The Third Sunday after the Epiphany, Year A—January 25, 2026
Today’s Gospel passage starts out dark: Jesus is just hearing that John the Baptist has been arrested. “He withdrew to Galilee. He left Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum by the sea,” reports Matthew, who works the plot for a tie-in to the Isaiah passage assigned for today:
There will be no gloom for those who were in anguish. In the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time he will make glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations.
The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light;
those who lived in a land of deep darkness—
on them light has shined.
Isaiah goes on to explain the reason for this change from gloom to joy:
For the yoke of their burden,
and the bar across their shoulders,
the rod of their oppressor,
you have broken as on the day of Midian.
These weeks of ordinary time following the Epiphany have become a de facto season of Epiphany, and the theme is light. The light that appeared at Christmas, around the darkest time of the year, is slowly and steadily growing. It will “flame out, like shining from shook foil”1 just before ushering us into Lent and then Holy Week, where, despite the lengthening days, we will find ourselves in deep, deep darkness—gloom we know will be replaced with a great light. And so we travel every year in the Church calendar, through these miraculous and epiphanic high points as well as the (more familiar, if we’re honest) times of darkness and deep gloom.
The Psalm today pairs well with Isaiah, although this is a juxtaposition by the compilers of the Revised Common Lectionary. “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom then shall I fear?” The Psalmist is zooming us in on the personal experience of the revelatory light of God. As the rest of the poem unfolds, we see the Psalmist’s response is to seek God, to dwell in God’s house offering praise with oblations, and to find comfort in the safety God provides. This is a picture of intense intimacy:
You speak in my heart and say, “Seek my face.”
Your face, Lord, will I seek.
So when Matthew has Jesus leave Nazareth to live in Capernaum, he frames it with a careful selection from Isaiah:
“Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali,
on the road by the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles—
the people who sat in darkness
have seen a great light,
and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death
light has dawned.”From that time Jesus began to proclaim, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”
Is it this message Jesus brings that Matthew identifies with the light from Isaiah, or is it Jesus himself? I’m not sure that it matters. What I want to highlight is the way the light comes: one foot in front of the other. Jesus’ preaching becomes his daily work—and he transforms the daily work of a few soon-to-be disciples. Brothers Simon (Peter) and Andrew are busy fishing for a living. Jesus calls to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” They dropped everything and followed him immediately. Brothers James and John are in their father’s boat mending fishing nets, when Jesus calls to them (we’re not told what he says exactly) and they, like the other brothers, drop everything and follow.
Matthew wraps up this pericope, “Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people.” This is the new daily work for Jesus and his growing band of followers.
Apart from the miracles Matthew seems to think so little of he just tosses a mention, what we’re seeing her is excruciatingly mundane. Or maybe curing sickness is, for Jesus, also just one more routine job day in and day out. In any case, this is how the light arrives.
The word “gospel” was already in use before Mark, Matthew, Luke, John, and others started writing theirs. It was a herald of “good news” about the acts of Empire or the birth of the next heir to the throne. Rome’s emperors were gods in the making, after all. Early followers of Jesus coopted the imperial language already in circulation in order to communicate the significance of this seemingly unimportant man from an unimportant town. When they call Jesus “Lord” or “Son of God,” they’re calling him titles that were given to Caesar. That was necessarily a political act. The Empire wasn’t benevolent toward the kind of people who followed the Way of Jesus early on. In Jesus, they saw someone who would break the yoke of their burden and the rod of their oppressors (to use some of Isaiah’s words). But to call Jesus “Son of God” was also to put him in a unique relationship with the God of Israel, of whom the Psalmist sang,
Even now he lifts up my head
above my enemies round about me.
That consolation the Psalmist describes becomes a source of strength and courage in adversity. Early Christians who clashed with the powers of Empire showed us that strength, even if it looked like their downfall to those without the insight of faith we are practicing though this Epiphany journey.
In the snippet from Paul’s (first) letter to the Corinthians, the Apostle worries that divisions among the members of that church might be spoiling their witness. Apparently these Christians were identifying with specific Apostles or preachers whose teachings presumably brought them to faith. He specifically repudiates anyone aligning themselves with him: “Has Christ been divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?” He reminds them that his own calling from God was to proclaim the Gospel, keeping Christ front and center.
Like Paul, Peter, Andrew, James, and John, we might some day have the opportunity—or obligation—to “flame out, like shining from shook foil.” In any case, we who follow Jesus are called to carry Gospel light through our mundane tasks and our faithful practices. We practice both to do, and to become better at doing, the daily work of putting one foot in front of the other, bringing the light to shine in dark places and dispel gloom.
- Gerard Manley Hopkins, “God’s Grandeur.” https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44395/gods-grandeur ↩︎
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