Heaven in Galilee—Matthew 4:12-25

Back in western North Carolina where I grew up, I knew a young man and woman, friends of mine, who were romantically interested in each other. Their names were Sean and Hannah. Sean told me at one point that he had agreed to go contra dancing with Hannah. He was not interested in contra dancing. He did not want to go contra dancing. But he had agreed to go contra dancing with Hannah, he said, because he had an ulterior motive. His ulterior motive was that if he would go contra dancing with her, she would go shoot guns with him. It was, after all, western North Carolina. In the end, Hannah not only went shooting with Sean, but married him too.

Generally, the phrase "ulterior motive" is not a flattering one. People frown on ulterior motives. If you do a good deed for someone, people think, you should do it altruistically, unconditionally, without thought of gain. But when it comes to a romantic relationship, I think we all recognize that a man and woman do things for each other, not just altruistically without any thought of return, but in the fond hope of deeper relationship. And this is actually a good thing. The guy doesn't just want to benefit the girl: he wants her to love him back. And that isn't wrong: in fact, it's beautiful.

As we think about the beginning of the ministry of Jesus Christ, we'll see Jesus doing things for people: healing the sick, making the lame walk, casting out demons. There are no diseases in heaven, where Jesus came from, and where Jesus goes, he makes it like heaven on earth, like heaven in Galilee. But he doesn't bring heaven to earth in the spirit of a wealthy philanthropist scattering money to the poor. He doesn't come just to bring gifts from God to people, but to bring those people to God. And since the people he came for are sinners, the object of his preaching and his miracles is repentance.

In short, Jesus Christ brought heaven down to earth to bring sinners home to God. You can call that an ulterior motive, if you like. But there's no tension between Jesus' love for the lost and his devotion to God's glory.

Let's think about Jesus' first message, his first disciples -- his first men -- and his first miracles.

First Message

Matthew tells us that when Jesus heard that John the Baptist had been arrested, he withdrew into Galilee. Withdrawing into Galilee might put a little distance between Jesus and Herod Antipas, who arrested John, which seems like a safe move. On the other hand, when a guy gets arrested, it might not be the best time to stand up and start preaching the same message, word for word, as the guy in jail: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." But that's what Jesus did. Evidently, when John was arrested, Jesus decided to step up and take his place, despite the danger, but to do it in a location that would allow him to get some traction before he got in trouble.

Jesus picks Capernaum, in the region of Zebulun and Naphtali, as his first ministry base. And Matthew tells us that this fulfills a prophecy of Isaiah: "The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles -- the people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light, and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death, on them a light has dawned." In this passage, Isaiah meditates on the devastation that would come upon the northern kingdom of Israel through the Assyrians, but he promises salvation and recovery at a future date, a salvation that would come through a child who would be born, a child he describes a few verses later in a passage never directly quoted in the New Testament, but that you may have heard. It goes like this:

"For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of people there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this" (Isaiah 9:6-7).

Matthew says that in Jesus this prophecy is fulfilled. He has arrived to save Zebulun and Naphtali, but not from the Assyrians, who were no longer around. Jesus is the light that Matthew prophesied, but what is the darkness? You might think it is the Romans, but Jesus' message, "Repent," makes clear that the darkness is sin.

Imagine, if you will, a large group of people trapped in a dark room. They can't see, but they can hear and feel. They can hear many, many hissing sounds, and they can feel long, thin, curving shapes slithering among them in the darkness. But someone enters this dark room carrying a lamp, and by the light of this lamp the people who were in darkness can see that the long, thin, curving shapes are venomous snakes that have been wriggling around them. And the man with the lamp says, "Come with me. I will lead you out of the darkness into the light." What will the people in the darkness do? Surely they will get up and follow him at once to escape their horrible captivity.

Being a sinner is like being in that dark room full of snakes. And Jesus is like the man with the light. But the strange thing about sinners is that when the light comes into the room, and Jesus says, "Follow me," they don't always follow him out of the room. Some of them say, "This room is still just as dark as it ever was. I still can't see anything." Others say, "Please put out that glaring light. It's hurting my eyes." And others say, "Thank you so much for bringing that light into the room. It's good to be able to see what's going on. But no, I won't leave the room. This room is my home: It is all I have ever known, and all I ever will know. So thank you Jesus, for bringing me light, but no, I will not follow you."

