But there will be no gloom for those who were in anguish. In the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time he will make glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations. 2 The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness– on them light has shined. 3 You have multiplied the nation, you have increased its joy; they rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest, as people exult when dividing plunder. 4 For the yoke of their burden, and the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor, you have broken as on the day of Midian. – Isaiah 9:1-4
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The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? 4 One thing I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after: to live in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to inquire in his temple. 5 For he will hide me in his shelter in the day of trouble; he will conceal me under the cover of his tent; he will set me high on a rock. 6 Now my head is lifted up above my enemies all around me, and I will offer in his tent sacrifices with shouts of joy; I will sing and make melody to the LORD. 7 Hear, O LORD, when I cry aloud, be gracious to me and answer me! 8 “Come,” my heart says, “seek his face!” Your face, LORD, do I seek. 9 Do not hide your face from me. Do not turn your servant away in anger, you who have been my help. Do not cast me off, do not forsake me, O God of my salvation! – Psalm 27:1, 4-9
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12 Now when Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee. 13 He left Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, 14 so that what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: 15 “Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali, on the road by the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles– 16 the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned.” 17 From that time Jesus began to proclaim, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” 18 As he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea– for they were fishermen. 19 And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” 20 Immediately they left their nets and followed him. 21 As he went from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John, in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets, and he called them. 22 Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him. 23 Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people. – Matthew 4:12-23
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Well, here we are, on the other side of Christmas: shopping all done for another year, decorations put away (maybe?) We are now in the season of Epiphany, and we will be in Epiphany until Lent starts on February 22, which is only a month away!
So what exactly is Epiphany all about? The word epiphany comes from Greek – it means ‘unveiling’ or ‘revealing’ – and it’s that time of year when God makes Godself known to the world through Jesus. Jesus was born at Christmas, but we get to know him in Epiphany.
Epiphany begins with the baptism of Jesus, and then Jesus begins to travel and minister and call people to himself. And when people are called, they (and we) are also chosen by God for a reason. So in a sense the season of Epiphany reveals us too – reveals something of who we are, and what we are called to be in God’s kingdom.
This week we have three scripture passages to consider, all of which have something to say about this revealing of Jesus and of us.
Starting from a big-picture standpoint: what we have in today’s readings is King David setting the stage in his Psalm; Isaiah giving us a detailed prophecy of what is to come; and Matthew, telling us about the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, and showing us how Isaiah’s prophecy is being fulfilled.
The Psalm
King David sets the stage by saying “the Lord is my light, my salvation, and my stronghold.” This was true for David around 3000 years ago, and it was true for Jesus, and it’s true for us today. God is light, salvation, and stronghold. No matter what happens in our lives, no matter what we see around us, God protects and saves and sheds light on our path.
David continues with a prayer:“
One thing I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after: to live in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to inquire in his temple.”
This prayer is not just for this life but for the next life as well. In this life we come to God’s house, we worship, we pray, and it is beautiful. When we arrive in God’s kingdom, it will be even more beautiful: we will ‘live in God’s house forever’ as Jesus promised. Jesus said:
“In my Father’s house are many mansions… and I go to prepare a place for you…” (John 14:2)
If we are faithful to Jesus in this life, we will have a place in God’s house, forever, where we will be able to wake up every morning and open our eyes to the beauty of God the Father, surrounded by God’s love and God’s perfect creation, unharmed by human sin. We will be able to go into God’s temple, and ask questions, and learn, and experience things we can’t even begin to imagine right now. This is where we will spend eternity. This is our destiny. This is the one thing David asks of God. It’s our one request too, isn’t it – for us and our loved ones to be with God forever?
Isaiah’s Prophecy
The stage is set. Next comes the prophecy. Isaiah’s prophecy involves God’s answer to David’s prayer: God is making a way for us to live in God’s house and be with God forever.
Our passage from Isaiah takes us back to Advent for a moment. This passage is quoted in Advent scriptures, as well as in Handel’s Messiah. But there’s more than just Advent here. First off, there’s a back story. The Northern Kingdom of Israel had been captured by Assyria. The people were terrified and powerless, and many of them forced into slavery, and many more had had everything they owned taken away.
So Isaiah’s first message is to them. He says help is on the way. The “day of Midian” he refers to looks back to an unusual military victory in Israel’s past, when Gideon and a ragtag bunch of neighbors got together and, in God’s power, defeated the troops of Midian. Isaiah’s words hint that there’s a parallel between that victory over Midian and Israel’s current situation with Assyria. In other words, the tables are about to turn.
