A Great Light has Dawned

“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.”

Usually this is a passage that we read at Christmas time, and we tend to associate it with Christ’s coming into the world.

So it might seem odd at first to instead see it in the context of the beginning of Christ’s ministry.

I wonder how many of us have missed this reference to prophecy when reading Matthew’s gospel in the past? And yet, it offers the key context to Christ’s entire ministry.

“Land of Zebulan, land of Naphtali, on the road by the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles”

Galillee of the Gentiles.

Because Gallillee, although it was within the province of Judea, was a notably multicultural and multiethnic area.

It was a crossroads of international trade that connected diverse populations from all over the world.

And this created a tension in Galillee, as the local Jews were influenced by those outside populations in ways which caused them to clash at times with the temple authorities in Jerusalem. And it was into this tension that Christ would bring his ministry.

A tension caused by the meeting together of Jews and Gentile: God’s chosen people, and the other nations. A fitting choice for a ministry which would extend God’s favour to all, creating a chosen people based not on ethnicity but on following the command: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

And Galillee wasn’t just a place where the Jewish and Gentile worlds met.

The people of Galilee were oppressed: not only did they face both the occupying Roman legions and the rulership of the Tetrarch Herod Antipas, not only did they face several layers of harsh tactics, but they had voice to speak out against those conditions. As a result of this the population often expressed themselves through the common actions of the opressed: peasant strikes and popular insurrections.

They were also looked down upon: because of their slurred accent, they were often banned from reading the scriptures in the synagogue. As well as the conflicts caused by their multicultural influences, many of the people of Galillee were also viewed as simple or backwards - in particular the people of Nazareth, with John making note of the common observation that “nothing good comes from Nazareth.”

So let’s be clear on this: Christ’s ministry began in a socially marginalised, culturally hybridised, politically volatile region that was as far from the center of Jewish religious political and religious power in Jerusalem as possible both literally and figuratively.

And that sent a very clear and intentional message.

The song of God came to His people and spread the good news not from a place of power but from a place of marginalisation.

He called his disciples not from amongst the great and mighty leaders of the Jewish people but from the excluded and the downtrodden.

The story of redemption began not with the favoured but with the despised.

The people who sat in darkness were the first to see the light.

For those who lived in the land of deep darkness, the dawn had arrived.

And so Christ made his home by the sea in Capernaum. And as he went walking on the shore he saw Andrew and Simon Peter, fishing in the sea. Now as you’ll remember from last week if you watched the sermon online, this wasn’t the first time Jesus had met Andrew and Simon. They knew Jesus - they’d spent time in the place he was staying, and they had believed he was the Messiah.

But now they would discover that encounter was just the beginning: he says to them, “follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” So they follow him. And then he sees James and John - John being most likely the disciple he had previously met alongside Andrew - and again he calls them to follow him and again they follow.

And I wonder, would the powerful and the great of Jerusalem have followed him so easily?

Was there something about the people of Galillee that made them more inclined to abandon their work and become followers of this itinerant preacher from Nazareth, from where nothing good comes, with his slurred accent?

Was it the case that Christ chose Galillee to begin his ministry not only because the people of Galillee were in need, but because their marginalised position meant that they were acutely aware of that need in a way that those living in relative comfort might miss?

Whatever the reasons, Christ called four Galilean fishermen to be his first disciples.

And he went through Galileae, teaching in the synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and sicknes among the people.

The prophet says, “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light...for the yoke of their burden, and the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their opressor, you have broken as on the day of Midian.”

The day of Midian: a reference to the victory of Gideon’s chosen men over a much larger army, and symbolic of miraculous deliverance from God that could not possibly be achieved by humans alone.

Isn’t that a fitting analogy for a ministry characterised by a miraculous healing of all who were sick?

But whilst those healings were perhaps the most obvious miracles, just as important was the teaching in the synagogues and proclaiming of the good news.

Because although the may not have known it yet, those teachings were setting the scene for the greatest and most miraculous delivery of all:

The delivery of God’s people from their sins.

The extending of salvation to Jew and to gentile alike.

The promise of justice to the opressed, salvation to the lost, and a raising up of the powerless.

And it all began as far from the center of power as could be.

Friends, first century Galillee is in many ways not so different to the position that many find themselves in today.

How many people do we personally know, who have been overlooked, neglected, even spurned by society because they fail to perfectly meet a required standard?

How many even have been sidelined by the church because they didn’t match our expectations of what a “good” congregation member should look and act like?

Then as now, strikes and protests are the chosen way that those denied a voice express their discontent against those who would deny them justice.

But let me ask you: where in all of this is Christ?

He may not be actively walking among the people, teaching and proclaiming and healing, but now just as then his message is one which is needed by all. And just as he called those first disciples to follow him and to fish for people so too does he call his followers now to go to the Gallileans of our society today and to proclaim the message of the kingdom.

Today just as much as then, light dawns on those in the deepest of darkness.

And so let us follow.