For some it is very dark. Perhaps we might speak of these as dark times, but some people have to go through terrible suffering.
They struggle in terrible circumstances, because or war, famine, drought, sickness. They may have to flee for their lives. They may have to helplessly watch their child die of starvation.
Or people experience the pain of abandonment, or live for years in abusive relationships, unable to escape. Or we live in fear of what someone might do.
People suffer unbearable losses. One couple arrived here at the embassy, and a week later their 19-year-old perfectly healthy son died in the UK after getting ordinary flu – that was pre COVID.
In Bury St Edmunds I remember a man in his early 70s. His wife died, then his older daughter died, and I was visiting him because his only surviving child, the younger daughter, had died.
And many struggle with depression, or with constant emotional or physical pain. There is not much you can say.
And we hear of tragic stories from COVID times, of people dying in hospitals on their own, separated from family.
Or we hear of victims of unspeakable evil.
People would sometimes say in the UK that tragedies come in threes. That is just not true. For some, they come in far more than threes.
The good news today is that Jesus comes and makes his home with people who sit in darkness.
Matthew speaks of how Jesus makes his home in Capernaum, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali – and then he quotes the prophet 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.”
It is a quote from Isaiah 9, spoken about 700 years earlier. The prophet is speaking of how the Assyrians will come as an invading force and utterly devastate the land of Zebulun and Naphtali. It will become a land of grief and death.
It is interesting how Zebulun and Naphtali are described, the land ‘across the Jordan’.
It was not just then at the time of Isaiah.
It was also a land of darkness and the shadow of death, at the time of Jesus.
People feared plague and sickness; and there was deep poverty.
They feared raiders – who not only took their possessions but also their sons and daughters;
they feared the violence of the zealots and the reprisals of the Roman soldiers;
they feared having all that they had grown taken from them by force in taxes that had to be paid to the occupying forces – and that they would not be able to feed themselves or their family.
But now, after the arrest of John the Baptist, Jesus makes his home in Capernaum, in this place of darkness, in the land of Zebulun and Naphtali.
And the hope for us is that Jesus makes his home with us in our suffering, in our darkness, in our fears and in our death.
He was born in a cowshed, laid in a manger. He was a homeless wandering preacher. He was betrayed and died naked and abandoned on a cross.
He knows. He has made his home with us in the darkness.
Someone once wrote:
“At the end of time, billions of people were seated on a great plain before God's throne. Most shrank back from the brilliant light before them. But some groups near the front talked heatedly, not cringing with cringing shame - but with belligerence.
"Can God judge us? How can He know about suffering?", snapped a pert young brunette. She ripped open a sleeve to reveal a tattooed number from a Nazi concentration camp. "We endured terror ... beatings ... torture ... death!"
In another group a Negro boy lowered his collar. "What about this?" he demanded, showing an ugly rope burn. "Lynched, for no crime but being black !"
In another crowd there was a pregnant schoolgirl with sullen eyes: "Why should I suffer?" she murmured. "It wasn't my fault." Far out across the plain were hundreds of such groups. Each had a complaint against God for the evil and suffering He had permitted in His world.
How lucky God was to live in Heaven, where all was sweetness and light. Where there was no weeping or fear, no hunger or hatred. What did God know of all that man had been forced to endure in this world? For God leads a pretty sheltered life, they said.
So each of these groups sent forth their leader, chosen because he had suffered the most. A Jew, a negro, a person from Hiroshima, a horribly deformed arthritic, a thalidomide child. In the center of the vast plain, they consulted with each other. At last they were ready to present their case. It was rather clever.
Before God could be qualified to be their judge, He must endure what they had endured. Their decision was that God should be sentenced to live on earth as a man.
Let him be born a Jew. Let the legitimacy of his birth be doubted. Give him a work so difficult that even his family will think him out of his mind.
Let him be betrayed by his closest friends. Let him face false charges, be tried by a prejudiced jury and convicted by a cowardly judge. Let him be tortured.
At the last, let him see what it means to be terribly alone. Then let him die so there can be no doubt he died. Let there be a great host of witnesses to verify it.
