THIRD SUNDAY AFTER THE EPIPHANY

January 23, 2011

Christ Church, Woodbury, N. J.

 

Amos 3:1-8

Psalm 139:1-11

I Corinthians 1:10-17

Matthew 4:12-23

 

The readings appointed in this Season after the Epiphany emphasize the theme of light. And today’s readings associate this image with the proclamation of God’s word and the preaching of the Gospel. 

 

The Collect of the Day asks God that—like Peter and Andrew, James and John— we may “answer readily the call of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to proclaim to all people the Good News of his salvation, that we and all the whole world may perceive the glory of his marvelous works ...” (In the biblical languages, the word “glory” literally signifies a bright, shining light.)

 

The Old Testament reading from Amos speaks of the irresistible prophetic impulse to proclaim God’s word: “Surely the Lord God does nothing, without revealing his secret to his servants the prophets. The lion has roared; who will not fear? The Lord God has spoken; who can but prophesy?” 

 

In his First Letter to the Corinthians, Paul identifies preaching as at the heart of his calling as an apostle: “For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the Gospel …” 

And in today’s Gospel reading from Matthew, Christ himself arrives in Galilee after the arrest of John the Baptist: “From that time Jesus began to preach, saying ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.’”

 

Matthew describes Our Lord’s ministry of preaching and calling disciples as fulfilling a possibly familiar but somewhat obscure prophecy from Isaiah: "The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali … 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."

 

Zebulun and Naphtali were the names of two of Jacob’s twelve sons, and hence of two of the twelve tribes of Israel. After leading the Hebrews across the River Jordan into the Promised Land, Joshua allocated each tribe its own territory. And Zebulun and Naphtali received their inheritances up in the northernmost region, the area that would eventually become known as Galilee.

 

These remote northern territories were the most vulnerable in the land of Israel. They were first to be conquered by the Assyrians in 732 BC. At the time of this catastrophe, the prophet Isaiah of Jerusalem uttered the words quoted by Matthew, saying in effect that even though a great darkness has descended upon Zebulun and Naphtali, and Galilee has become subject to the nations, nonetheless God has the last word. And then, speaking as if it’s already happened, Isaiah announces a great reversal: "The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned."

 

Whatever Isaiah may have understood by this prophecy, it wasn’t fulfilled in his lifetime. The lands of Zebulun and Naphtali remained under Gentile control for centuries—under first the Assyrians, then the Babylonians, then the Persians, and then the Greeks.

 

It wasn’t until the first century BC that Jews reconquered and re-colonized the area, some 600 years after the Assyrian conquests. These Jewish settlers established the towns whose names feature so prominently in the Gospels, such as Nazareth, Cana, and Capernaum. The entire area came under Gentile control once again in 37 BC when the Romans conquered Jerusalem. But by this time a permanent Jewish presence had been established in Galilee, the ancient tribal lands of Zebulun and Naphtali.

 

And so, when Jesus returns to Galilee after his baptism and begins to preach the Kingdom of God, Matthew discerns the fulfillment of the Isaiah’s ancient prophecy: "The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, … 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."

 

Mathew possibly considered the area to be still "Galilee of the Gentiles" because it was a place where Jewish towns and villages coexisted alongside Gentile towns and villages. Moreover, in the first century, the Jews of Galilee had the reputation of not being very knowledgeable in the Law or observant in religious practice. To their co-religionists in Judah and Jerusalem, Galilee may have seemed a place of darkness. 

 

Yet Matthew’s point is that God often appears on the scene and acts in history in the least likely and most unexpected places—not, initially, in the great metropolis of Jerusalem, the nation’s religious and administrative center, but up north in a rural backwater of farms and fishing villages.

 

So, for Matthew, our Lord’s public ministry in Galilee—preaching, teaching, and calling his disciples—represents the dawning of God’s light upon those who sit in darkness. And this raises the question: What might it mean for us in our contemporary world to sit in darkness and under the shadow of death?

 

Darkness is an image of many dimensions, including ignorance, error, false teaching, and prejudice. In Scripture, moreover, darkness often symbolizes sin, wrongdoing, and disobedience to God. 

 

In more contemporary formulations, darkness can be a metaphor for psychological conditions of hopelessness, depression, and despair. It can also describe social maladies of injustice, exploitation, violence, oppression, and war. It’s no accident that the beginning of the First Word War was described as the time when the lights went out across Europe.

 

The good news of today’s Gospel, then, is that no matter what form the darkness may take for us, Jesus brings us the light. He is the light. He’s the one who illuminates our lives with the radiance of divine glory that dispels all darkness.

 

To Jesus, then, we’re able to sing with the psalmist: “If I say, ‘Surely the darkness will cover me, and the light around me turn to night,' Darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day; darkness and light to you are both alike.”

 

We can do nothing to induce or compel the light to shine upon us. Today’s Scripture readings announce it as a fait accompli, something that God has already done—"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." So, when we find ourselves sitting in the darkness, we take comfort in the assurance that even if we don’t yet see the light, we shall, soon enough. We need only wait patiently for the dawn.