01/25/2026
Matthew 4:12-23 The Kingdom is Near Steve File
Our text today gives us the beginning of Jesus’s ministry to fulfill Isaiah’s prophecy to enlighten the region, announcing that the Kingdom of Heaven is near. To help him with this announcement, Jesus calls his first disciples, fishermen, away from their nets. Jesus tells them to follow, and the will make them “fishers of men.” They leave to follow Jesus as he teaches the good news and heals people.
Jesus’s message to all who listened was that they needed to repent because the Kingdom of Heaven was near to them. And, of course, we who believe in Christ Jesus know he was the incarnation of God and taught what it meant to live in the Kingdom through his teaching. In his healing and care of people we see the embodiment of that teaching. This love, this care, of life is the response Jesus wants for those who listen to him. Jesus could show them what it meant to live in the Kingdom of Heaven by his own response to it. What he wanted was for his disciples to respond the same way as he did.
If the Kingdom is presented as light, as in our Isaiah text, that means the opposite of the Kingdom is darkness. If Christ brings light through love, caring, and healing, then darkness is the opposite: hate, neglect, and making things worse. Truthfully, much of the world seems to rally around the shadows, find someone to hate, someone to ignore, or someone to oppress. This can make our world a scary place. Luckily for us, there are always those who believe in Christ and his teachings that give us hope that those who live in the shadows will not, in the end, be triumphant.
When we see God’s will manifest itself in the world, we know that the Kingdom of Heaven is near, just as when Jesus approached James, Andrew, John and Peter. Their whole lives were transformed by this moment, and they responded by following Christ Jesus and also working to spread the Good News. Can we, who see God’s will in the world, do the same? Can we recognize that the Kingdom is near, can we repent, can we respond and follow?
Repentance should be our first response. To repent means to change our way of thinking by moving away from the shadow which brings hate, neglect, and grievance. We need to stop making excuses for ourselves and our need for whatever separates us from those who respond as God would have us respond. We need to stop ourselves from making excuse for those who bring the darkness. No doubt that as Christ Jesus was crucified, there were those who blamed him for bringing it on himself, saying, “He deserved it.” We must not blame the light for exposing the hidden, destructive evil of what lies in the shadows.
We who have heard the Good News, must stand together in Christ, and say to the world, the Kingdom of Heaven is near. Repent. As Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians, we must set aside our petty differences. In our fight against the shadows in this world, there must be no divisions. We must be of the same mind and purpose. Whether you are Lutheran, Baptist, Pentecostal, Roman Catholic, or any other denomination, we must first stand in the knowledge that Christ Jesus is our Lord and Savior. Our response to the coming Kingdom and God’s will should be one that stands against hate, fear, oppression, and neglect. We must stand in the truth and light that is from our risen Christ.
May we recognize Christ in our neighbors as they respond to the shadows with repentance. May we respond like our brothers and sisters who continue the Good News even as they are surrounded by shadows. May we respond to the Kingdom with joy in our hearts as we stand against those who work against it. May we show others that the Kingdom of Heaven is near through our own response to it.
