The First Week
Starting out: Nazareth today
As you can see from the picture below on the left, today Nazareth is a large city, but many of the places you can see in this modern photograph have strong New Testament connections. The domed building in the left hand picture is the Basilica of the Annunciation, where the angel Gabriel is believed to have told Mary she would have a child. St. Joseph’s Church, in the middle picture, is said to be the site of Joseph’s carpentry workshop. The underground Synagogue Church, in the right hand picture, is said to have been where Jesus himself first studied and prayed.
Nazareth around 5 BC
Since 1997, archaeologists have been building a reconstruction of the first century village of Nazareth. Below are some of the places shown in the pictures above, but as they would have been when Jesus lived in Nazareth. On the left is the interior of kind of house Mary would have been living in at the time of the annunciation; in the centre is a carpenter in a reconstruction of a first century workshop; and on the right is what the interior of the Nazareth synagogue would have looked like when Jesus worshipped there.
If you want to find out more about the Nazareth Village project, here is a link to a Nazareth Village video and to the Nazareth Village website.
And this might be the house in Nazareth where Jesus grew up. Archeologists have confirmed that this house, cut into the rock, is a 1st century dwelling. For many years it was revered as the house of Mary and Joseph, and one of the earliest written claims we have comes from the monastery on Iona, where a seventh century monk wrote about a French bishop, returning from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, who recounted his visit to a chapel "where once there was the house in which the Lord was nourished in his infancy". [Many thanks to Rev. Georgina for contributing this interesting information.]
Mary and Joseph prepare
Although cheese made from goats' milk, olives occasional seasonal vegetables, and more rarely fish and meat were eaten in 1st century Palestine, the staple diet of most 1st century Palestinians, like Mary and Joseph, was bread. This would be in the form of flat bread - not unlike modern pitta bread - and would be baked in a simple outdoor clay oven called a tannur, not unlike an Indian tandoor.
Before setting off on the journey, Mary and Joseph would have packed enough bread to last them over the five days or so that it would have taken to travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem.
So, for the first meal of our journey we'll share a simple meal of flat breads - the sort of meal Mary and Joseph would have eaten. You could buy pitta breads from a supermarket, but if you're feeling a little more adventurous here's a recipe for making your own flat bread [it's adapted from a Jamie Oliver recipe].
175 gms self-raising flour
175gms (approx. 3 generously heaped tablespoons) natural yoghurt
1/2 teaspoonful baking powder
Mix the ingredients together. Knead for two minutes or so on a well floured, clean surface until you have a dense dough (if your dough seems a little dry add a little more yoghurt, if too moist a little more flour). Start heating a large, thick-bottomed frying pan or griddle pan on a medium to high heat. Divide your dough into six equal balls, and then roll each out into a circle approximately 1-2 mms thick. Place each of your loaves in the pan until each side is beginning to scorch - approximately 2 minutes each side.
If you want to make your meal extra tasty, put your cooked flat breads under a low grill or in a low oven to keep warm and melt 30 gms of butter in a saucepan. Finely chop a mixture of herbs - coriander, basil, tarragon - whatever you have to hand [or use dried herbs if you wish] - and add, with two crushed clover of garlic, to the melted butter. Take the flat breads from where they're keeping warm, and brush each with a coating of herb-garlic-butter mixture.
And here is a picture of some flat breads I cooked, to test the recipe.
Bread is sometimes called 'the staff of life', and pilgrims are often shown in contemporary pictures walking with the support of staffs.
Bread, in the form of the communion wafer, is the symbol of sharing - with our church family, and also with the disciples at the Last Supper.
We also pray for our daily bread - real and symbolic - in the Lord's Prayer. To a Christian bread is at the centre of our daily prayers and our weekly act of shared worship. What better food could there be to share for our first 'pilgrim' meal?
Prayer
And finally, a prayer to share: Mary's great hymn of praise and acceptance we know as The Magnificat. This version is taken from N. T. [Tom] Wright's recent translation in The New Testament for Everyone :
Antiphon 1: O Sapientia
The 'O Antiphons' are the short chants recited or sung during Advent. Each antiphon is a naming poem, addressing Christ my one of his messianic titles: O Adonai (O Lord), O Radix Jesse (O Root of Jesse), O Clavis David (O Key of David), O Oriens (O Rising Sun), O Rex Gentium (O King of the Nations) O Emmanuel (O God with us). During our Advent services we'll be hearing all of the O Antiphons, but for this website we'll be looking at four - starting with O Spapientia (O Wisdom).
O Sapientia
O Wisdom, coming forth from the mouth of the Most High,
reaching from one end to the other,
mightily and sweetly ordering all things:
Come and teach us the way of prudence.
The word sapientia is Latin and it means wisdom, but there are many different kinds of wisdom. In Greek, the language in which the New Testament was originally written, there is sophia, the kind of wisdom linked to intelligence or abstract thing - as in philosophy , meaning a love of wisdom. There was also gnosis which was wisdom or knowledge which was gained through understanding spiritual mysteries which were kept secret except for a small elite (the opposite of gnosis gives us the word agnostic meaning someone who does not know, or doubts spiritual matters). Sapientia means wisdom and discretion, the kind of wisdom gained through skilled practice.
Here is a short contemporary poem, based on the antiphon, about that sort of wisdom:
O sapientia:
God's wisdom of the hand and heart,
not hidden gnosis forbidden
to journeymen, apprentices
but learning tempered in the forge,
or chiselled on a joiner's bench.
O sapientia: wise love that guides
the Master Craftsman's loving hand.