Isaiah’s second message has a double meaning: one for the Northern Kingdom back then, and one for us today. Isaiah talks about “the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali” who would witness “a great light”. These two tribes, Zebulun and Naphtali, were the least of Israel’s people. They had settled around the region of Galilee but never really conquered it; so the people of Israel and the Gentiles lived together. The region became known to the Southern Kingdom as “Galilee of the Gentiles.” There was an intermixing of faiths, which got them into spiritual trouble, and which made the Northern Kingdom easy to defeat when Assyria came.
But there’s a side note to this Biblical history that will become very important during the lifetime of Jesus. Old Testament prophecies of the Messiah almost always talked about the Messiah coming from the Southern Kingdom: the Messiah would be descended from the line of King David, who ruled in Jerusalem in the South; the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem, which was in the South. There was no doubt about these things – the prophecies were very clear.
So when Jesus appeared coming (so it seemed) from the region of Galilee, in the north, all the religious scholars said “No way. No major prophet comes from Galilee.”
But they were mistaken. Back in the law of Moses, in the book of Leviticus, in an obscure old regulation, the priests were told to offer their sacrifices “on the north side of the altar.” This led Jewish scholars (for many hundreds of years) to believe that God’s redeeming process would begin in the North. Isaiah confirms this by mentioning Zebulun and Naphtali in context of the Messiah’s coming.
By the time Jesus got here, most people had forgotten about all this; so when Jesus arrived, the Jewish leaders said ‘the Messiah will be born in Bethlehem’ – and in John chapter 7 we find them making fun of the idea that any spiritual leader could come from Galilee.
Looping back to Isaiah’s prophecy: Isaiah’s words give us that marvelous verse from the Advent/Christmas story that points us straight to Jesus:
“the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light: those who lived in a land of deep darkness, on them light has shined.”
What we don’t hear again in today’s reading are the verses that come immediately after. This is one of my favorite verses in the Christmas season:
“For all the boots of the tramping warriors and all the garments rolled in blood shall be burned as fuel for the fire.”
Someday every war will be over. Someday every gun will be silenced. Someday there will be no more bombs, no more shootings, no more murders – all the instruments of violence will be burned. Don’t we long for that day? This is the promise of the Messiah. Why?
“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”
Jesus will establish eternal peace.
This Messiah is a direct challenge to any and all earthly powers that keep people down or lock people into conflict. Jesus is a King above all other kings, above any president, dictator, czar, whatever. Jesus is not elected. He is born king.
Matthew’s Gospel
Which brings us to Matthew. In Matthew’s gospel we see Isaiah’s prophecies of the Messiah beginning to come true, one day at a time, one moment at a time, one person at a time.
Jesus waits until John the Baptist is arrested before starting his own public ministry. Matthew doesn’t say why; but God gave John a job to do, to prepare the people for the Messiah’s arrival, and John needed to finish that job before Jesus started his ministry. And in fact Jesus built on John’s ministry so much that many people thought Jesus was John reincarnated.
Matthew starts out by quoting our reading from Isaiah.
“[Jesus] left Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, so that what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: “Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali, on the road by the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles – the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned.” (Matt 4:13-16)
It was in this exact region that Jesus began teaching; and his message was “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” Jesus was basically contrasting two kingdoms: the kingdom of Heaven, and the kingdoms of earth, and he was saying people need to make a choice: which are they going to be loyal to?
At that point in time the choice would have been between God’s kingdom or the Roman Empire. For those of us in the 21st century, it’s not quite as simple a question. The human race has had thousands of years of history, confusing and conflating the kingdom of God with the kingdoms of men. To give just a few examples, think of the Holy Roman Empire – which elevated both the Emperor and the Pope to positions of leadership, and didn’t teach much practical difference between the two. Or think of modern-day Britain, where the King is both the head of the government and the head of the Church. Or think of some of the political movements here in America in the past few years that run religion and politics together until you can’t quite separate the two.
Fusing secular leadership with religious leadership creates superpowers – which are never of God. Jesus calls people everywhere to “repent” and give to God what belongs to God.
