Isaiah 9:1-4
Matthew 4:12-23

One of the important things to pay attention to when we read the Scriptures is when the New Testament quotes a Scripture from the Old Testament. It happens in our reading today. The gospel writer Matthew quotes from the Old Testament prophet Isaiah, which was our Old Testament reading this morning. Remember hearing these words twice?

Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali, 
on the road by the sea, across the 
Jordan, Galilee of the gentiles – 
The people who sat in darkness
have seen a great light
And for those who sat in the region and shadow of death
light has dawned.

With these words, what Isaiah wants us to think about is the first light of dawn after a long night. Let’s think about the nighttime. The night and the dark can be strange times for us human beings. In the quiet hours of the dark night, fear, desire, and hurt have a way of bubbling up inside of us. It’s easy to push those things down during the day when we are busy with our work and chores. But at night, that’s harder to do. There is a danger to the dark. Think about how much more easily startled we are at night, how much more suspicious we are of others when the sun is down and we can’t see as well as we can in the day.

When the first light of a new day dawns, something important happens.  After a long night, full of uncertainty, maybe even fear, the light of a new day greets you. Even if you are not a morning person, there is something about the sun rising and the first light racing across the earth that brings hope. Maybe the hope springs from the fact that you made it through the night and have been given another day on earth. 

The people who sat in darkness
have seen a great light
And for those who sat in the region and shadow of death
light has dawned.

The gospel writer Matthew says these words are about Jesus. They are a promise. Here they are again. This time, listen for God’s promise:

The people who walk in darkness

    will see a great light.

For those who live in a land of deep darkness,

    a light will shine.

Did you catch the promise? The people who walk in darkness will see a great light. In the Scriptures, to walk is often a metaphor for living your life. It’s like if someone says “they’re walking in the footsteps of their father.” What they mean by that is that person is conducting their life in a similar way as their father. To “walk” in the Bible is to live and go in a certain direction. 

In a similar way in the Scriptures, light is often a metaphor for hope, for a future – it’s a symbol of God’s presence and God’s care. Put together, the Lord’s promise delivered by Isaiah is that those whose lives are marked by gloom and despair and helplessness – their situation will change and God will give them a future that is full of hope. 

But did you notice that the promise is not just for those whose lives are marked by gloom and despair and hopelessness? The promise is also to everyone who lives in a land of deep darkness. The image here is of a community, a church, a people that finds themself without hope. The promise is that a light will shine on them. The Lord promises a future that is filled with hope.

When Matthew quoted these words of a light shining on “those who live in a land of deep darkness”, he did so because Jesus himself was living in a land of deep darkness. Our reading in Matthew opens with an important, but easily forgotten detail. Here it is: “Now when Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee.”

The John referred to here is John the Baptist, Jesus’ cousin and the person who was baptizing people in the river Jordan. John’s ministry was about being a guide. John’s job was to prepare the people spiritually for Jesus’ arrival. That involved showing them the ways they were going against God. It also involved telling people that they needed to change their ways and their lives and inviting them to turn back to God. Baptism was the outward sign that someone had turned their life back over to God.

John was eventually arrested by Herod, who was the king of the land Jesus lived in. Herod was a dictator who acted like a child, thug, and bully. Herod had John the Baptist arrested because he didn’t like what he was saying. It was a challenge to his ego and his power. Herod eventually had one of his agents execute John.

The gospel writer Matthew tells us that when Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee. What that means is that Jesus left his hometown of Nazareth and went to live in another place because of the violence and threat from Herod. Maybe he was scared? Maybe he needed time to regroup? We don’t know the reason for his leaving his hometown except that the government of his day was going down a dangerous and dark path and arresting and murdering people who stood against it.

But it is during this dark and dangerous situation that the gospel writer Matthew says that Jesus is the light. The promise from God of light dawning on those who sit in darkness – that promise has been fulfilled in Jesus Christ. For the people who sit in darkness because of their circumstances, they will see Jesus Christ and he will be the great light for them. For those who sit in the shadow of death, on them the light of Christ will dawn. The Scriptures are giving us a witness that Jesus Christ is God’s promised hope.