As each leader announced his portion of the sentence, loud murmurs of approval went up from the throng of people assembled.
When the last had finished pronouncing sentence, there was a long silence. No one uttered a word. No one moved.
For suddenly, all realised that God had already done what they asked. He not only sat in judgment over them. He stood beside them as one of them.’
The good news is that Jesus knows. He has made his home among people who sat in darkness and the shadow of death. He was with us, and he is with us. He shares our fears. He knows our cry of pain. The Jesus who rose from the dead and is ascended is the Jesus who was nailed to the cross and who still has the scars on his hands and his feet.
2. The good news is that Jesus gives hope to people who sit in darkness and the shadow of death
But Jesus comes among us, not just to live with us in the darkness, but to be the rope to the helicopter, to bring the light. He comes to give us hope.
rning (from Isaiah 9.1-4), Isaiah speaks of how a child will be born who will be called ‘wonderful counsellor, mighty God, everlasting Father, prince of peace. His authority shall grow continually, and there shall be endless peace .. He will establish his throne with justice and righteousness.’
Isaiah was preaching about something that would happen in the future.
And that something began when Jesus was born.
So when Jesus says, ‘The Kingdom of Heaven has come near’, he is not just teaching that something will happen in the future.
He was not just saying that in the end ‘all will be well’, although in the end, for those who love God, ‘all will be well’.
Rather he came to call people, with an irresistible authority, to begin to know the kingdom of God, to live the kingdom life here and now
And when the church of God, when we, are faithful to that task, when, even in times of darkness we have the courage to proclaim that the Kingdom of God is near, then we start to see glimpses of the kingdom: lives are changed.
People respond to the call of Jesus with radical obedience: like Simon and Andrew, James and John they will leave the things that they depended on in the past and follow him.
We think of people like St Anthony, St Francis, like Hudson Taylor. They all left behind great wealth to follow Jesus
Others leave behind familiarity, comfort, security and safety to follow him.
I was struck to read that some of the first missionaries who went from Europe to Asia or Africa would pack their possessions in a coffin. They went with the assumption that they would probably not return alive. And many of them did die either on the voyage or shortly after arriving at their destination.
I know that it is difficult to proclaim the presence of Jesus and the coming Kingdom of God when things are dark.
It is difficult to hold on to the presence of Jesus in the face of evil, sickness, pain or death.
Sometimes it means we have to first simply ‘make our home’ with people in the dark places. To sit with them and to be with them.
But for those who hear the call of Jesus, who respond to that call, in that very dark place we hear hope, speak hope and experience hope.
I’ve spoken before of Michael from my previous church. If there is anyone who I would have expected to say that God had abandoned him, it was Michael.
He was diagnosed with Motor Neurons, a vicious disease which paralyses you slowly from your feet up to your neck so that you eventually can’t breathe. There is no cure.
He was someone who I would regularly visit.
I recall one visit towards the end of his life, as the disease had spread right through his body and was beginning to affect his swallowing. We were speaking about a passage from the Bible, and Michael spoke to me, through his oxygen mask, of the comfort of the love of God, and of the still small voice of calm that brings peace. And then he said how he longed to be able to take that peace, wrap it up and give it to others.
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The good news of Matthew 4 is that Jesus makes his home with us in our darkness.
The good news is that he preaches the kingdom of heaven, and he invites us to begin to live the Kingdom of Heaven here on earth.
When we are hear the call of Jesus, that the Kingdom of God is near; when we turn to him and are faithful to the task of believing the kingdom, of proclaiming Jesus and the Kingdom, and calling people to follow him, then we have a promise: that in our darkness the Holy Spirit will come.
And Holy Spirit will work in us; He will bring Jesus to us; He will comfort us; He will help us to pray; He will give us a longing to change, to become holy and righteous, and will change us.
And in God’s way and in God’s time, wonders, чудa, will happen. We will see glimpses of the coming Kingdom. People will be healed and will be set free.
And in the darkness we will begin to see the light.