|Home| |Pericope Studies|
PERICOPE STUDY
CENTER FOR THEOLOGY, LRC
THIRD SUNDAY AFTER THE EPIPHANY
JANUARY 23, 2005
MATTHEW
4:12-23
Here
is one more beginning for Jesus in the Gospel. Matthew made clear at the start
that his story really had its beginning with the birth of God's people in
Abraham, and the angel declared to Joseph that God Himself was at work in the
conception and birth of Jesus, coming to live with His people. The Messiah will
live again their story of escape and freedom through Egypt and a life of service
to God. But this time it will be a story of rescuing rather of being rescued.
John has recognized Him at His baptism, as has the devil at His temptation, one
gladly and the other reluctantly. Now begins the ministry which will climax in
the victory of resurrection and will remain visible in His ministry through
disciples.
In
those days, as in ours, the ruling of God was not always apparent. Herod had
forced Him to leave the country, only to face defeat in his own (Herod's) death
and the safe return of God's Anointed. The ministry of God's prophet, John, was
ended by death, but the way had been prepared for the Christ to begin His
ministry. His death would not mark defeat for Him but for that kingdom
that has always opposed God and His spokesmen.
It
is the time of God's fulfillment of promise, as Matthew will emphasize
throughout his gospel. A time of fulfillment is so different from a time of
waiting that the proper attitude with which to welcome it must be taught. It is
not rejoicing but repentance that is appropriate, a complete reordering of
attitude toward life and the future.
We
see that when Jesus steps into the life of a fishing family working at the lake.
The ruling activity of God will spell for two of them the end of a family
venture which had probably existed for generation. For James and John there will
be new adventures and new knowledge and new prospects in a new vocation -
fishing for human beings. If there were other sons upon whom Zebedee could rely
to help continue the family business, they were probably too young to be of
great help yet and certainly they would not be as able as the two older boys
Jesus was calling to join him in this new life. (Though John could not have been
very old either.) The brothers were called to a service full of adventure and
excitement; for Zebedee it was a service of increased toil and figuring out how
to put food on the table with less help.
The advent of the kingdom in our lives does not fulfill
our dreams but it calls us to a new life. We do not find all our questions
answered but in His declaration of forgiveness in Word and Sacrament God calls
us to serve without knowing all the answers. In Christ, He says, the answers,
all of them, have arrived in our lives. Like the rest of the world, we try to
make sense of a world in which justice does not always prevail and we do not
know why thousands of people are destroyed in one day of nature's (God's) power
gone wild. We do not understand the loss of even more people in another year,
more steadily and therefore less noticeably. And we cannot comprehend the
purpose in the loss of one or two people we feel we still need. We cannot see
why our perception of truth does not persuade the "blind" to see and
agree with us as we try to make disciples of all nations.
So
God continues to proclaim the foolishness of the Gospel to us as well as through
us as he calls us to follow Him and fish for people. When you make sense of it,
be happy; and when you don't, follow anyway. God does not empower us so much as
He works His power in us and through us.
|Home| |Pericope Studies|