Darkness and light. These aren’t just metaphors, but the powerful reality of life in this world. Every twenty-four hour period has its time of darkness and of light, at least in these more southerly regions. Many northern cultures have felt a need to have a major mid-winter celebration simply because in the dead of winter, the darkness is overwhelming. I read in the newspaper this week that January 21 is considered the gloomiest day of the year, when you consider a number of social, climatological, health, and work-related factors. In the darkness of winter, it seems people even get sick more. It’s a dark time of year, but as the days grow a little longer things become a little more bearable; as the sun’s light and warmth return, people begin to cope a little better. It is known that people need a certain amount of sunshine to function properly. Our bodies produce vitamin D in response to sunshine.
All in all, light is a good thing. In light, you can see what is happening, you can know what’s around you. Light is what gives us colours and shades and hues. Light was the first creation of God, Genesis tells us.
And, as the prophet Isaiah foretold, “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shined.” (Isaiah 9:2 ESV)
Now, Isaiah’s not talking about Canada in the winter. It’s doubtful that Isaiah had any idea of a climate or latitude besides that of Israel, which was far enough south that the changing seasons did not give that great a variation in the length of day. But what Isaiah was talking about is the light that comes from being in God’s presence, in God’s magnificent truth.
As Matthew points out in today’s Gospel, this light is none other than Jesus, arriving in the land of Zebulun and Naphtali. The light comes in Jesus’ words and teachings, in His actions and miracles. Jesus would make this little town of Capernaum, a seaside village best known for its fishermen, His home base for further work. Over the course of the three years to follow, Jesus spends most of His time in Galilee, travelling down to Judah and Jerusalem primarily to fulfil the requirements of the Law of God with regards to the regular worship at the Temple of the Lord.
Now, this doesn’t really seem like the optimal way to achieve Messiah status. It’s not as though Jesus had to practice on the unsuspecting commoners before taking His show on the road. Jesus was no snake-oil salesman, no huckster. But He chose to bring the message of the kingdom of Heaven first to this insignificant area of the old Northern Kingdom, long since overrun with foreigners and no longer just Jewish. It was an area of darkness in a number of ways–it was an area, which, being part of the Northern Kingdom, had given up its claim on the true God and had gone chasing after foreign gods for some time. True, there were always pockets of faithful Israelites, but the greater darkness of falsehood had descended for some time. It was only much later, about 100 years before Jesus was born, that followers of the true God had once again become dominant in the region. It was an area where there was a pagan population–people who had no knowledge of the true God. It is called “Galilee of the Gentiles” for a reason.
Again, it doesn’t seem like the optimal way to achieve Messiah status. If someone were trying to get themselves noticed as being the Messiah, heading into the Gentile region, where the Jews are only part of the greater cultural mix, doesn’t seem to be the way to go about it. Little Nazareth, where Jesus had grown up, or Bethlehem, where He had been born, would be much better places to demonstrate Messiah-like powers and abilities. But Jesus wasn’t trying to prove any points to anyone. Jesus wasn’t trying to make Himself into anything which He wasn’t. He was the Messiah, and as such, He needed to fulfil the Scriptures. By going into the land of Galilee of the Gentiles, by shining the light of God’s truth into Zebulun and Naphtali, Jesus was showing that He was truly the child of Isaiah 9:6-7 –the one on whose shoulders the government of God’s people would rest, the one whose name would be called “Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”
Not only that, but Jesus also knew it wasn’t the right time to go down to Jerusalem, yet. Matthew notes for us that one of the reasons Jesus heads north in the first place is that his relative, John the Baptist, had been thrown into prison. Jesus needed to teach and preach and gain disciples before He could go to His cross. What better place to do that than among the forgotten Jews, the ones who were looked down on by those in the places of power and prestige? What better place to start the work of the Messiah than in the outposts where nobody was looking–nobody, that is, except those who remembered the words of the prophet Isaiah.
