Matthew 4.12-25

In his novel, This Is Happiness, Niall Williams’ elderly narrator, Noe (pronounced No), remembers when electricity and light came to their little Irish village of Faha.

Noe narrates the life changing moment that light entered his world like this:

“I’m aware here that it may be hard to imagine the enormity of this moment, the threshold that once crossed would leave behind a world that had endured for centuries, and that this moment was only sixty years ago.

Consider this: when the electricity did finally come, it was discovered that the 100-watt bulb was too bright for Faha. The instant garishness was too shocking. Dust and cobwebs were discovered to have been thickening on every surface since the sixteenth century. Reality was appalling. It turned out Siney Dunne’s fine head of hair was a wig, not even close in color to the scruff of his neck, and Marian McGlynn’s healthy allure was in fact a caked make-up the color of red turf ash.

In the week following the switch-on, store owner Tom Clohessy couldn’t keep mirrors in stock, as people came in from out the country and bought looking glasses of all variety, went home, and in merciless illumination endured the chastening of all flesh when they saw what they looked like for the first time.”

When we are used to the darkness, light can be shocking to our system.

Light can be shocking because light has the power to expose the truth that we are trying to hide—an aging face, a wig to cover a balding head, the caked on dirt and grime from laziness in cleaning our home.

However, just because light can be shocking doesn’t mean that light is bad.  Light does the job of exposing the truth so that we can make the proper attempts to clean up our messes and live in the freedom of reality. 

In this morning’s Biblical text, chosen for us by the lectionary, we head back into the Gospel of Matthew, or, in other words, the disciple Matthew’s first hand account of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

In this text from Matthew’s experience with Jesus, we hear that when Jesus comes into our life, He shines a light on the truth of the way we are living and He shines a light on the truth of how we are restored into a healthy and life-giving relationship with God, our Father and Creator.

Matthew 4:12–25 tells us this:

[12] Now when he heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew into Galilee. [13] And leaving Nazareth he went and lived in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, [14] so that what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled:

[15] “The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali,

the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles—

[16] the people dwelling in darkness

have seen a great light,

and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death,

on them a light has dawned.”

[17] From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

[18] While walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon (who is called Peter) and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. [19] And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” [20] Immediately they left their nets and followed him. [21] And going on from there he saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, in the boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets, and he called them. [22] Immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.

[23] And 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. [24] So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, those having seizures, and paralytics, and he healed them. [25] And great crowds followed him from Galilee and the Decapolis, and from Jerusalem and Judea, and from beyond the Jordan. (ESV)

Think about the ways light helps you on a daily basis.

You use your cell phone flashlight to look for something under the couch.

You use you cell phone flashlight to read a menu at a darkly lit restaurant.

You use your cell phone flashlight to illuminate the path from your car to your front door when you get home after the sun has gone down.

You need the help that light provides on a daily basis because there is a lot of dark and darkness in our world.

As our text makes clear, Jesus is the light that we need to help us on a daily basis.  Jesus is the one that shows you the way, the only way, to God the Father in Heaven.  

To make that point, our text for today has Matthew quoting from the prophet Isaiah to tell us about what happens when Jesus comes into the world and into our lives.

However, without a little history lesson, the prophecy about Jesus made in verses 15 and 16 can leave us scratching our head in confusion.

So, what does all of this talk about the ancient cities of Zebulun and Naphtali have to do with Jesus?

Well, Jesus went to the region of Galilee to fulfill the prophecy of Isaiah 9:1-2. 

Centuries before Jesus went to the Galilee, when the northern empire of Assyria had conquered Israel, the darkness of the Assyrian invasion had fallen first on the northern tribes of Zebulun and Naphtali. But Isaiah had promised that they would be the first to see the light when God came to liberate his people. Matthew says that that’s now happening.  Through the ministry of Jesus, a new day or era is coming.

The Bible tells us that the world was cast into darkness because of Sin.  The darkness came because Sin causes humanity to give up loving one another in order to focus on serving and loving themselves.  Due to the inward, individual focus that Sin brings, people love themselves more than they loved God and therefore, more than they love those around them.

As the world became a place where you and I played the game, “Everyman, woman, and child for themselves,”  we all lost the safety and security that love brings to us.

As we heard from the Gospel of John around Christmas, 

[1] In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. [2] He was in the beginning with God. [3] All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. [4] In him was life, and the life was the light of men. [5] The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

[9] The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. [10] He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. [11] He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. (John 1.1-5, 9-11, ESV)

However, as John continues on, there is good news for you and for me.

[12] But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, [13] who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. (John 1.12-13,ESV)

Jesus is the light.

Jesus is the light of salvation.

Jesus is the light of rescue.

Jesus is the light of forgiveness.

Jesus is the light of freedom.

Jesus is the light of life.

First, out text shows us that Jesus shines brightly in every dark place so that your Sin can be exposed, and you can come to repentance and faith.

And, it is faith in Jesus, as the light of God for salvation that brings you the hope of forgiveness and life eternal.

1 John 1:5–7 tells us this:

[5] This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. [6] If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. [7] But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. (ESV)

Second, our text shows us that Jesus shines the light on our lives and reveals that our lives have been given to us and are meant to overflow with Godly, eternal meaning and purpose.

