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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
My recent trip to the Great White North of Minnesota and Wisconsin reminded me how glad I am to live in the South! My uncle with whom we spent most of our time repeatedly commented about the gradually increasing daylight there, as we might also comment here. You do not have to live in the North or be officially diagnosed with Seasonal Affective Disorder in order to be depressed in the winter or to have heightened anxiety in the summer. And you may know that typical treatment for the classic, winter-based Seasonal Affective Disorder includes light therapy. Indeed, in general, light is the perfect treatment for darkness, as we heard both in today’s Old Testament Reading (Isaiah 9:1-4) and today’s Gospel Reading. Especially as we consider that Gospel Reading we realize that “Jesus is the Great Light Who has dawned for our darkness”.
Today’s Gospel Reading tells us of a number of things, including Jesus’s journey into Galilee, His ministering and calling disciples there. The other Gospel accounts have similar reports, but St. Matthew’s account that we heard uniquely describes Jesus’s work in Galilee and the surrounding regions as the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy of a great light that shines on those who walked and dwelt in a land of deep darkness. To Isaiah’s original hearers, the promises of God seemed to be failing, and so through Isaiah God assured them that the areas that seemed to be so despised would in fact be a place where God’s promises of His Savior would come true (Conzelmann, TDNT 7:440-441; cf. 9:344 n.264).
In our Midweek Bible Study about how “Salvation History is Our Story”, most recently we have been considering the exile of the people from the northern Kingdom of Israel to lands under the control of the Assyrians—the time and circumstances of today’s Old Testament Reading’s prophecy. As much as today’s Gospel Reading repeats geographical references, we do not have to be all that familiar with the geography of the region to get the basic idea that Jesus was the Great Light Who dawned for darkness of all the people in those areas. So, we can also get the basic idea that Jesus is the Great Light Who dawned for our darkness. Like them, by nature we dwell in darkness, in the region and shadow of death, separated from God on account of our unbelief and other sin (Schulz, s.v. skiav, TDNT 7:397). Although the Light has come into the world, sometimes we who do wicked things even hate the light and do not come into it lest our works be exposed (John 3:19-20). Yet, only that Great Light can save us. Unless we remain in the Light Who dawns and shines on us, we risk eternal separation from God in hell, described as a place of outer darkness, with weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matthew 8:12; 22:13; confer Scaer, CLD VI:79).
Thus, God calls and enables us to repent of our sin and remain in His Light. Like John the Baptizer before Him and His own disciples and their successors after Him, Jesus, as we heard in the Gospel Reading, preached repentance for the Kingdom of Heaven was at hand. Later, He even warned His “home” city of Capernaum by the sea, where He did quite a number of mighty works, that it would suffer the torments of hell for not repenting (Matthew 11:23). So, we repent: we turn in sorrow from our sin, we trust God to forgive our sin, and we want to do better than to keep on sinning. When we so repent, then God forgives our sin. God forgives all our sin, whatever it may be, for the sake of His Son, our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Great Light Who has dawned for our darkness.
“Jesus is the Great Light Who has dawned for our darkness”, but not in the sense that He is like a giant lightning bug from Whom all sorts of literal light radiates, although, to be sure, at His Transfiguration His face shone like the sun, and His clothes became white as light (Matthew 17:2). Jesus as the Word of God created light in the beginning (John 1:3), and His birth into human flesh in time was announced to Gentile wise men by means of a supernatural star (Matthew 2:2, 9). Jesus as a person—and so also the teaching about Him—is the light that is the perfect treatment for our darkness of sin and death (Conzelmann, TDNT 9:344). All of the mighty deeds Jesus did in Galilee and the surrounding regions demonstrated that He is true God, but the most important thing Jesus did for us required that He also be true man. In the Gospel Reading Jesus may have withdrawn into Galilee for a time, but, when the time was right, like John the Baptizer before Him and His own disciples and their successors after Him, Jesus Himself was arrested, and eventually Jesus was crucified for you and for me. As Jesus hung there on the cross, there were three hours of real darkness on the earth, as He was forsaken by God the Father (Scaer, CLD VI:79), so that we do not have to be so forsaken. Just as the people of Galilee and the surrounding regions did not deserve the light that Jesus shone on them, neither do we deserve it, but Jesus’s light is pure grace that we through faith receive in His Means of Grace, His Word and Sacraments.
In today’s Epistle Reading (1 Corinthians 1:10-18), we get an idea of some of the division that was plaguing the congregations in Corinth at the time that the Holy Spirit inspired St. Paul to write his first letter there. The people were following individual leaders instead of being united in the same mind and the same judgment, in their one Lord Who was crucified for them, and in the one Baptism they had received. The person who purely preaches the Gospel and rightly administers the Sacraments is not important, only that the Gospel is purely preached and the Sacraments are rightly administered. There should be no cult of personality. What we think about the style of the pastor’s preaching, or about the style of the music of the hymns he picks should not matter, but their content should. The cross of Christ itself has all the power it needs. The word of the cross—and that word applied to us individually as it is connected with water in Holy Baptism, with the actions of a pastor in individual Holy Absolution, and with bread and wine in Holy Communion—may be folly (or “foolishness”) to those who are perishing, but, to us who are being saved, the Word of the cross in all its forms is the power of God unto our forgiveness and so salvation. As we sing in the Nunc Dimittis, that salvation is “A light to lead the Gentiles / Unto [God’s] holy hill, / The glory of [His] people, / [His] chosen Israel” (Lutheran Service Book 211).
Hearing Gospel Readings such as today’s is sometimes difficult when we ourselves or our loved ones are suffering from acute or chronic diseases, such as those Jesus healed in Galilee and the surrounding regions. As to the people of Isaiah’s time, the promises of God may seem to us to be failing! Yet, the people Jesus healed in Galilee and the surrounding regions still died in this lifetime. The unfailing “healing” that God gave them and gives us comes with the resurrection and glorification of our bodies for eternal life with Him. Even though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we will fear no evil, for the Lord, our Good Shepherd, is with us (Psalm 23:4). So, we are most concerned with reaching out to family and friends in order to bring them here, where God creates faith when and where He pleases in those who hear the Gospel. And, if necessary for Jesus’s Name’s sake, we without complaining (Matthew 19:27) give up our family and friends and also our possessions, knowing that we will receive a hundredfold now and eternal life in the age to come (Matthew 19:29; confer Mark 10:29-30 and Luke 18:29-30).
Unless we die first or unless Jesus returns to begin that age to come, the days will continue to have more hours of light, and even the start of Daylight Saving Time is only a few weeks away on March 12th. Christmas and Epiphany with their themes of increasing light are naturally timed in our northern hemisphere! But, regardless, we can endure Seasonal Affective Disorder or whatever afflictions God in His wisdom permits, because, as we live each day repenting of our sin and trusting in God’s forgiveness, we have all we need, for “Jesus is the Great Light Who has dawned for our darkness”
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +