Jesus Is Our Only Way Out
Commentary
This is a Sunday for reminders that Jesus is our only way out.
Isaiah 9:1-4
The First Lesson is likely a prophecy of the historical Isaiah, whose ministry to Judah (the southern kingdom) transpired in the 8th century BC. This is a prophecy about the messianic king, originally an oracle for the coronation of the Judean king, perhaps for Hezekiah (724 BC-697 BC) in the Davidic line, who reigned during Isaiah’s ministry. The lesson begins with a promise that there will be no gloom for those who were in anguish. It is noted that in the former time the Lord allowed the lands of the tribes of Zebulun and Naphtali as well as Galilee in the north to become Assyrian provinces of Galilee after Assyrian annexation of the region (v.1). This new king (the Messiah) is described as a great light [or] for those who had been in darkness [choshek], that is in oppression. It seems that this light will make glorious the way to the Sea [of Galilee (vv.1-2). Light is an image for release from oppression. The new king will make the nation more abundant, increase its joy and break the oppressor’s rod, just as the great war hero of the tribe of Manasseh, Gideon conquered the Midianites (vv.3-4; Judges 7:15-25).
These observations were readily applied to the Babylonian exiles of the sixth century BC addressed in the chapters from 40 to the end of the book after this chapter pertaining to the earlier prophet was combined with the later chapters. Their exile was interpreted in accord with God’s plan to restore the tribes.
Gloom and oppression are not absent in American life in early 2023. We are mired in the pessimism. An NPR poll taken early in 2022 found six in ten Americans feel our democracy is in trouble. It is evident that the congressional elections have not changed those sentiments much. We are trapped/oppressed. And as for gloom, a mid-2022 poll conducted by Oracle revealed nearly half of us (45%) had forgotten what it is like to be truly happy. This sort of bondage is no doubt related to the experience of being under the law (trapped by it), feeling we have to be the ones to make ourselves happy and content. Another angle for the sermon might be to focus on how living under God’s law makes us feel guilty and inadequate. No matter the starting point, the lesson invites preachers to proclaim that the King/Christ sets us free, that he has broken the rod of oppression and now carries the weight of our gloom and inadequacies with him (having broken them all on the cross). The Messiah gives us a way out!
1 Corinthians 1:10-18
In the Second Lesson, Paul continues his introduction to the troubled Corinthian church with a discussion of the division in the community and a testimony to Christ crucified. He appeals for unity (v.10). Some members of the household of Chloe (a female disciple of the apostle) had reported to Paul that there were quarrels, some saying they belonged to Cephas [the Aramaic name for Peter], others to Apollos (an early Alexandrian Christian), and others to Paul (vv.11-12). Paul laments that Christ cannot be divided. He notes that none was baptized in his name and that he had not been crucified for them. He also adds that only two of the Corinthians in the household of Stephanus were baptized by him (vv.13-16).
The apostle concludes by noting that he was not sent to baptize, but to proclaim the gospel, and that proclamation is not to be done with eloquent wisdom (which apparently a number of Corinthian Christians felt they possessed [2:5,6; 3:18]), so that the cross of Christ is not emptied of its power (v.17). The message of the cross, he adds, is foolishness to those who are perishing, but for those saved it is the power of God (v.18). The theme of Christ crucified is a central theme of the letter.
This is an opportunity to promote concentration on the crucified Christ (atonement) and help parishioners to see how this gets the focus off worldly wisdom and ourselves. Preachers might concentrate on the sense in which a death like Jesus endured seems an odd, not a very rational way to offer life. Sermons could focus on paradoxical character of faith. The tensions which Paul addressed in the church in Corinth seem to have been functions of its members being too full of themselves, too concerned about protecting their own territory, reputation, and status. Turning to Christ crucified seems foolish when you are caught up in those agendas. But in Christ’s cross all the self-seeking and concern about territory become foolish, as we get overwhelmed by God’s love and the power of that love overwhelms us, transforming us into loving people seeking harmony.
