January 25 | Epiphany 3, 12 months A
Isaiah 9:1-4
Psalm 27:1, 5-13
1 Corinthians 1:10-18
Matthew 4:12-23
The prophet Isaiah resides within the gloom. Ahaz is on the throne of Judah. Judah has suffered defeat by the hands of Israel and Aram. As an alternative of turning to the Lord, Ahaz has sought assist from pagan Assyria. Even the individuals have turned to mediums and spiritualists for solutions and away from the Lord. Because of their apostasy, God has “thrust [them] into utter darkness.”
The prophet is residing in that deep darkness, however he doesn’t dwell there. Fairly, as a person of religion, he tasks 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 actuality. “I’ve a dream,” King stated, and Isaiah stated, “I’ve the promise.”
That is the threefold promise Isaiah proclaims: God’s gentle has dawned on his individuals; his victory has defeated the enemies of his individuals; and his deliverance has freed his individuals. All through Scripture the darkish is the place of ignorance, the place falsehood reigns. True data comes by way of revelation, and with out gentle nothing is revealed. One who’s spiritually blind lives in the dead of night and is unable to discern the reality. Our fears in the dead of night are primarily based on imagined risks and false intuitions. God is gentle and his individuals dwell within the gentle of his reality and due to this fact want concern no evil.
The enemy of God’s individuals is evil. The destroyer is the personification of evil, however evil can be inside us within the type of self-centeredness and greed. However God defeated the powers of evil on this world by way of the demise and resurrection of his Son. God has additionally freed his individuals. By means of God’s deliverance, the individuals’s enslavement has been abolished, sin’s burden lifted off their shoulders.
Though none of this had occurred on the time of Isaiah, as a person of religion, the prophet described it as if it had been already completed. As such he was an indication to the individuals, directing them to the day of the good hope. In his thoughts it was a certainty as a result of God stated it.
These of us who reside after the Resurrection know that we’re free and evil is defeated, even when the total realization is but to come back. God fulfilled his guarantees by way of his incarnate Son, Jesus Christ. Matthew, the evangelist, straight connects Jesus with this prophecy from Isaiah. John recognized Jesus as the sunshine.
Within the face of the but to be realized achievement, we should reside prophetically if we’re to be kingdom dwellers. We will inform others about the excellent news, however we can’t anticipate them to imagine it till we reside our lives by religion. Like Isaiah, we have to reside in ways in which reveal that the guarantees are a finished deal.
Look It Up: 1 Corinthians 1:10-13
Assume About It: We divide as a result of we place our give attention to one thing aside from Jesus.
The Rev. Dr. Chuck Alley, former rector of St. Matthew’s Church in Richmond, Virginia, teaches anatomy at Virginia Commonwealth College Medical Faculty.