What we see in our Gospel is Jesus doing just that. He garners disciples–that is, people who would hear His Word and do what He told them to do. He goes not to the synagogue rulers or the teachers of the Law or the Pharisees to find these disciples, but to the dockyards, where He finds Peter and Andrew and James and John back at their boats. Consider who Jesus called to be His closest disciples. These four are really the inner core of the Twelve, if any were, and they were no brilliant scholars or well-learned religious authorities. They were fishermen. But they heard the call to repent, the call to follow, the call to work as fishers of men. Coming from Jesus’ mouth, it sounded different. It had authority. And so, unquestioningly, they went. Poor old Zebedee is even left in the boat alone, for his boys are off to hear more from this Jesus.
He promises to make these fishermen fishers of men. There’s a new catch out there, and the old nets won’t do. Jesus has a new way of working, a new covenant to bring about. He would teach and train these disciples over the next three years, culminating in giving them His Holy Supper, then dying on the cross to save them, and indeed all who trust in Him. Jesus wouldn’t do things the way people expected, right down to dying on the cross. When people expected miracles yet did not believe, He wouldn’t do them. Only where people had faith would He perform His work. He preferred to be alone to working the crowds. Jesus seems to have shied away from the fame and fortune which could have been his.
In like manner, Jesus works among us in the unexpected, not-so-flashy methods of His Word and Sacraments. We live in Manitoba of the Gentiles, after all. The Greek word often translated “Gentiles” simply means “nations”. It’s the word from which we get the English term “ethnic”. There are many nations here in Manitoba. Winkler and Morden are not only comprised of people from a Germanic, let alone Northern European or Native Canadian background anymore. There are people arriving in our area all the time from various parts of the world, people who are in as great a need as you and I of hearing the word from Christ that their sins are also forgiven by His blood shed for them on the cross.
We need to also remind ourselves that Jesus’ call to “repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” is for us, too. We too dwell in darkness far too much. It is easy, in a church which emphasizes God’s grace, as ours does, to take it for granted and to use forgiveness as a license to do wrong instead of using forgiveness as our power to do what is right. This should not be! Yet it is. In confirmation, we work through the ten commandments in detail and realize how we break all of them. This means we too need to repent.
Yet what we have, in the truth of Christ’s word, in the forgiveness of sins, is the light that cannot be extinguished, the light of the world. Why are we so hesitant to let that light shine? Why are we so hesitant to use our light in our homes, in our families, with our friends? Consider that our average Sunday attendance is about 1/3 of our total membership, and you get the picture. We need to shine within our own community of faith, as well as into the community at large. We need to constantly be bathed in the light of Christ’s Word, or the same could happen to each of us. We need to be intentional in bringing that Word to our family members or friends who have stopped coming to church for whatever reason, reminding them that God’s commandment to hear His Word never wears out. We need to carry Jesus’ message that the Kingdom of God is here, and the need to repent, to turn from our selfish and self-centred ways and live to Christ, not to ourselves. We need to be intentional in bringing that Word to those we know who have no church home. It simply won’t do for us to let other people or other churches in town go out and reach to people with the Word. It’s our job, too. It’s our job because we are part of those nations on which the light has shone. To have the truth of God, to have the light and to hide it under a bushel basket is simply unthinkable.
We have the light of Christ dwelling within us, because the Holy Spirit has called us with the Gospel, enlightened us with His gifts, sanctified us, and keeps us in the true faith. We have the light of Christ dwelling within us because we have the Word, both read and preached, here. We have the light of Christ because we have been baptized into the name of the Triune God. We have the light of Christ because we have the gift of Christ’s body and blood to strengthen and encourage us as we go. We have the light of Christ because the darkness of sin has been removed from our hearts by Christ’s death on the cross, applied to us in Baptism and in the Lord’s Supper.
We have that light, and, as Jesus brought it to Galilee and Judea, we, as His disciples, have now been charged to carry it throughout the world to wherever we may be and wherever we may go. We carry the light, knowing that this light is exactly what everyone in this world needs–whether they know it or not. The darkness of sin dwells in every heart. There is not one person in this world who doesn’t need what God wants us to give–the light of His life-giving Gospel. God grant us His grace to bear His light faithfully to our friends and families!
In Jesus. Amen.
Last updated February 2008 by the webmaster.