January 25 | Epiphany 3, Year A
Isaiah 9:1-4
Psalm 27:1, 5-13
1 Corinthians 1:10-18
Matthew 4:12-23
The prophet Isaiah is living in the gloom. Ahaz is on the throne of Judah. Judah has suffered defeat at the hands of Israel and Aram. Instead of turning to the Lord, Ahaz has sought help from pagan Assyria. Even the people have turned to mediums and spiritualists for answers and away from the Lord. Due to their apostasy, God has “thrust [them] into utter darkness.”
The prophet is living in that deep darkness, but he does not dwell there. Rather, as a man of faith, he projects himself into the God-promised future and speaks as if the promise has already been fulfilled. Likewise the preacher and civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. shared his dream with the world, spoke of his reality. “I have a dream,” King said, and Isaiah said, “I have the promise.”
This is the threefold promise Isaiah proclaims: God’s light has dawned on his people; his victory has defeated the enemies of his people; and his deliverance has freed his people. Throughout Scripture the dark is the place of ignorance, where falsehood reigns. True knowledge comes through revelation, and without light nothing is revealed. One who is spiritually blind lives in the dark and is unable to discern the truth. Our fears in the dark are based on imagined dangers and false intuitions. God is light and his people dwell in the light of his truth and therefore need fear no evil.
The enemy of God’s people is evil. The destroyer is the personification of evil, but evil is also within us in the form of self-centeredness and greed. But God defeated the powers of evil in this world through the death and resurrection of his Son. God has also freed his people. Through God’s deliverance, the people’s enslavement has been abolished, sin’s burden lifted off their shoulders.
Although none of this had occurred at the time of Isaiah, as a man of faith, the prophet described it as if it were already accomplished. As such he was a sign to the people, directing them to the day of the great hope. In his mind it was a certainty because God said it.
Those of us who live after the Resurrection know that we are free and evil is defeated, even if the full realization is yet to come. God fulfilled his promises through his incarnate Son, Jesus Christ. Matthew, the evangelist, directly connects Jesus with this prophecy from Isaiah. John identified Jesus as the light.
In the face of the yet to be realized fulfillment, we must live prophetically if we are to be kingdom dwellers. We can tell others about the good news, but we cannot expect them to believe it until we live our lives by faith. Like Isaiah, we need to live in ways that reveal that the promises are a done deal.
Look It Up: 1 Corinthians 1:10-13
Think About It: We divide because we place our focus on something other than Jesus.
The Rev. Dr. Chuck Alley, former rector of St. Matthew’s Church in Richmond, Virginia, teaches anatomy at Virginia Commonwealth University Medical School.
