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“THE PEOPLE WHO SAT IN DARKNESS HAVE SEEN A GREAT LIGHT”

Matthew 4:12-22; Isaiah 9:1-4

A sermon preached at First Presbyterian Church by Carter Lester on

January 26, 2014

How do you picture Jesus hearing it? Do you think he was doing his work as a carpenter or stonemason when one of his customers happened to ask: “Hey, did you hear about John being arrested?” Or perhaps Herod sent out a band of soldiers to announce the arrest in every major village as a way of publicizing the fate of anyone who dared to criticize their ruler. Or perhaps, Mary called him over in a private moment in the quiet of night to tell him what she had heard from her cousin Elizabeth about Elizabeth and Zechariah’s beloved son.

In any case, the news reached Jesus: that John had been arrested and imprisoned in the dungeons of the Castle of Machaerus by Herod the king. John’s crime was the he publicly denounced Herod for seducing his brother’s wife and making her his own wife – after Herod had put his former wife in prison. And, in any case, John’s arrest is somehow the signal that it is time for Jesus to launch his public ministry. The dark news of John’s arrest propels Jesus on his own descent into darkness, because once Jesus begins his public ministry, it will be clear that what he will say and do will raise up enemies even more powerful and formidable than Herod.

“Now when Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee,” Matthew tells us. For the third time in his life, Jesus changes hometowns, although this is the first move he initiates. When he was a baby, his father Joseph had been warned in a dream to take Jesus and Mary to Egypt to escape the wrath of Herod’s father. They stayed there in Egypt until Joseph learned in another dream that it was safe to return to Nazareth because the elder Herod had died.

Now, Jesus moves his hometown to Capernaum, a slightly larger town than Nazareth on the Sea of Galilee. There are a number of reasons why Jesus might have made Capernaum his home base and Galilee the region in which to begin his ministry. Located on the giant lake of Galilee, Capernaum offered more transportation options. And Galilee was the most fertile area of Israel so it offered plenty of people to hear Jesus’ messages. Surrounded on three sides by non-Jewish, or Gentile countries, it was also a place known for being open to new ideas.[1] Plus, Jesus could remain largely outside the orbit of the Roman and Jewish leaders in Jerusalem.

While the location for Jesus’ public ministry makes sense, his timing does not. Why begin his ministry just when it is darkest? Perhaps because it is when it is darkest that the people most need to see the light. The gospel writer Matthew sees Jesus’ decision to begin his public preaching to be a fulfillment of Isaiah 9, the passage we heard earlier today: “Land of Zebulon, 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.” (4:15-16).

The passage from Isaiah that Matthew quotes comes from a different time of darkness, when the Israelites had been conquered and sent into exile by the Assyrians. Zebulon and Naphtali had been two of the twelve tribes of ancient Israeland the land given to those tribes was the region of Galilee. At the time of Isaiah, the people were dwelling in darkness because they were trying to eke out a living in a war-torn country where an occupying enemy would try to take anything of value. Living in darkness they were eternally grateful for the good news of the prophet Isaiah that the Assyrians would be defeated and their darkness would come to an end.

While Isaiah 9 describes what Jesus is up to; it offers only a partial explanation. Because Jesus is not only offering a temporary turnaround, a respite from the darkness provided by the approaching light. Instead, with Jesus, a whole new age is dawning. “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near,” he proclaims (4:17). As one commentator puts it, “the tectonic plates have shifted and the earthquake of the promised messianic age has begun to shake the foundations of the world.”[2] When Jesus shows up, time, history, and life have changed unalterably. A light has come into the world in Jesus Christ, and this is a light that will not go away; it is a light that the darkness cannot put out.

Surely, this is good news we need to hear, because it is not just at the time of the Assyrian’s victory or at the time of John the Baptist’s arrest, that God’s people have experienced the darkness. Indeed, the darkness can be so overwhelming that it turns us all into pessimists.

Consider the darkness in the Middle East, where the Arab Spring has turned to winter, and bombs go off in downtown Cairo, and new atrocities emerge in Syria. Or consider the darkness closer to home. Even in the wealthiest of countries with abundant opportunities, there are too many people who have lost their way, who struggle for shelter, food, medical care, or basic safety. And even in our relatively privileged lives, we worry about a lot. Some of us worry about our jobs, some of us worry about our parents, some of us worry about our children, some of us worry about our marriages, and some of us worry about our health. Worrying is something we all do quite well.