Matthew 4:12-23
With the Gospel Lesson we return again to the Gospel of this church year, the most Jewish of all the gospels perhaps written, evidenced such as in this lesson with the concern to find links in the stories told to the Hebrew Scriptures. The account reports the beginnings of Jesus’ activity in Galilee. It begins with Jesus learning that John the Baptist had been arrested. He then went to Galilee, but left Nazareth, making his home in Capernaum (a town about thirty miles northeast of Nazareth on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee) (vv.12-13). This relocation was to fulfill Isaiah 9:1-2 (portions of which are quoted) and its reference to a great light [liberation] to people in darkness [oppression] seen on the road to the Sea of Galilee (vv.14-16). (See the discussion of these images in the analysis of the First Lesson.)
Next, Jesus is reported as beginning to proclaim repentance, for the kingdom of heaven has come near (v.17). (In contrast to Mark, Matthew uses this phrase more than the “kingdom of God,” presumably because in good Jewish fashion his preferred phrase avoids mentioning the divine name.) The story of the conversion of fishermen Simon, called Peter (Matthew gives no indication that he knows of the apostle’s name change), and his brother Andrew is recounted. They are reported to follow immediately (vv.18-20). A similar account is given regarding the calling of fishermen [lower-class occupations in the holy land in this era] James son of Zebedee and his brother John (vv.21-22). The motif of “following” [akoloutheo] Jesus is characteristic of Matthew’s Gospel.
The text’s citation of segments of the First Lesson permits sermons which might also focus on the freeing Word of Christ (the light) which liberates from oppression (see sermon suggestions in the First Lesson). Another witness of the text is to conversion, which is nothing more than an urgent spontaneous response to the light of Christ (the compelling character of his love). The responses made to the call by the disciples, like our responses, might be presented as the only real option we have, since Christ is the only way out.
All the lessons testify to the awareness that Jesus is indeed our only way out of the messes which typify our lives.
Isaiah 9:1-4
The First Lesson is likely a prophecy of the historical Isaiah, whose ministry to Judah (the southern kingdom) transpired in the 8th century BC. This is a prophecy about the messianic king, originally an oracle for the coronation of the Judean king, perhaps for Hezekiah (724 BC-697 BC) in the Davidic line, who reigned during Isaiah’s ministry. The lesson begins with a promise that there will be no gloom for those who were in anguish. It is noted that in the former time the Lord allowed the lands of the tribes of Zebulun and Naphtali as well as Galilee in the north to become Assyrian provinces of Galilee after Assyrian annexation of the region (v.1). This new king (the Messiah) is described as a great light [or] for those who had been in darkness [choshek], that is in oppression. It seems that this light will make glorious the way to the Sea [of Galilee (vv.1-2). Light is an image for release from oppression. The new king will make the nation more abundant, increase its joy and break the oppressor’s rod, just as the great war hero of the tribe of Manasseh, Gideon conquered the Midianites (vv.3-4; Judges 7:15-25).
These observations were readily applied to the Babylonian exiles of the sixth century BC addressed in the chapters from 40 to the end of the book after this chapter pertaining to the earlier prophet was combined with the later chapters. Their exile was interpreted in accord with God’s plan to restore the tribes.
Gloom and oppression are not absent in American life in early 2023. We are mired in the pessimism. An NPR poll taken early in 2022 found six in ten Americans feel our democracy is in trouble. It is evident that the congressional elections have not changed those sentiments much. We are trapped/oppressed. And as for gloom, a mid-2022 poll conducted by Oracle revealed nearly half of us (45%) had forgotten what it is like to be truly happy. This sort of bondage is no doubt related to the experience of being under the law (trapped by it), feeling we have to be the ones to make ourselves happy and content. Another angle for the sermon might be to focus on how living under God’s law makes us feel guilty and inadequate. No matter the starting point, the lesson invites preachers to proclaim that the King/Christ sets us free, that he has broken the rod of oppression and now carries the weight of our gloom and inadequacies with him (having broken them all on the cross). The Messiah gives us a way out!
