Isaiah 9:1-4, Matthew 4:12-23
Grace to you and peace from God and the Lord Jesus Christ
I’m always amazed at how close the story of Jesus life came to the prophetic word of the Old Testament. And not only that, I am awed by the knowledge of the men, like the author of the Gospel of Matthew, how they were able to remember the prophesies and see how they fit into the life of Jesus. Sometimes the words found in the Old Testament are almost identical to the words used to describe a portion of Jesus’ life and so I can’t help but think that they must have copied them over, in the case of today’s story, (from) Isaiah, copied Isaiah’s prophecy into the Gospel of Matthew. But then I remember that the scrolls of Scripture were not easy to come by; they were usually, only to be found in the Temple and in synagogues, and were protected by rabbis and priests; there were only a very few in the hands of scholars, the scrolls, you see, were all hand copied with great reverence, requiring great dedication and care, taking months and years to complete a single scroll. And so, the cost of each scroll was also great. That was okay though, the writers of our Gospels lived in the time when men developed a great skill in memorization, memorizing large portions of Scripture. A rabbi might be trained to memorize all of Scripture and men and some women were taught to memorize many of the important stories and writings of Scripture, and because there were very few written copies available, they were good at this memorization.
It’s hard for us to understand such memorization, because today we have limited need for it, we have books in our homes, and we have Google on our computers and we have Ceres on our phones, and Alexa all over the place, to refer our questions to. Most of us Lutherans are able to quote very little from Scripture, and while I may be able to answer a lot of questions about Scripture, it is unlikely that I will be able to quote Scripture or tell you chapter and verse of a Scripture passage quoted to me; I need to refer to the books in my office or one of those other resources.
Our Gospel writer not only quoted from Isaiah, from memory, and correctly, he also understood that Jesus was fulfilling the prophesy of Isaiah that he quoted. So, what was Jesus doing that was so important? The lands of Zebulun and Naphtali had fallen in battle to the Assyrian military. Obviously, that was not a good thing, they are described as a people who walked and lived in a land of deep darkness; they were oppressed. But they were not a lost people; they were not forgotten by God; in fact, Isaiah prophesied that they would one day be lifted out of the darkness and have a great light shine upon them. Isaiah’s prophecy spoke of the one who would bring this light to them, describing him as “a child born for us, a son given us:” (sound familiar?) he continued further by saying that, “authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” (again, sound familiar?). Matthew tells us that Jesus left Nazareth after John the Baptist had been arrested and made his home in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, not because he wanted to be closer to the beach or closer to where he might fish, but to fulfill what had been spoken by the prophet Isaiah hundreds of years earlier, to fulfill God’s promise. Jesus was there to bring to that land and to the people of that land the light of the Word of God; this Word of God included a call for them to repent and offered the good news that the kingdom of heaven had come near to them.
God does not forget his promises, even those made through his prophets hundreds of years before. And, because of Jesus’ ministry in Zebulun and Naphtali, the light continues to shine there. Forever the ministry of Jesus will be linked to that land and its people. That alone could be the message for us today, but there is more to this story for us to consider. Jesus was not finished; Jesus was in fact going to gather some of his disciples from among the people of that area. As it turned out, not only would Jesus restore to Zebulun and Naphtali the light of God’s Word and Love, Jesus was also going to carry out, share, the light of God, from there, out into the world. Of all of the disciples called by Jesus, those who came from that region, Peter, Andrew, James and John are the ones best known to us, and this 2000 years later. They are the ones whom we recognize as Jesus’ inner circle. Three of them were with Jesus whenever he went off away from all of the others. Additionally, only Matthew and Philip and Thomas have stories that most of us can remember, and Judas, but we remember him because he betrayed the Lord. Zebulun and Naphtali, oppressed and pretty much forgotten by the People of God, was remembered by God, and that region supplied Jesus with some of the men who would carry to the world the message, the story and the good news of Jesus Christ. But first Jesus would travel the regions belonging to Zebulun and Naphtali, Galilee, where he would shine the light of God’s love by preaching in their synagogues and curing every disease and every sickness among the people.
After traveling that region for some time, he would take the light he brought to Galilee and share it throughout Judah and Israel and even beyond the land of God’s people. And so, Zebulun and Naphtali have become the light to the world, through Jesus’ ministry and the ministry of their favorite sons who continued Jesus’ ministry. God did not, would not forget his promises, and so Zebulun and Naphtali’s light is bright and these regions shine forth the light of Jesus Christ for all the world to see even today.