{"id":582,"date":"2020-01-27T09:39:47","date_gmt":"2020-01-27T09:39:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/?p=582"},"modified":"2020-01-27T14:41:49","modified_gmt":"2020-01-27T14:41:49","slug":"third-sunday-after-epiphany-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/2020\/01\/27\/third-sunday-after-epiphany-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Third Sunday after Epiphany"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Isaiah 9:1-4, Matthew 4:12-23<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grace to you and peace\nfrom God and the Lord Jesus Christ<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m\nalways amazed at how close the story of Jesus life came to the prophetic word\nof the Old Testament. And not only that, I am awed by the knowledge of the men,\nlike the author of the Gospel of Matthew, how they were able to remember the\nprophesies and see how they fit into the life of Jesus. Sometimes the words\nfound in the Old Testament are almost identical to the words used to describe a\nportion of Jesus\u2019 life and so I can\u2019t help but think that they must have copied\nthem over, in the case of today\u2019s story, (from) Isaiah, copied Isaiah\u2019s\nprophecy into the Gospel of Matthew. But then I remember that the scrolls of\nScripture were not easy to come by; they were usually, only to be found in the\nTemple and in synagogues, and were protected by rabbis and priests; there were only\na very few in the hands of scholars, the scrolls, you see, were all hand copied\nwith great reverence, requiring great dedication and care, taking months and\nyears to complete a single scroll. And so, the cost of each scroll was also great.\nThat was okay though, the writers of our Gospels lived in the time when men\ndeveloped a great skill in memorization, memorizing large portions of\nScripture. A rabbi might be trained to memorize all of Scripture and men and\nsome women were taught to memorize many of the important stories and writings\nof Scripture, and because there were very few written copies available, they\nwere good at this memorization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s\nhard for us to understand such memorization, because today we have limited need\nfor it, we have books in our homes, and we have Google on our computers and we\nhave Ceres on our phones, and Alexa all over the place, to refer our questions\nto. Most of us Lutherans are able to quote very little from Scripture, and\nwhile I may be able to answer a lot of questions about Scripture, it is\nunlikely that I will be able to quote Scripture or tell you chapter and verse\nof a Scripture passage quoted to me; I need to refer to the books in my office or\none of those other resources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our\nGospel writer not only quoted from Isaiah, from memory, and correctly, he also understood\nthat Jesus was fulfilling the prophesy of Isaiah that he quoted. So, what was\nJesus doing that was so important? The lands of Zebulun and Naphtali had fallen\nin battle to the Assyrian military. Obviously, that was not a good thing, they\nare described as a people who walked and lived in a land of deep darkness; they\nwere oppressed. But they were not a lost people; they were not forgotten by\nGod; in fact, Isaiah prophesied that they would one day be lifted out of the\ndarkness and have a great light shine upon them. Isaiah\u2019s prophecy spoke of the\none who would bring this light to them, describing him as \u201ca child born for us,\na son given us:\u201d (sound familiar?) he continued further by saying that, \u201cauthority\nrests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting\nFather, Prince of Peace\u201d (again, sound familiar?). Matthew tells us that Jesus left\nNazareth after John the Baptist had been arrested and made his home in\nCapernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, not because he\nwanted to be closer to the beach or closer to where he might fish, but to\nfulfill what had been spoken by the prophet Isaiah hundreds of years earlier,\nto fulfill God\u2019s promise. Jesus was there to bring to that land and to the people\nof that land the light of the Word of God; this Word of God included a call for\nthem to repent and offered the good news that the kingdom of heaven had come\nnear to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

God\ndoes not forget his promises, even those made through his prophets hundreds of\nyears before. And, because of Jesus\u2019 ministry in Zebulun and Naphtali, the\nlight continues to shine there. Forever the ministry of Jesus will be linked to\nthat land and its people. That alone could be the message for us today, but\nthere is more to this story for us to consider. Jesus was not finished; Jesus\nwas in fact going to gather some of his disciples from among the people of that\narea. As it turned out, not only would Jesus restore to Zebulun and Naphtali\nthe light of God\u2019s Word and Love, Jesus was also going to carry out, share, the\nlight of God, from there, out into the world. Of all of the disciples called by\nJesus, those who came from that region, Peter, Andrew, James and John are the\nones best known to us, and this 2000 years later. They are the ones whom we recognize\nas Jesus\u2019 inner circle. Three of them were with Jesus whenever he went off away\nfrom all of the others. Additionally, only Matthew and Philip and Thomas have\nstories that most of us can remember, and Judas, but we remember him because he\nbetrayed the Lord. Zebulun and Naphtali, oppressed and pretty much forgotten by\nthe People of God, was remembered by God, and that region supplied Jesus with some\nof the men who would carry to the world the message, the story and the good\nnews of Jesus Christ. But first Jesus would travel the regions belonging to Zebulun\nand Naphtali, Galilee, where he would shine the light of God\u2019s love by preaching\nin their synagogues and curing every disease and every sickness among the\npeople.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After\ntraveling that region for some time, he would take the light he brought to\nGalilee and share it throughout Judah and Israel and even beyond the land of\nGod\u2019s people. And so, Zebulun and Naphtali have become the light to the world,\nthrough Jesus\u2019 ministry and the ministry of their favorite sons who continued\nJesus\u2019 ministry. God did not, would not forget his promises, and so Zebulun and\nNaphtali\u2019s light is bright and these regions shine forth the light of Jesus\nChrist for all the world to see even today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Isaiah 9:1-4, Matthew 4:12-23 Grace to you and peace from God and the Lord Jesus Christ I\u2019m 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 Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons-and-services"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=582"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":583,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582\/revisions\/583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}