1 Corinthians 1:10-18
In the Second Lesson, Paul continues his introduction to the troubled Corinthian church with a discussion of the division in the community and a testimony to Christ crucified. He appeals for unity (v.10). Some members of the household of Chloe (a female disciple of the apostle) had reported to Paul that there were quarrels, some saying they belonged to Cephas [the Aramaic name for Peter], others to Apollos (an early Alexandrian Christian), and others to Paul (vv.11-12). Paul laments that Christ cannot be divided. He notes that none was baptized in his name and that he had not been crucified for them. He also adds that only two of the Corinthians in the household of Stephanus were baptized by him (vv.13-16).
The apostle concludes by noting that he was not sent to baptize, but to proclaim the gospel, and that proclamation is not to be done with eloquent wisdom (which apparently a number of Corinthian Christians felt they possessed [2:5,6; 3:18]), so that the cross of Christ is not emptied of its power (v.17). The message of the cross, he adds, is foolishness to those who are perishing, but for those saved it is the power of God (v.18). The theme of Christ crucified is a central theme of the letter.
This is an opportunity to promote concentration on the crucified Christ (atonement) and help parishioners to see how this gets the focus off worldly wisdom and ourselves. Preachers might concentrate on the sense in which a death like Jesus endured seems an odd, not a very rational way to offer life. Sermons could focus on paradoxical character of faith. The tensions which Paul addressed in the church in Corinth seem to have been functions of its members being too full of themselves, too concerned about protecting their own territory, reputation, and status. Turning to Christ crucified seems foolish when you are caught up in those agendas. But in Christ’s cross all the self-seeking and concern about territory become foolish, as we get overwhelmed by God’s love and the power of that love overwhelms us, transforming us into loving people seeking harmony.
Matthew 4:12-23
With the Gospel Lesson we return again to the Gospel of this church year, the most Jewish of all the gospels perhaps written, evidenced such as in this lesson with the concern to find links in the stories told to the Hebrew Scriptures. The account reports the beginnings of Jesus’ activity in Galilee. It begins with Jesus learning that John the Baptist had been arrested. He then went to Galilee, but left Nazareth, making his home in Capernaum (a town about thirty miles northeast of Nazareth on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee) (vv.12-13). This relocation was to fulfill Isaiah 9:1-2 (portions of which are quoted) and its reference to a great light [liberation] to people in darkness [oppression] seen on the road to the Sea of Galilee (vv.14-16). (See the discussion of these images in the analysis of the First Lesson.)
Next, Jesus is reported as beginning to proclaim repentance, for the kingdom of heaven has come near (v.17). (In contrast to Mark, Matthew uses this phrase more than the “kingdom of God,” presumably because in good Jewish fashion his preferred phrase avoids mentioning the divine name.) The story of the conversion of fishermen Simon, called Peter (Matthew gives no indication that he knows of the apostle’s name change), and his brother Andrew is recounted. They are reported to follow immediately (vv.18-20). A similar account is given regarding the calling of fishermen [lower-class occupations in the holy land in this era] James son of Zebedee and his brother John (vv.21-22). The motif of “following” [akoloutheo] Jesus is characteristic of Matthew’s Gospel.
The text’s citation of segments of the First Lesson permits sermons which might also focus on the freeing Word of Christ (the light) which liberates from oppression (see sermon suggestions in the First Lesson). Another witness of the text is to conversion, which is nothing more than an urgent spontaneous response to the light of Christ (the compelling character of his love). The responses made to the call by the disciples, like our responses, might be presented as the only real option we have, since Christ is the only way out.
All the lessons testify to the awareness that Jesus is indeed our only way out of the messes which typify our lives.