When Jesus says, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand," he is saying that he has brought heaven near: He has brought the light. But he hasn't brought it so that you can see what's going on in the room of sin, the room full of snakes. He has brought the light of heaven to lead you out of your sin and home to God: to bring you to repentance. He has brought heaven to you, so that he can bring you to heaven. Follow him.

First Men

In the next part of this passage, we meet some people who did just that. As we know from the Gospel of John, this wasn't the first time these fishermen met Jesus. They already had reason to believe that he was the Messiah. But it is one thing to have reason to believe, and another to leave your job and your family and follow Jesus you know not where. But this is what Jesus called them to do, and they did it: Peter, Andrew, James, and John.

There are two things to notice about the call of Jesus' first disciples. The first is that he called them to become fishers of men. Just as he himself left heaven not just to bring heaven's blessings to earth, but to bring sinners to God, so he commissioned his closest comrades, not just to imitate him in kindness, but to catch souls for God. As he called men to repentance, so they must call men to repentance. And this mission he gives them sets a tone for the new covenant church that would differ from old covenant Israel. Israel proclaimed the grace of God in holy defiance of the religions of their neighbors. Jesus' new church would go get those neighbors and bring them in repentance to God.

The second thing to notice is the total commitment that Jesus required. Leave your boats. Leave your nets. Leave you father. Leave now. And follow me. Later in this Gospel, Jesus will say, "Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me" (Matthew 10:37-38). The Lord does not call us all to leave our jobs and become full-time evangelists as he did with these four fishermen. But he calls us all to full-time, full-hearted, 100% devotion to him. He calls you to himself, and he calls your whole self to himself.

First Miracles

Up to this point in the passage Jesus has been, you might say, all talk. But now he shifts gears a little bit. He continues to talk -- "he went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom" -- but he adds something new: "and healing every disease and every affliction among the people."

Since this is the first time Matthew uses the word Gospel, I should mention that the word means "good news." Jesus' message was not primarily a command or a piece of advice, but the announcement of the grace of God. And now he backs that announcement up with miracles: "and they brought to him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, those having seizures, and paralytics, and he healed them." In Psalm 103, David says that the Lord heals all his diseases. Here he was, the Lord, healing all the diseases of his people. In heaven, there is no disease. There is no crying. There is no mourning, and there is no death. For a little while, Jesus brought heaven down to Galilee.

How kind! How wonderful! How generous! Think how many burdened minds were lightened by Jesus, how many dashed hopes were raised again to life as he went on his wonder-working way. And yet -- it's too easy to sell Jesus short, as a philanthropist who had come to do as much good as he could by healing as many people as he could in his short time on earth. No, look again at his message: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!" Jesus healed bodies because he was after souls. He too was fishing for men. In Jesus, heaven's kindness was at war with Satan's craftiness. Jesus showed the healing power of God, not so that sinners could go back strong in body to lives of rebellion against God, so that they would taste God's mercy and turn to him. God's kindness to you has the same purpose: to bring you to repentance.

The same purpose that drove the first days of Jesus' ministry drove his last days as well. He died on the cross in the place of sinners, taking their sins upon himself, not so that they could go their own way unscathed, but so that they could come into the presence of a holy God and yet live.

And the gospel's three-day climax concludes with Jesus himself rising from the dead. Do you ever wonder, if the story of Jesus is all about selfless love, why not only his cross but his resurrection stands at the center of it? Of course his death on the cross was an act of love, but his resurrection -- what did that do for anyone?

Well, I suppose it depends on how you look at it. If all I want from Jesus is a healing, an exorcism, a miraculous multiplication of food, then yes, it becomes hard to see what the resurrection has to do with me. But if I have come to the realization that what I need and desire most is God himself, who has come to save sinners in the person of Jesus Christ, then the resurrection makes all the difference, because it means that my Savior lives. If I have come to the realization that I don't just want to get something out of Jesus, but that I need and desire to give myself to Jesus, then it is of great importance that Jesus lives. If I have come to see the purpose, not just of Jesus' miracles, but of his message, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand," and I know that the kingdom is where the king is, then the resurrection of Jesus is good news indeed.

Pastor Nate Jeffres