Behold, the man whose name is the Branch: for he shall branch out from his place, and he shall build the temple of the LORD. It is he who shall build the temple of the LORD and shall bear royal honor, and shall sit and rule on his throne. As found in Zechariah 6:12-13.

And he went and lived in a city called Nazareth, that what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled: “He shall be called a Nazarene.” In Matthew 2:23 we see Matthew making a big deal out of the fact that Jesus came from Nazareth. Yet we see the disciples asking was it possible that “anything good could come from Nazareth?” Why the odd dichotomy of views?

In Jesus day Nazareth was the area no one wanted to be from. It may not have even been a proper town. It may have been just a geographical area. Think of it in context of an area that locally is known as one thing by everyone but no one else gets that name. That was Nazareth. In Jesus time apparently it had a bad reputation. When people heard that Jesus came from Nazareth it was amazing. More importantly to Matthew though was that he believed Nazareth and Nazarene were terms for the Branch in Hebrew. Matthew wrote his gospel to the Jews who would have been searching the Old Testament for references of the Messiah. Matthew calls Jesus a Nazarene because he saw it as fulfillment of Zechariah 6:12-13. Jesus was the Branch of God that they were looking for!

In what we call John 15, Jesus calls himself the Vine and God the vine dresser. This is significant because Jesus saw himself as the source by which the life of the Church could grow. He was the Vine or what we may say he was the Branch from the foundation by which all the other branches were grafted in to for survival.

The coming of Jesus is out of obscurity. He came in a way no one expected. His next coming advent will be the same. Yet this Christmas Eve we can celebrate our preparedness to meet him whenever he comes because of what his first advent coming.