The Kingdom Movement

A Literary & Pastoral Study Guide to the Gospel of Matthew

The Inspiration of Matthew,

by Caravaggio

On the King's Errand

Devotional Reflections on Matthew's Gospel

Jesus is Light in Darkness:  Mt.4:12 – 16

^4:12 Now when Jesus heard that John had been taken into custody, he withdrew into Galilee; ¹³ and leaving Nazareth, he came and settled in Capernaum, which is by the sea, in the region of Zebulun and Naphtali. ¹⁴ This was to fulfill what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet: ¹⁵ ‘The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, by the way of the Sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles – ¹⁶ the people who were sitting in darkness saw a great light, and those who were sitting in the land and shadow of death, upon them a light dawned.’

All first century Jews were reflecting and praying about the dishonor and humiliation that came with exile and captivity.  They had been taken over by Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, and then Rome.  Sometimes Jews were deported and moved from one area to another.  They longed for their God to rescue them, like He once did from Egypt in the grand Exodus.  Because they didn’t want to be subjected to someone else’s rule, they developed the saying, ‘No king but God.’  Their phrase for that period of liberation, when Israel’s freedom would begin, was the ‘kingdom of heaven.’  It was an oppositional phrase.

When Jesus begins to preach, his message is, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’  Imagine the excitement!  Mark and Luke use the phrase ‘kingdom of God,’ but it was likely that Jesus and his original followers in their Jewish context used the phrase ‘kingdom of heaven’ because it was improper and irreverent to use the name of God, and Mark and Luke translated it for their Gentile audiences.

Jesus makes the Galilee area – the northern area of Israel – his home base not just because people were hurting there, but probably for another reason:  The Galilee had been taken over by the Assyrians in 721 BC.  It was the first Israelite region to fall to the Gentiles.  At that time, Gentiles lived on the eastern side of Galilee, so the Galilean Jews worked hard to maintain their cultural and covenant identity by eating kosher foods, being diligent about the Sabbath, etc. despite ongoing suspicion from southern Jews of their accents and other hard to articulate but easily sensed cultural differences.  Isaiah had said that this land, ‘The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, by the way of the Sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles – the people who were sitting in darkness saw a great light, and those who were sitting in the land and shadow of death, upon them a light dawned’ (Isa.9:1 – 2, quoted in Mt.4:15 – 16).  Jesus starts ministry in Galilee because God works to bring life and hope, in a sense, in the order in which it fell into death and despair.  The people of Galilee fell first, so they will be the first to rise. 

When Jesus comes into us, he heals the fundamental place of who we are: our core spiritual identity.  From there, he continues to heal the rest of us. What place in you is he addressing today?  Where is he shining light?