In the passage for this week Nathaniel wants to know how a messiah can come from a small provincial town like Nazareth rather than from the capital city of Jerusalem. His scornful riposte was 'Can anything good come out of Nazareth (John 1:46)?' In reality salvation always comes from the edges. Jesus was not what was expected. In the city people want everything on their own terms. In Jerusalem they had a clear idea of what they expected a messiah to be. Jesus did not fit into their preconceptions and nothing can be achieved when people have already decided what to expect. He was not what they wanted. In the city people expect to be entertained but Jesus was not going to compete for their attention. What he offered was more opaque and it required them to respond of their own volition. He was not what they could understand. In the city there is an assumption that people will cope and they are thought less of if they are unable to do so. Jesus was a suffering servant without beauty or majesty and with nothing to commend him to us (Is 53:2). We may feel similarly about our own most difficult experiences but remember! Salvation comes from where we least expect it

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