Sadly even the word ‘repent’ has become a triggering word in our time, so I need to give us a working definition. The word ‘repent’ in Greek is metanoieo. It means “to undergo a change in frame of mind or feeling”. It’s a combination of two Greek words: meta (meaning ‘with’) and noieo (meaning ‘to understand’). So it’s ‘with understanding’ – to come to a new way of thinking. Jesus is inviting people, including you and me, into new understandings and new insights.
Therefore the word ‘repent’ has absolutely nothing to do with fire and brimstone. It is not a threat; it is never meant to be spoken in anger. It is an invitation, given in love, to see and understand the world in a new way, and then move in a new direction.
I had a little bit of a metanoieo myself last summer when I was traveling overseas. Travel – especially outside the country – has a way of changing how we see things. We are exposed to different cultures and different people. The traveler who comes home isn’t the same person who left. That’s really the definition of repentance – to perceive and understand differently, and to change how we live because of it.
The new understanding and the new direction that Jesus is giving, is in the direction of God’s kingdom. Once more we turn to the Greek: the word for kingdom is basileia, which can mean things like reigning, or ruling, or having great power. For those familiar with the Harry Potter series, it was no mistake that the great snake in the second Harry Potter movie is called a basilisk. Same root word, meaning something very powerful, and supposedly undefeatable.
One of the differences between human kingdoms and how they exercise power, and God’s kingdom and how it exercises power, is that human kingdoms assume the right to colonize. Think how our nation got started all those years ago: the kingdom of Britain made a colony, and they claimed rights to our land and our people. In God’s kingdom the purpose is not to colonize; it is to liberate, to set God’s people free. Total opposite purpose. Total different direction.
As Jesus preaches, he invites people to follow him. We don’t read about all the people he invited – in fact we don’t read about most of them, but we read about some. Jesus says to the fishermen, “Come, follow me and I will make you fishers of people.”
Jesus does not start out by saying “believe what I believe” or “come sign on to the cause”. He simply says “follow Me”. No platform, no list of rules, just a call to companionship: to live together, to walk in God’s kingdom together.
When Jesus and the disciples do start to preach God’s Kingdom, there are a few things to notice about that. The message is for all of Israel, not just Galilee; and Jesus is not interested in being governor or emperor, because God’s kingdom is not of this world. And along with this teaching comes power to heal: diseases, sicknesses, weaknesses, physical infirmities.
So where does all this prophecy and history lead us today? Four things to consider:
First and most important: God is still working. God is working to make Jesus known to the people of this world; to bring truth to those who are lost in lies; to bring freedom to those who are imprisoned; to bring vision to those who can’t see; to bring healing and wholeness to those who are sick and in pain. Just as in the days of the disciples, Jesus invites us to be part of this ministry, as he leads.
Second, God is still breaking into human history. God is unmasking the world’s powers, bringing light into darkness.
Think for a moment what it’s like to be in a room when the power goes out. We can’t see, we may become tense or frightened. We stop what we’re doing and carefully try to find some light.
The spiritual darkness in our world is similar. People can’t see what’s ahead. They feel tense and maybe even hopeless, and they’re not sure where they left the candles and matches. Jesus invites us to share His light. Jesus said, “no one lights a lamp and puts it under a bushel basket. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.” The glory goes to God because the light is God’s – we let God shine through us, and we become the light-bearers.
Third, we are called to communicate the good news by the way we live. God’s kingdom brings freedom, joy, light, love, friendship, compassion – even while our world is lost in hatred, violence, war, greed, pain, and sorrow. “Jesus said: “by this everyone will know that you are my disciples, by the love you have for each other.” What an appropriate message this is for the week in which we remembered Martin Luther King Jr! The arc of history is indeed long, but it bends towards justice. We share good news in and by our life together in Jesus.
Last but not least: Just as Jesus called the disciples into partnership with himself, Jesus also calls us. What is it, then, that Jesus is calling us to do and be… as individuals? as a congregation? Do we need a bit of an epiphany ourselves, an unveiling of God’s plan for us?
I hope the small group ministry starting this year will lead to answers to some of these questions, both on a faith level and on a ministry level.
For now I’ll just leave us with this: God’s call on our lives is not a one-time thing; it is an ongoing adventure. Wherever God leads, God has created us and prepared us for this time and place. And I believe this church is already on the path, we just need to continue to discern and follow.
So when we hear Jesus call: “Follow me” – like the fishermen, let’s drop our nets and follow! AMEN.
Preached at Carnegie United Methodist Church and Hill Top United Methodist Church, 1/22/23
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