Come and See

I have a confession. The four walls of my suburbus do not often fall into the category of my most engaged parenting moments. The littles tend to talk incessantly, and I tend to answer mindlessly. I turn up the music, look blankly ahead, and just try to make it to the next destination.

Recently, as we were driving along something caught my attention. It was so bizarre that I stopped to take a picture on the way home. As we rounded the corner, growing straight out of the top of a stop sign was a bush with the most beautiful foliage. It was unexpected. It didn’t seem possible. No one would have predicted that such a beautiful bush would come growing up out of the top of a metal pole…

Jesus of Nazareth.

It’s a term that some of us have heard for years. It wasn’t until recently that I studied that a little further and realized the huge significance behind that.

There’s a story in the book of John that tells about Philip and Nathanael. It is a time when everyone is looking for the Messiah, and Philip finally believes he has found him. He goes to Nathanael and says that he has found the one that Moses has written about—the true Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth. Nathanael looks at Philip and says, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” And Philip simply replied, “Come and see.”

You see, the town of Nazareth was the backside of town. The wrong side of the tracks. The place from which no one wanted to be, and with which no one wanted to have anything to do. The name itself comes from the Hebrew word that means “small and worthless twigs.” So you would think that the Creator of allllll the universe in all of wisdom, being able to place Jesus ANYwhere, would have chosen somewhere better than Nazareth!

Or would He?

Maybe there is an area your life that seems a bit like Nazareth. Maybe your whole life seems like a lump of worthless twigs. Maybe you’ve been asking yourself the question, “Can anything good come out of my life?” Maybe you believe that all hope is lost.

But maybe, just maybe, Jesus is saying, “Come and see.”

And when you come after Him, maybe you will see the smallest bit of growth. Good in the most unexpected places of your life. Sprouting up into something beautiful.

Come and see.