It can be easy to lose hope and to give into hopelessness. What is causing your hope to go into hiding these days? An economy that feels like it’s teetering on the edge of a cliff and everything is more expensive. Wars and rumors of war? Government agents shooting people in the streets? Our churches that are not as full and vibrant as they once were? People that overall seem meaner than they were ten, twenty, thirty years ago? Families fighting and not talking with each other? Politics has become like a religion and it’s tearing us all apart? That we as a people seem to lack a basic sense of decency and fairness? That there don’t seem to be any guardrails to hold back our worst impulses? Did you know that the second fastest growing part of our economy was gambling? That everyone seems to be afraid and when we’re afraid we become suspicious and angry and resentment become our friends? Or the ordinary things that are hard: people are getting sick, but we seem to be getting sicker? Is the cold pulling down your hope? 

Would you say that we are like people who are sitting in darkness? I think I would. Things are not going well. We may individually be doing fine, but as a people, we’re sitting in darkness and the shadow of death is falling over us.  If I could ask each of you individually, I’d ask you about what has been going through your mind as you hear the Scriptures and this sermon this morning? Are you someone who is sitting in darkness? Are you nearby the shadow of death?  

A big part of being a Christian is choosing to hope in God even when it doesn’t make a lot of sense to do so. That doesn’t mean we aren’t realistic or don’t see things for the way they are. Part of growing as a Christian is developing your eyes to see and your ears to hear what is actually going on. In part that means we grow into maturity to recognize sin and evil for what it is, and where it is, and have the courage and moral spine resist it. Being full of hope in God is not about being uninformed or naive or sticking your head in the sand. It’s the opposite. It’s knowing what is going on and still choosing to hope in God. Hope is about still choosing to believe that God in Christ will fulfill his promises, that for a people who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, on them, on us, light will shine. Hope is about still choosing to believe that in Jesus Christ, God is setting, and will setting us and the world to rights. Hope is about choosing to believe and trust that in spite of how bad things may be, that in God, joy and justice and righteousness and peace and freedom will break out.

In verse seventeen of the part of Matthew we read this morning, after announcing that the first light of dawn will come to a people who sit in darkness, Matthew gives us an important detail about Jesus’ ministry. “From that time Jesus began to proclaim, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

This is the ‘so what’ of our faith. You see, hope is not only a feeling or a vibe. It’s a verb, it’s an action. God doesn’t want us to be bumps on a log as Christians just waiting for things to happen to us. Instead, the Lord’s call to us is to get busy. “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” To repent means to turn in a different direction. Live your life in a different way than you are. Think about things from a different perspective. Renew your mind by filling it with things that build you up and build others up and don’t tear you down and divide you from others. Be transformed by the grace and mercy of God. To repent is to change directions towards God. And the call from the Lord is to change direction and look to God because the kingdom of heaven (which is the realm of God and God’s ways) has come near to you.

Back to Herod for a minute. Remember King Herod from a few minutes ago, the one who had John the Baptist arrested. The kingdom of Herod is a kingdom of fear, cruelty, violence, greed, lying, and tearing others down so that he can feel good about himself. The call for the Christian is to unlearn those ways of Herod and to repent, to change directions, and to learn the ways of God because the kingdom of heaven has come near.

What does that look like for us? Here are three things I’m thinking about myself to unlearn Herod’s ways and learn God’s ways and to hope in God.

First, love should be my north star. Not my politics, not my opinions, not my desires. But the love of God shapes all those things. From Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote, “Hate serves to destroy. Love serves to build up. Hate seeks destructive ends. Love seeks constructive ends. Hate seeks to annihilate. Love seeks to convert. Hate seeks to live in monologue. Love seeks to live in dialogue. And it is only through love that we are able to redeem and transform the enemy neighbor.”

Second, prayer is important. Pray for yourself to have the courage to change when God asks you to, but also pray for others in need. Pray for the people you like, and pray for the people you don’t like. Pray for friends and enemies. Pray for undocumented immigrants as well as those charged with enforcing the law. Pray for the church, and also pray for those who have been hurt by the church, and those who haven’t thought about the church in a while.

Third, get hope to stepping. Do something, anything, that seeks to build up rather than tear down. Do something to resist evil and also live out what is right. 

Thanks be to God. Amen.