*NOTE* This week because of a winter storm, Bethesda did not meet in person for worship. This message part of our abridged service that was only available on YouTube. For the whole service visit our YouTube page.
Throughout the month of January, I have been thinking about our calling as a church. Last week I asked you how deep, and how wide, is your calling to follow the Lord. And I know that it is not something easy to consider because thinking about our calling necessitates a response from us. Today we will finish that conversation.
Today in the gospel reading from Matthew, Jesus begins his earthly ministry by calling disciples to follow him.
The call of Jesus on the beach that we read about together is not about future salvation—that is for a later text that we will read and consider. Today the call of Jesus is a call to action, and what I mean by that is: the call of Jesus is to fish for human beings.
In a metaphorical sense, the call to Jesus is to stand before the dark places, the dark moments that you face each day, with our community, and to live out your calling. You and I are called by God to participate in the work of Jesus… literally to “follow me, and I will make you fish for men.”
And while that is easier to say from the pulpit on this chilly day, the hard work stands before us because while it is easy to read about the calling of these four individuals in Matthew 4, and think of them fondly, we read more than one text today—and in there was a challenge in that first reading.
Move 1- Deep Darkness
As I have been doing this month, I want to bring both the prophet and the gospel together in this reflection.
Normally we read Isaiah 9 in advent as you and I prepare for the birth of our Savior. When Isaiah 9 is read; we light candles. We acknowledge the joy that Jesus will bring around the Christmas season. The Isaiah 9 reading today is part of a larger lection (8:21-9:7) which would have been quite hard to process for the Israelites—I think.
Historically at this time in Israel’s life, Assyria was not threatening them, as we might like to think or consider. No, Assyria was in the land. Assyria occupied the region. So, when the prophet says things like, “There will be no gloom for those in anguish,” these people felt the anguish in their community, they lived the gloom. Each day the question of what is the future going to look like, and where is God, was first and foremost on their mind?
They asked these questions… and they asked more: “where is the Lord that we confess and pray to in worship when we need Him?”
When the prophet offered these words of hope that I read with you and said that light was coming in the recesses of darkness (and I bet the Hebrews felt dark) I bet they felt like they were sitting in a land of ‘deep darkness’ as verse 2 states. I suspect that any sense of faith in Yahweh, any hope that Yahweh was listening, was hard to muster for them.
For hope is often hard to muster when the previous evidence that supported, and grew, and testified to, the hope has been taken away. Faith is easy to practice when we look out and see the fruit of our faith practice right before our eyes.
But for these Israelites, and perhaps for you and I as we think about our calling in the new year, light, and faith, and hope, might have been replaced by a sense of darkness… of deep darkness… perhaps at one point your faith was strong and sturdy and your sense of call was so strong that whatever God asked you to do was an easy step. You would do it in a heartbeat. No one even had to ask. It just happened. Your sense of call, and the understanding of it, what the Word said, was deep and wide.
Yet at some point that became. . . well it became. . . what it became. And now deep darkness, a darkness that makes it hard to see a pathway forward is present before your eyes.
But even in the darkest of places, when it seems that the invading forces, like Assyria, are controlling the future of your faith, and especially when you and I do not feel like Being the Church any longer, we must follow the Light.
This is the good news of advent; it is why we read this text during that season as we prepare for the Incarnation. And paired with Matthew 4 today, we find even better good news for those who are willing to admit that while deep darkness was once their companion, Jesus has a word for us in the gospel. And the word is: follow me.
Move 2- Follow me
This is the place where the gospel’s message truly begins to take shape. For Jesus does not only call us out of the darkness as Isaiah prophesies, but Jesus invites us into the participatory practice of ministry that define the church that Jesus initiates. Follow me, he says.
Now in this text we learn that Jesus’ ministry builds off of John’s work at the River in verse 17. Let’s look at the actual steps that Jesus takes.
As soon as Jesus’ heard that John was arrested, things began to change.
First, we read that Jesus withdrew… isn’t that interesting!
In verse 12, as the news reaches our Savior of John’s arrest, Jesus takes a divisive step, not a passive one. Again, he withdraws. In the moment where the church can seem to take a step back, its first teacher is arrested, Jesus acts in an act that we should emulate in our faith.
Every time this word occurs in Greek, it takes place at the direction of God. God initiated. And it always unfolds as part of God’s sovereign plan for redemption for humanity. This is not Jesus backing up or taking a minute to clear His head based on what he heard about happening in John’s life— shocking as it could have been to his heart. Jesus is not surprised here. He is not running away. The withdrawal is not an action based on fear or even the darkness that we heard about in Isaiah.
Rather the withdrawing of Jesus indicates space is being created for meditation and prayer. Jesus is getting ready for what is to come spiritually by taking steps to spend time with His Father. As the world around Jesus feels a bit darker because John is arrested, Jesus withdraws so that he can pray and spend time with His Father in heaven.
And then, once the time of prayer and meditation is complete, Jesus begins the work that he was sent to do and he calls the church, he initiates the church’s work. . . “Follow me,” he says.
Simon and Andrew, James and John. Immediately, Matthew says, they leave everything behind and they follow him. Matthew records no conversation taking place as these four people follow, they just go with Him.
Jesus knows the motivation of their heart. He knows them already, and not just because He is the Son of God, and he calls them to come with him. Jesus knows that He has found people who will respond to the high calling that God has placed upon their hearts.
Now we know that James and John left the family business and their father Zebedee behind. That must have been a bit hard, but we do not hear a single word about that sacrifice. We also do not know the cost that Simon and Andrew would pay, but in both cases, it does not matter. They follow because Jesus calls and they follow because Jesus withdraws to spend time with His Father in heaven—this is a practice that we are called into as well.
Using Isaiah’s imagery, they followed the light out of the dark place where they were and it made all the difference for them, and ultimately, for us. They follow Jesus.
Move 3- We must follow also.
You too, both as a church, and as families, must follow the light even if right now you think you are in the dark. You too must find the space in the darkness that we live and work to withdraw to be with the Lord who asks each of us to Follow Him.
Even if the places where you go tomorrow feel dark—regardless of how ‘darkness’ is defined. If those places, and around those people, you wonder if God is present, God calls each of us to look toward him and follow the Light out.
There will always be the temptation to look at these moments and feel like the Assyrians in Isaiah are all around us, but the call of Jesus to follow him and fish for people leads us towards of God.
Conclusion
Although we will move to a new topic soon, I hope that you will continue to consider your call from the Lord. I hope that as you encounter people, and notice how dark, hard, and… whatever the world get, you will also look out and hear the call of the Lord to follow me and I will make you fishers of men.
DM
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