The Light Shines in The Darkness
Isaiah 9:1-4
Matthew 4:12-23
Did the words of our Old Testament Lesson from Isaiah 9 sound familiar?
If so, it might be because the last time we heard these words was at our Candlelight Service on Christmas Eve, when we celebrated the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Jesus is the light that shines in the darkness.
And so, on Christmas Eve we raised our candles and sang, “Silent night, holy night! Son of God, love’s pure light.”
(pause)
“The people walking in darkness have seen a great light.”
Why have we returned to these words today?
Because our Gospel Reading from Matthew quotes them.
So, we get a little Christmas again.
A month after that great celebration, with all of our lights and our decorations put away—(hopefully!), we get to come back to this passage from Isaiah, and be reminded that in Jesus, we have seen a great light.
And we need to be reminded about this, daily even.
Because we do live in “deep darkness” and it’s a darkness that can be all consuming.
It’s a darkness that can lead us down dangerous paths.
And so, today we are reminded that we see that the light doesn’t just show up through a baby in the manger.
That child has grown up, and is now going throughout Galilee, proclaiming that the Kingdom of heaven has come near, and is inviting us to follow him.
This time, in other words, as we come back to this passage from Isaiah, it’s not just to hear the story, but to be invited into the story.
This time, we not only give thanks for the light, but we receive an invitation to follow the light.
In our Gospel Reading, as Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew.
They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen.
“Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.”
We are told that “At once they left their nets and followed him.”
To get some perspective here: every male in the Jewish school system was working toward a time when a rabbi would look at them and say, “Come, follow me.”
They would apply to follow a rabbi and if the rabbi thought they had what it takes he would call them.
But, if at any point during this process, this Jewish educational process, it became evident that you weren’t going to pass mustard, you weren’t going to be able to make it in this system, that a rabbi wasn’t going to call you--you would be told to go back and work in your father’s business.
That’s right.
Your dad would have had a trade and you would apply to your father’s trade and he would mentor you until you were old enough to work on your own.
And this is what happened to the vast majority of young Jewish students, easily 99 % of them.
And that’s what we see here.
Peter and Andrew are fishing.
They’ve gone home.
And since they are fishing on their own, it’s safe to assume that they’re probably older than 13 years old.
They’ve been bar mitzvah’ed, but they probably aren’t very old at all.
Going on from Peter and Andrew, Jesus saw two brothers, James, son of Zebedee and his brother John.
They were in a boat with their father, Zebedee, preparing their nets.
Jesus called them and immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.
Now, if they were in the boat fishing with their father, they probably would not have had their bar mitzvah’s yet.
That means they wouldn’t have yet hit 13 years old, they had not yet been turned loose to work their father’s trade on their own.
So, James and John were probably 11 or 12 years old.
Have you ever thought about the disciples this way?
They were just young kids.
Now, when Jesus comes upon them, it’s probably not the first time they’ve met Jesus.
They’ve probably already spent some time around him.
They’ve probably sat at his feet, and learned some of his teaching…
…maybe at the synagogue or in Capernaum.
And this is not the first time Jesus has probably seen them.
He’s probably seen in them a little spark that he knows will ignite when he calls them.
And so he comes to them and says, “Come, follow me.”
And they drop everything to follow him.
They’re getting a second chance at this whole rabbinical thing.
But you know, even though Jesus is a rabbi, Jesus is still an outsider.
He’s like a ragamuffin rabbi.
He doesn’t follow the rules; he’s like a rogue teacher.
And Jesus is calling these dropout students.
His disciples are going to be the outsiders, the kids from the smoking section, so to speak.
They are not the cool kids.
They are not the popular people.
They are just ordinary or maybe even less than ordinary in other peoples’ eyes.
But Jesus doesn’t care.
Jesus is like, “I’ve seen God working in you.
When I look at you I see potential.
How about you come follow me?”
And then he adds something that I’m sure they didn’t understand: “and I will send you out to fish for people”…
…of course, that is in the future…
…that is three years down the road after Jesus has been crucified, resurrected, and then has sent his Holy Spirit to them at Pentecost.
In the meantime, they are just a bunch of kids who never thought they’d amount to much.