As Brett Younger observes, “we want to believe that life – especially for good people – should be easier, but the painfully obvious truth is that life is hard. Most of us have more medical tests in our future than in our past, more tears to come than we have already shed....We are ‘the people who sit in darkness.’ We sit in the darkness of fear, conflict, and confusion.”[3]

And that is why Jesus’ timing, beginning his public ministry when John the Baptist is arrested, couldn’t be better. Because it is precisely when the night is darkest that we need to know that the dawn is coming. It is precisely when the days are coldest that we need to know that the days are lengthening, and spring is on the way.

In Jesus Christ, the light is always dawning and spring is always on the way. In Jesus Christ, the Word has become flesh, and God has come down from the heavens to dwell in this world, in our lives, so that we know that we will never be alone, and the darkness will never prevail. We long for light because we know that the world is often dark. The first rays of light in the eastern sky is the reminder that something important, something better, is always on the way, because God comes to us every time, all the time.

No wonder Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew, his brother, and the Zebedee brothers, James and John, follow after Jesus. If you have been hungry, wouldn’t you take up someone’s invitation to attend a feast that is free for all? If you have a sick child and live in a remote place where there is no medical care, wouldn’t you drop everything when you hear that visitors are bringing a clinic to your village?

As the wise Wyoming Sheriff Walt Longmire observes in one of Craig Johnson’s mysteries, “sometimes we spend our lives thinking we’re doing something, when in reality all we’re doing is waiting.”[4] Perhaps that is how Simon, Andrew, James, and John felt. Perhaps, that it how you feel. Sometimes you and I spend our lives thinking we’re doing something when in reality all we’re doing is waiting – waiting on the darkness to end and the light to dawn. The question is: will we recognize that the One whom we have been waiting for has indeed come?

That is what is happening in Jesus Christ here in Matthew 4, and why there is nothing better we can do than try to follow him. What does that mean? To do as those first disciples do: listen to Jesus, and watch him. Talk with him and try to emulate him. Knowing that we will never get it perfect, but knowing that if we can surrender our ambitions and take up Jesus’ purposes, then we will find that there is more light than darkness in our own lives – and we may even find that we are light bearers for others.

The Talmud tells of a rabbi who was asked what questions a Jew would have to answer at the Last Judgment. He began with the obvious ones: Were you honest in business? Did you seek wisdom? Did you keep the commandments? Then the Talmud reports that a question came into his mind that surprised the rabbi himself. God will ask, “Did you hope for my Messiah?”[5]

Life can be hard, and the world can be dark, so that we are tempted to let our pessimism win out. But we too are to place our hope for the Messiah in Jesus Christ whom we believe has come near. We are to trust that in Jesus Christgrace conquers sin, life conquers death, and the light conquers the darkness. We may have to wait awhile, but we can trust that the night will end, and the dawn will come. Always.

This week, one of the Community Meals guests brought his guitar to the meal: Kerry had invited him to sing a song he’d been arranging. Ray is open about his troubled life, and his long-time battles with mental illness, alcohol, and drugs. But he now has access to better health care, he has been sober for two years, and his faith has grown stronger. As he said to Kerry and me, he is in a much better place these days, and so he wanted to sing. Here is how he poured out his gratitude:

“I wonder as I wander out under the sky
How Jesus the Saviour did come for to die
For poor on'ry people like you and like I;
I wonder as I wander out under the sky.

May we be filled with wonder as we wander under these winter skies with Jesus – for in the midst of the darkness, we too haveseen a great light.

[1] William Barclay, The Gospel of Matthew, Vol. 1 (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1975), 72.

[2] Thomas G. Long, Matthew, Westminster Bible Companion Series (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1997), 41.

[3] Brett Younger, “Matthew 4:12-17: Homiletical Perspective,” in Feasting on the Gospels, Matthew, Vol 1, Cynthia A. Jarvis and E. Elizabeth Johnson, eds. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2013), 57.

[4] Craig Johnson, A Serpent’s Tooth: A Walt Longmire Mystery, p. 140, Kindle loc. 1792-93.

[5] Younger, 61.