Isaiah 8 First the Lord degraded the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali; but in the end he has glorified the seaward road, the land west of the Jordan, the District of the Gentiles. Anguish has taken wing, dispelled is darkness: for there is no gloom where but now there was distress.
The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.
January 25 Homily Where are these places of Zebulun and Naphtali in the Holy Land and what has them get mentioned in two of our readings today?
The land refers to two of the ancient twelve tribes of Israel. If you recall, the Holy Land was put into areas led by family ties or tribes. This is the couple of ones in the far north area of Galilee, in the northern territory, which is called Israel in much of the Old Testament. It’s the area of the Holy Land far from the central Jerusalem area of Judah in the south. So, in Maryland terms, it would be like the Cumberland area or Deep Creek Lake of the farthest area from Annapolis of the Baltimore/DC corridor.
Just like we have a big highway head to Western Maryland and eventually to Morgantown West Virginia—which is Rt. 68—one of the things for the people of Zebulun and Naphtali was that it was right off a main roadway. Soldiers from other nations kept marching through their place on their way to other places, causing all kinds of destruction and death. That’s why the Scriptures call it “dark” for the trouble going on there from outsiders or of the quite distant place it was for any Jews to see it.
The apostles did not expect Jesus to have it on His radar, either. Yet The Christ in Jesus fulfills a prophecy that these people (of this far north) “will see a great light.” This northern region borders or inhabits where Gentile people are. The strict orthodox Jews of Jesus’ time would look on this region with disdain and disfavor. Bad things and bad people live up that way.
In the Gospel today, we have Jesus deciding to locate to the region, as he has had bad news that his home town of Nazareth forbid him (a so-called blasphemer) from ever coming back—so he departs it. Jesus has double bad news of his cousin John the Baptizer getting arrested and imprisoned in Jerusalem. Still, with all that depressing situation, Jesus is going to start something of “Great Light” in Capernaum (maybe the Hagerstown of its day!) and start his public ministry as Rabbi with disciples.
2 Instead of Assyrian invaders to the Jews, or those Babylonians who marched once in conquest here to take down the remained of the Jews in their Holy Land,” instead it’s a very positive movement coming down to bless all who are there and south of it to Jerusalem. It is Jesus and His proclaiming of the Kingdom of God among us.
This positive and welcome movement of Light and Hope in Jesus Christ beginning something in the Galilee North. Jesus recruits four Sea of Galilee fishermen as disciples, as we hear proclaimed in Matthew chapter 4.
The message here is that light and life can come of gloom and distress. Jesus has make it happen.
Is He making it happen in our lives? That’s the takeaway question.
In a very real sense, aren’t all of us somewhat living in the land of Zebulun and Naphtali? Are our questions when we are in whatever “gloom” or “distress” is going on in our world and time—are they so different than those Zebulun and Napthali people back two millennia ago when times for them were so bleak and so dark? So where do you look for light?
Jesus will give it. Even when He could have been in the dumps, with His situation, instead He brings forth Light and Love and Hope and Salvation.
Jesus purposely starts up here, and it was in the Messiah playbook, to be a minister of the Light of God, even to the dim soul of humanity, and have New Dawning arise!
Galilee got a lot of attention from Jesus. Those very areas that had suffered so much were allowed by God so see so much of what the Son of Man would reveal. Here He lives. Here He heals. Here He does the miraculous feeding of the thousands. Here He walks on water. Here He retreats much to pray in its hills. For the Galileans—He is one of them—the hope of hopes in Messiah. The message for us is that He is the Incarnate One and Immanuel on the earth – Who is among us and our pains and sorrows and disappointments—as well as in our joy and love for what can be mustered in this broken world. But most of all—He is our Eternal Light, and He is with us and for us and near us. So, like we hear in the Gospel, too—will you be His follower? He is asking to be Lord of our lives and for us to follow and do His good will. Yes!
Even in these Maryland outskirts of Burtonsville, West Laurel, Skaggsville, Silver Spring, Calverton-Beltsville—will we be enlighted in life by Him? Will the people of Deep Creek, Cumberland and Hagerstown be agreeable to the same? J Choose the Light!
Fr. J. Barry