The Light Shines In The Darkness

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.