They are the ones that the teachers scoffed at and wrote off as not good enough.
But then, Jesus came along and saw them in a different light than anyone had before.
One day, after a church service when I was just an awkward, self-conscious 11-year-old boy my pastor shook my hand and asked me: “Kenny, have you ever thought about going into the ministry?
I think God might be calling you into the ministry.”
From that moment on, the seed had been planted.
My pastor saw something in me that I wouldn’t have seen in myself.
I was shy, for crying out loud and ministers have to speak in front of people and lead.
What was he thinking?
What did he see?
That must have been how Peter, James, John and Andrew felt when Jesus called them.
Jesus’ call on their lives gave them purpose, promise, hope and a future.
It also gave them self-confidence.
“Wow, a rabbi thinks we are good enough to become like him.”
And that’s what disciples were.
They were learners.
And when a rabbi called them to be a disciple he was, in essence, saying, “I believe you have what it takes to become just like me.”
It was the greatest honor a boy could have.
The path of a disciple was the path of memorizing the rabbi’s teachings, taking on the rabbi’s set of interpretations and most importantly becoming just like the rabbi.
This meant that a disciple spent all day, every day trying to mimic the thoughts, actions, and teachings of their teacher.
Some Jewish scholars say they have seen a rabbi enter a restroom and in the rabbi’s wake are ten or twelve young disciples.
If your rabbi did something, you did it.
And you knew you could do it because if you couldn’t have done it the rabbi wouldn’t have called you in the first place.
The rabbi’s call was his affirmation of your ability and your potential.
You know that we are all called to follow Jesus, don’t you?
Jesus sees us and Jesus believes in us.
Jesus believes that we ability and potential.
Jesus looks at you and Jesus looks at me and Jesus says, “I believe you have what it takes to become just like me.
I believe you have what it takes to make a positive difference in this world.
I believe you have what it takes to be sent out to fish for people.”
How does that make you feel?
No matter what the world has told you, no matter what you have told yourself—Jesus says “I believe in you!”
And so, being a disciple of Jesus Christ is the greatest honor in the world.
Have you ever thought of it like this?
That’s why the disciples immediately followed Jesus when he called.
They dropped everything and followed him.
And as our Gospel passage tells us, they followed Jesus as Jesus “went throughout Galilee, teaching in the synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people.”
And we are told that “News about him spread all over Syria, and people brought to him all who were ill with various diseases, those suffering severe pain, the demon-possessed, those having seizures, and the paralyzed; and he healed them.
Large crowds from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea and the region across the Jordan followed him.”
Jesus went out the people…
…the marginalized people…
…the outcaste people…
…the people who were living in darkness…
…living in the darkness of disease and the darkness of hopelessness….
…living in the darkness of rejection…
Jesus went to these people and he saw the potential they had to be made well.
He believed in them and he healed them.
And these people were Jews from Galilee, hated Gentiles from the Decapolis, people from the venerated Jerusalem, Judea and the godforsaken region across the Jordan.
And people from all these places followed Jesus.
What an amazing movement.
Everyone is included.
Everyone is called!
And that, of course, includes you and me and everyone else living on the face of this earth…
…this earth that is filled with so much chaos, hatred, war, division, discrimination, pain and suffering…
…this world that is filled with so much darkness!
Because into this darkness comes a great light.
And that great light is Jesus!
At Christmas we gave thanks for this light, who was laid in a manger because there was no room for him in the inn.
Today, will we give thanks for this light who went around Galilee, teaching, proclaiming, healing, and inviting others to follow?
And if we haven’t yet decided to follow the light of Christ, to take up his offer and call to become like him…
…to believe that he believes in us that much…
…will we do it today?
Or if we started the journey at some point, but have since given up…
…will we start following again?
Will you pray with me?
Lord, we thank you for calling Peter, James, John and Andrew to follow you and become like you.
We thank you for believing in these men even when they didn’t believe in themselves.
And we thank you for calling us.
We thank you that you believe in us and believe that we can become like you in this world.
This is what we want.
This is the greatest honor we could ever be given.
We accept your call.
Lead us. We will follow.
Amen.