Jesus transforms the lives of simple fisherman by using their gifts, talents, and passions for a greater purpose.  Jesus tells Simon and Andrew that they are going to put down their nets on the seashore and instead focus their attention on going into the towns and villages around them to catch men, women, and children for the Kingdom of Heaven.  They would do this by sharing the good news of God’s Savior, Jesus, who has come to rescue them from the darkness of being separated from God because of Sin.

By the light of Jesus Christ that shines on the will of God for you and me, we are shown what it looks like to live in a manner worthy of one who is righteous and holy. By living with the fruit of God’s Spirit moving us, we are made to be loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle, and self-controlled so that those we interact with will experience Godliness and will be drawn to the light of Jesus for themselves.

Finally, our text shows us that Jesus shines the light on our life and heals us from the sickness, disease, and spiritual forces of evil and Sin that hold us back from living in the freedom of being a child of God.

In our text, Jesus heals physical diseases.  Does that mean that Jesus will heal all of your physical illnesses and diseases in this life?  No!  There is no where in the Bible that promises that.  Instead, Jesus’ healing miracles point us to the fact that we are broken and unwell because of Sin and need to be spiritually healed if we are going to have the hope of being accepted by and reconnected to God our Father in Heaven.

In 2021, The Washington Post shared this story:

It started in November with a single string of Christmas lights on a Baltimore County street. Kim Morton was home watching a movie with her daughter when she received a text from her neighbor who lives directly across the road. He told her to peek outside.

Matt Riggs had hung a string of white Christmas lights, stretching from his home to hers. He also left a tin of homemade cookies on her doorstep. The lights, he told her, were meant to reinforce that they were always connected.

Riggs said, “I was reaching out to Kim to literally brighten her world.” He knew his neighbor was facing a dark time. Morton had shared that she was dealing with depression and anxiety. She was also grieving the loss of a loved one and struggling with work-related stress. The mounting pressure led to panic attacks.

A bit of brightness was in order, he decided, but he certainly did not expect that his one strand of Christmas lights would somehow spark a neighborhood-wide movement. In the days that followed Riggs’ light-hanging gesture, neighbor after neighbor followed suit, stretching lines of Christmas lights from one side of the street to the other.

When Leabe Commisso, who lives on the other end of the block, saw what Riggs had done, she wanted in. She said, to her neighbor, “Let’s do it, too. Before we knew it, we were cleaning out Home Depot of all the lights.”

Quickly, other neighbors caught on. Kim said, “Little by little, the whole neighborhood started doing it. The lights were a physical sign of connection and love.”

She and Riggs were stunned to see neighbors with drills and ladders, up on their rooftops and tangled in trees, doing whatever they had to do to hang the lights. For the first time in a long time, a feeling of togetherness—and light—had returned.

Riggs said, “What blows my mind is that it was all organic. It just happened. There was no planning. It just grew out of everybody’s desire for beauty and joy and connection.”

But the impromptu effort has perhaps had the most profound impact on the person for whom it was originally intended. Kim said, “It made me look up, literally and figuratively, above all the things that were dragging me down. It was light pushing back the darkness.”

When you see that Jesus has come to you, you see the sign that God has connected your home, in the darkness of a fallen world, to his home—the Kingdom of Heaven—through the light of Christ  your Savior.

Colossians 1:12–14 encourages us with these words:

[12] [give] thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. [13] He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, [14] in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. (ESV)

As a sinner living with other sinners in a fallen world, you encounter darkness every day. While you may experience Instagram-worthy, sunny day picnic lunches, the reality is that life is more of a midnight walk through the woods. On any given day, you probably encounter more darkness than you do truth. So, to move forward without danger and get to where you are meant to go, you need something to light your way.

As a Christian who now has the light of God in Christ in your life, your proper response is to connect the light of Christ to others living in the darkness of this world so that they too are included in the ever expanding neighborhood family that makes up God’s eternal Kingdom.

All of this is brought together in a beautifully poetic way in a late 17th Century hymn:

O Christ, our true and only light,

enlighten those who sit in night;

let those afar now hear your voice

and in your fold with us rejoice.

Fill with the radiance of your grace

the souls now lost in error’s maze;

enlighten those whose inmost minds

some dark delusion haunts and blinds.

O gently call those gone astray

that they may find the saving way;

let ev’ry conscience sore oppressed

in you find peace and heav’nly rest.

Shine on the darkened and the cold,

recall the wand’rers to your fold;

unite all those who walk apart,

confirm the weak and doubting heart,

That they with us may evermore

such grace with wond’ring thanks adore

and endless praise to you be giv’n

by all your Church in earth and heav’n.

Or, in a more modern late 1990s Christian rap song, the truth of today’s Biblical text goes something like this:

The Light of Christ is a blazing one

there’s a fight to live right and it’s major son

but the grace has come so we praise the Son  

and celebrate Him cause we know what He saved us from 

This is the Word of God for you today.

This is the Grace of God for you today.

Amen.

Reverend Fred Scragg V.

February 8, 2026.