching in the classroom that went on (in Jesus’ day, the synagogue), and that was foundational, but that was really just the beginning of being a disciple.  The teaching and leading were done by a Rabbi, a teacher, a master, like Miyagi.  These Rabbis were the best of the best, religious experts, Ph.D.’s, scholars, master practitioners of the law of their day.  Very few people actually became Rabbis.  A disciple did not just want to know what the Rabbi knew, but he also wanted to become what the Rabbi was.  This would require total and absolute commitment to follow the Rabbi, study what the Rabbi studied, eat what the Rabbi ate, live where the Rabbi lived, and act like the Rabbi acted.  This was an absolute surrendering to the way of the Rabbi, an immersion into the world of your Rabbi. 

How would you become a disciple of a Rabbi?  It all began in the synagogue, a major part of life in the ancient world.  Much of what occurred in a community, from teaching, to community gatherings, to basic education, to religious training, occurred in the synagogue.  The “Moses’ Seat” was present in the synagogue and from this Seat, the Torah and the Tanakh were read.  The Torah referred to the first five books of the Hebrew Scriptures (our Old Testament) and the Tanakh was the remainder of the books.  These scrolls were precious and central to the teaching in the synagogue.  The people would get so excited about these words, the words of God, that when the Rabbi took the scroll out, some would dance and put their lips to the scroll itself indicating that God’s words are as sweet as honey.  Disciples would sit, discussing and debating the meaning of the Torah and the Tanakh. 

Connected to the synagogue was a school.  All children would spend their time learning in this school up to the age of 12.  They would memorize much of the Torah and learn how to read and write using the Hebrew Scriptures.  By 12 years of age, all the women could not go any further in their training, so they would go and prepare to be wives and mothers.  Most of the boys would also go back to their homes and learn the family business like fishing and other common trades.  A few students with the passion and ability moved on to what is called Beth Midrash.  These few boys would delve deeper into the study and memorization of the Hebrew Scriptures.  Out of this group, only a very few  - the absolute best of the best - (like the Navy Seals of the military) could go on to become the Talmudeen, which is what we know as a disciple.  These very bright, very few, and very committed, would then spend a couple of years following the Rabbi until the time the Rabbi said they were ready to go and be Rabbis themselves. 

There is another important aspect of this process.  In order for a young man, usually at about age 15, to become a disciple (Talmudeen) he would need to ask the Rabbi if he could become his disciple.  The Rabbi did not ask the student; the student asked the Rabbi.  At this point, a Rabbi would observe the student, interview him and allow him to follow him for a few days to determine if he thought the young man had what it took to become his disciple. 

Jesus, the Rabbi, going against the custom of the day, asked Philip to follow him.  Philip was from the same town as Andrew and Peter, Bethsaida.  There were many great cities in the day of Jesus.  Cities that had arenas for sports and theater.  Cities that had universities called gymnasiums, cities that had libraries and running water.  But Bethsaida was not one of these cities.  At the time of Christ it had about 600 people representing several families all living in close proximity to each other.  It was a fishing town in the area of Galilee.  This was the simple life; the least of the cities in the region and five little boys, all growing up together, learning the basics of life in a fishing town.   These five little boys ended up being five of the original 12 disciples of the Rabbi, Jesus Christ.  Peter, Andrew, James, John and Philip all grew up in Bethsaida.  They knew each other and lived a quiet life working the family business.  What did it mean that some of these men knew and were working the family trade?  It meant that they were not the ‘A’ students with the passion and ability to go all the way.  They did not have the ability and drive to become a follower of a Rabbi.  They were the dropouts - the common persons of their day.  The represented the nobodies to the religious and ruling classes. 

But it is not just the disciples of Jesus themselves who were so unlikely, it was the Rabbi Jesus as well.  Philip’s friend Nathaniel hears that the supposed Messiah, this Rabbi, comes from Nazareth and clearly, this doesn’t impress him.  Nazareth! Can anything good come from Nazareth?  Wow, that is not mincing words.  Nazareth was not Bethlehem, the city of David. It was not the great and holy city of Jerusalem and yet this was the home of Jesus.  Nathaniel was from Cana and Cana was a rival city of Nazareth.  Like a Chicago Bear/ Green Bay Packer kind of rivalry.  Not many positive feelings about this town.  This is also coming from a guy about whom Jesus says is “nothing false.” Literally, Jesus is comparing the character of Nathaniel to Jacob.  It could be translated, “Behold an Israelite in whom there is no Jacob.”  Jacob was the scoundrel who stole his brother, Esau’s, birthright through trickery and who wrestled with God and whose name was changed from Jacob to Israel in Genesis 32.  A great nation and the Messiah, Jesus Christ, are traced through the family of this very colorful biblical character.  So Nathaniel is nothing like Jacob and is still not impressed with the home of Jesus. Yet after Jesus miraculously reveals how he knew Nathaniel, Nathaniel believes Jesus is the Son of God. 

Check back next week for the final part of this blog when we explore how every one of us, regardless our background and achievements, is also a ‘Christmas dropout,’ as these chosen disciples were.
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Jason Esposito
Lead Pastor