Scripture: Isaiah 9:2-4; Matthew 4:12-16; Judges 7:1-25; Matthew 6:34; Luke 10:31-33 Series: Epiphany
An Epiphany sermon on Isaiah 9:2-4 and Matthew 4:12-16 arguing that the Christian response to injustice is not mitigation or avoidance (‘prevent defense’) but the bold light of Christ. Using Gideon’s day of Midian, the preacher contrasts fearful, anxiety-driven, tomorrow-focused living with faithful action in the present. The light of Christ breaks the oppressor’s rod on our own hearts by freeing us from anxiety and inadequacy, since Christ has done everything for us. That freedom lets us shine light on the ordinary people around us, refilling our lamp through prayer, worship, and serving together, trusting God’s ultimate justice will be complete.
Illustrations: prevent-defense-football, gideon-day-of-midian, dikaiosune-justice-righteousness, priest-levite-walk-away, refilling-oil-lamp, christ-filled-bucket-list, people-at-safeway-costco
January 25
Isaiah 9:2-4
Matthew 4:12-16
Broken Rod
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. You have multiplied exultation; you have increased its joy; they rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest, as people exult when dividing plunder. 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.
- Isaiah 9:2-4
Now when Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee. He left Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, so that what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: “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.”
- Matthew 4:12-16
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Football is an interesting sport where time becomes very essential to the game. The scores in the first half don’t matter as much as the scores in the second half because it depends on how much time is left. It literally takes 10 seconds for the fastest person in the NFL to run across the field.
Time has an impact. So usually a team that has a lead late in the game plays defense differently than they would earlier in the game. Early in the game, most teams are trying to prevent a first down. They don’t want the team to keep the ball and keep moving. But late in the game, a lot of teams don’t focus on the first down. They focus on preventing scoring. They play what’s called a prevent defense.
I hate the prevent defense. If a defense is playing well throughout a game, they should keep playing well instead of going into an unfamiliar formation that lets the other team keep moving the ball. Even in the NFL, these guys are human. A first down is a little bit of failure for a defense.
Many of us play a prevent defense against injustice. Many of us play a prevent defense against wickedness. We mitigate it. We don’t confront it. Just in this world, how should we face injustice in our own lives?
Justice and injustice are deep concerns for the prophet Isaiah throughout the 66 chapters. The justice of God and the injustice of humanity and how to respond to injustice—over and over again this is brought up.
Justice is an important term in the Bible. In Greek, the word for justice, dikaiosunē, is the same word for righteousness. So when I’m translating in the Paul class, I flip them a lot. Whenever most translations put “justice,” I put “righteousness,” and vice versa, because the connotations in English of justice and righteousness are very different.
Justice is usually concerned with dealing with other people and macro aspects of the world, whereas righteousness is often spiritualized entirely. We think of justice in the global sense and righteousness in the local sense. Justice also is a much more secular term. You can think about it in a worldly way. We have a justice system. We have a Department of Justice. There isn’t a Department of Righteousness.
The prophet is concerned with justice and injustice and the poor response of the people. But Isaiah lifts up this moment from the book of Judges, chapter seven. If you have a Bible, please turn there. Judges is early in the Bible, after the five books of Moses and Joshua. In Judges chapter seven, we find Gideon, the mighty man of God who is judging Israel. The Midianites are a threat.
So God takes the army, and God says, “No, there are too many.” So 10,000 go home. And God again says there are too many. So the rest go home until there are only 300 to attack the mighty force. They’re outnumbered. The only way they could find victory is if God is on their side. It’s an act of faith. This is the day of Midian that Isaiah speaks of in Isaiah chapter nine.
“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.” The rod of the oppressor has been broken.
Now, on that day, Gideon and his army did not run a prevent defense. They acted boldly in a way that would produce a consequential result. They acted by faith.
There are oppressors today—big picture in our world and in the smaller picture closer to our home. There’s injustice today. There are people who don’t deserve it who get a lot, and there are people who deserve more and get nothing.
How do we respond to injustice in this world? How do we respond to injustice in our lives? In Matthew chapter four, Jesus is moving from his baptismal experience toward the Sermon on the Mount, which is going to take up a good chunk of the text. He hears that John the Baptist has been arrested, and he gives word concerning this, quoting Isaiah. He has moved from Nazareth, where he grew up, to Capernaum on the north side of the Sea of Galilee.
Following the words of Isaiah: “The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who sat in the shadow of death, light has dawned.”
What is the light? Where is the light? This is our point. The Christian response to injustice has to do with the light of Jesus, not with mitigation and prevention. This is how injustice continues to spread—when we don’t shine light, when we mitigate, when we say it’s not our problem, when we give away first down after first down. We turn away. We walk away like the Levite and the priest in the parable of the Good Samaritan.
We all do it, if we’re honest with ourselves. We’ve all walked away. We don’t have to run the prevent defense, but there is a light.
The light shines in the darkness. The light shines in our lives and offers us a way to live that outshines the injustice in our hearts.
You are loved by God. You are forgiven by God. Confess—confess your sins so they can be forgiven.
The light of Christ doesn’t mean that everything you do is good, but that Christ has done everything for you. So you don’t need to win the game. You don’t need to run the prevent defense with your heart. You can play free. You can live freely.
Teams playing prevent are worried about the next play. They’re so focused on what’s going to come after that they can’t deal with the immediate. It’s a strategy of anxiety. It is creating anxiety, whereas the Sermon on the Mount, the next chapter in Matthew, speaks directly against anxiety. “Do not worry about tomorrow.”
The only way you cannot worry about tomorrow is by faith—by faith that the Holy Spirit has already been present with you. It is an act of faith to say today has trouble of its own. Do not design your life around tomorrow, but live today out of the light of Jesus Christ.
That’s how you break the rod of the oppressor on your heart, because the oppressor on our hearts keeps us trapped and fearful—lies about tomorrow, about our own inadequacy, about our lack of power, about the things we need, the things we think we need. In the light of Christ, we see that we already have everything we need.
You already have it. You have already filled your bucket list. Christ has filled your bucket list. You have done enough, and all the small joys we find in this life are a bonus next to the greatest joy of being chosen and loved by God. So no oppressor’s rod can stand against that.
That’s the internal stuff. But we’re reminded, throughout the scriptures, that we must keep shining the light. The way we keep shining the light is we’ve got to keep it lit. We’ve got to light the next candle. In Jesus’s time, it was candles that were lit and oil lamps. An oil lamp can run out of oil unless you refill it. We need to refill the oil. We’ve got to pour more oil.
We do that together in prayer, in devotions, in worshiping together and reading the Bible together, singing songs of praise together, and in serving together. That’s why it’s so important—serving together, giving of ourselves together.
When we are faced with the injustice of our world, the light we are given is not the light to fix every problem, but to see the world with the eyes of Jesus and to know by faith that God’s ultimate justice will be complete.
So we don’t have to have control over all the different eventualities, but we have the freedom to start right where we are in our own lives—the people we see daily, the people in our family, in our community, the people we see on the street, the people we pass in Safeway and Costco, the people we see at restaurants—and to be light to them. And to not think of acting as a Christian, acting justly or righteously, as a burden, but as freedom.
The freedom to love the people in our lives, whomever they may be. The freedom to not pass by people in need because we are not worried about tomorrow—to let that burden go. The oppressor continually blasts out: “Tomorrow! What about tomorrow? What’s going to happen tomorrow? What’s going to be the case? What are you going to do? What are you going to do? What are you going to do?”
That is the rod that is broken by the light of Christ. May we embrace God’s freedom for us. May we step into it together.
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.