Light dawns over Galilee

Isaiah 9.1b-4 In Galilee of the nations the people have seen a great light.

1 Corinthians 1.10-13,17  ‘I appeal to you that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you.’ 

Matthew 4.12-23 ‘Jesus went to Capernaum so that what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled.’

The people who walked in darkness
    have seen a great light;
those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness,
    on them has light shined.

Isaiah 9.4

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Light dawns over Galilee and from the shadows, one preaches, ‘repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand’.

And he calls.

Calls fishermen first, to re-direct what they catch, to draw others to the light and be bearers of light, to witness to the One True Light who has come into the world.

Jesus, hearing the news of the death of John the Baptist, and coming straight from his own battle with Satan in the wilderness following his baptism at the hands of John, ‘withdrew’, we read ‘into Galilee’,

Galilee is the land which he knows best, and from Nazareth (where he grew up) he goes to live in Capernaum.

But this withdrawal is not an escape to a comfortable place, Capernaum-on-Sea.

The Greek word for this withdrawal is anachoreo from which the English word ‘anchorite’ comes.

The word ‘anchorite’ is not well known.

An anchorite is a hermit, someone who lives a solitary life - Dame Julian of Norwich was one.

The anchorite is anchored not in the ways of the world - the competition, the hurry, the jostling – but anchored in something deeper, in the depths of God.

It was to Galilee that Jesus withdrew, not to escape but to begin to fulfil his mission and purpose.

Echoing the prophecy of Isaiah, he withdraws so as to redeem.

Capernaum, in the lands of Zebulun and Naphtali, adjacent to Galilee, is not chosen accidentally.

If you know Genesis well, or Joseph and his Tecnicolor Dreamcoat you'll know these names. 

They're brothers, Joseph's brothers, sons of Jacob, who formed the 12 Tribes of Israel

And these northern territories – Zebulun and Naphtali - named after the two brothers, were the first to fall to Assyrian conquest, and thus were in darkness.

Now they are the first to experience the dawn of restoration through Jesus: a reconquest by the power of light.

Zebulun and Napthali are not the Judean heartlands, they are the peripheries, they are where Jesus centres his mission and his proclamation - echoing John the Baptist - of the kingdom of heaven, calling for repentance.

Zebulun and Napthali, first oppressed, are in the vanguard of the great reversal brought by Christ the Light.

And the prophet Isaiah – in our first reading - speaks of the ‘Galilee of the Nations’, of the Gentiles: this abundant region, Galilee, luscious green and teeming with fish, is a sign of the gathering in of all nations, just as fish are gathered in a net (see where this is going?).

The Covenant God established with Israel is now being extended, even to the shadowlands of the Gentiles.

The kingdom of the Messiah stretches beyond Judea, where John the Baptist ministered, to invite and draw in all people.

The hinge of this is the call, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.’

Turn and face the light!

And it's to brothers he moves first, brothers who are fishermen.

In the very act of casting a net he calls Simon Peter and his brother, Andrew. As they mend their nets he calls the brothers, James and John.

The twelve tribes are no longer the brothers Zebulun and Naphtali, or Judah and Benjamin, but the twelve apostles, starting with brothers, but by no means ending with them.

The immediacy of their response is striking and almost implausible.

Remember, though, Andrew had been a follower of John the Baptist, as probably had John, the Beloved Disciple. The ground had been prepared in Andrew’s life, ready for Christ the Sower to come.

Andrew, we read in St John’s Gospel was with John the Baptist when he said of Jesus, ‘Behold, Jesus, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.’ (John 1.29)

Jesus’ call came to responsive ears and hearts.

Themselves drawn in, they would accompany him to draw others in.

And Jesus’ mission continued, as he went ‘throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people.’ (Matthew 4.23)

Herein is the light.

And that light breaks into the darkness of human experience today.

The concept of the fractal is helpful here.

A fractal is a small piece of a larger whole but that shares its pattern and is totally complete.

The larger whole is that Jesus came into the world as the ‘light that shines in the darkness’ and illuminates the world.

And that ‘big picture’ operates in the particular circumstances of your life too, as a fractal.

It’s what your baptism is all about.

What Jesus did in Galilee, bringing the light, revealing the Kingdom in healing and restoration, he is doing in you.

Let that light shine, let it grow in you and spill out of you.

In the dark corners of our lives may the light shine; and may we in turn, like Peter and Andrew, James and John, and all the saints through the ages, be lights shining to the glory of God the Father.

The people who walked in darkness
    have seen a great light;
those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness,
    on them has light shined.

Thanks be to God for the light to enlighten all hearts!