The Gospels tell us remarkably little about the first thirty years. Two writers reach back before the beginning — one to eternity, one to a boy in the temple — and then the record goes quiet until a voice cries out in the wilderness. What we do have is worth sitting with, because it tells us who this is before it tells us what He did.

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John’s telling — who He was before He came

John doesn’t begin with a birth. He begins before there was anything to be born into: “In the beginning was the Word.” Before we are told a single thing Jesus said or did, we are told what He is — God, come to us in the flesh, and dwelling among us.

Luke gives us the one glimpse we have of the boy: twelve years old, left behind in Jerusalem, found in the temple among the teachers. Even here the shape of the whole life is showing — He is about His Father’s business, and His parents do not yet understand.

John 1:1–14 · Luke 2:40–51

Nazareth and Sepphoris

Nazareth was a small place, but it was not an isolated one. About an hour’s walk away stood Sepphoris — a cosmopolitan city that Herod Antipas rebuilt and fortified as his capital until he built Tiberias in A.D. 19. Since the rebuilding began around 4 B.C., and since stone was the main building craft of that region, Joseph was in all likelihood a builder in stone as well as wood, and many scholars believe Joseph and Jesus may have worked on the reconstruction.

Tradition holds that Sepphoris was the home of Joachim and Anna, the parents of Mary — which would mean Jesus’ grandparents lived in that city, and His mother grew up there. It may even be where Joseph, working on a building, first met her.

Whether or not Jesus worked there, this matters for one reason: the picture of a sheltered village boy who had never seen the wider world is probably wrong. A Roman provincial capital sat within walking distance of His door.

The voice in the wilderness

Then the silence breaks. John the Baptist appears in the wilderness, dressed like the old prophets, preaching repentance and baptizing in the Jordan — and the crowds go out to him. All four Gospels begin their account of Jesus’ ministry here, which tells you how central this moment was to the first followers of Jesus.

People begin asking whether John himself might be the Messiah. He tells them plainly that he is not, and that One is coming after him whose sandals he is not worthy to untie.

Matthew 3:1–10 · Mark 1:1–6 · Luke 3:1–15 · John 1:15–28

Everything to this point is prelude. In the next part, Jesus comes to the Jordan, and the ministry begins.