Holy Land Day 2: Nazareth

Today we began visiting a village that in the time of Jesus had only about 140 habitants and today exceeds 180,000, where the Verb made Flesh lived for 30 years in silence.

We are talking about Nazareth, where Mary received the announcement from  the Angel of the Lord. This city is so strong for us Christians that, although Our Lord did not make his public life here, currently in Israel, Christians are known as “Nazarenes” since we are the ones who follow Jesus of Nazareth.

With a little imagination in some areas of this city one can think of how and why that village of 140 inhabitants although having traces of settlers since 2500 BC, never grew. This happened because the houses were caves, and there was no place for more settlers.

The Basilica of the Annunciation is built on the house (cave) where Maria lived, and a few meters, ascending a little you reach the house of Joseph, where he lived the Holy Family.

From this group it is very moving to know that Mary gave her yes in that place, that Joseph decided not to condemn her, that Little Jesus gave his first steps here.

Briefly, it is the place where everything began, it is the only place in the world where the phrase “The verb became flesh” can be changed by: “Here the verb became flesh”. For various reasons with Andrea at some point we had to prepare a testimony based on the Gospel that speaks about the Annunciation, then this stop was very emotional for both and helped us think about the following: Can this have something to do with my life? What have I done with the announcements received? A significant detail is that for the Orthodox Christians the announcement of the Angel Gabriel began a little earlier, a few meters from Maria’s house, where she was drawing water from the spring. According to its tradition, the Angel appeared to the Virgin in this spring and she left everything with fear and ran to her house where the Angel appears again and calms her down. In this spring the Orthodox Christians have their temple.

Practically linked to this city is Kafr Kanna or new Cana, the town where the Lord made one of the first symbols in that wedding. A custom that is still maintained is that relatives are notified of a wedding and they come to the celebration, and invites friends of relatives who may or may not attend although most of the time they attend.

The wine became a necessity at weddings, each table makes a toast. If there is no wine, each representative of each family sitting at each table can not wish the bride and groom nothing, without wine there are no dedications, without wine the joy of the room is lost and the guests leave without leaving the gift that serves them. The bride and groom to pay the banquet. Then imagine the importance of wine.

This custom existed in the time when Jesus and Mary had attended with their guests (the disciples) to the wedding in Cana, it was really a tragedy for the couple, it is in this context that Mary asks Jesus to help them. An interesting detail is the fact that Jesus responds to Mary by calling her “Woman” instead of Mama or Mother, to understand this we must think about a macho society of the time, where if Jesus called Mama in that circumstance Mary would understand that she had to handle the situation, to call her “Woman” denotes the authority of Jesus and leaves quiet to Mary who asks the servants to do what he asks. The Temple of Marriages is the one that remembers this gospel, it remains in Kafr Kanna, which is the new location of Cana of Galilee since this town was moved from its place of origin (few km) by the amount of earthquakes it suffered.

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