WE ENCOUNTER “the people who walk in darkness” many times in our readings of Isaiah over the years. Every winter, we meet them afresh in the run-up to Christmas, and are reminded that the answer to their hope and prayer lies in the past; for they “have seen”. The answer to ours, on the other hand, lies in the future, for the prophecy declares that his authority “shall grow’, and there “shall be endless peace” for the throne and kingdom which he will establish and uphold.
By the time that they appear in Epiphany 3, Christmas lies behind. Epiphany is about to shade into Lent. Now those walkers-in-darkness have a fresh significance. Matthew finds in them a confirmation of the identity of Jesus as Messiah; for he leaves his home to begin the next phase of his life in the places foretold by Isaiah (Zebulun and Naphtali).
The label “messiah” — so often treated as a mere surname — is really a title. If personal names tell others who we are, job titles tell others what we do. In the case of this title of Jesus, it looks both backwards and forwards. For those who have been anointed, the experience is first a passive one (it is done to them). But, from that moment, the experience turns into action, for they must now begin to live out the calling bound up in their anointing. Yet that title, “messiah”, is not merely a stamp of authenticity like a label or warranty. It announces what the anointed person is henceforth to become, from the moment when they enter this new phase of life, and take on their new identity. This is what kings experienced in Old Testament times. It is what our new King will experience when he is anointed during his coronation in May.
Isaiah had proclaimed a message to his own time which, in later centuries, was received as God’s will. Over the years, the notion of God’s anointed one took clearer shape, and began to be associated with royal descent, rescue, and salvation. So, when Andrew meets Jesus in John’s Gospel (1.41), and brings the good news to his brother Simon with the words “we have found the messiah,” that excited outburst carries with it a great weight of expectation.
The name (as it is often treated) “Christ” is so familiar to us as to become virtually invisible. The title “messiah”, though, demands both attention and assent; for it is fundamental to how the four Gospels tell the story of Jesus. Matthew, Mark, and John all mention it in their opening chapters (1.18, 1.1, and 1.41 respectively); Luke maximises its impact by saving it up until it can be angelically proclaimed (2.11).
We are used to encountering Jesus in different ways, and calling him by many titles (“Christ/messiah”, “Lord”, “Son of God”, “Son of Man”, “Word”, “King”). All of them help us to understand aspects of God the Son, extending the meaning of his incarnation into political, religious, intellectual, family, and social spheres. That breadth points to the universality of Iesous Christos.
Like Isaiah, Jesus proclaims a message to his own generation. It is a call to people around him to repent because the kingdom of the heavens is at hand. That call is as new and fresh today as it was to those who heard it in first-century Judaea. Written here is humanity’s first person-to-person encounter with God’s anointed, where we first learn that the Bible is so much more than just stories and history.
Jesus’s call, “Repent!”, still speaks to us personally. A mere handful of words after it, there comes his invitation to the first disciples: a miracle of call and response in the lives of people whose names we know. That historical event in which Simon, Andrew, James, and John were summoned is also — immediately, always — our summons. I hear the words “Follow me,” and I know that I am being called.
Over and over, the gospel story speaks directly to whoever hears it, or reads it, or is immersed in it through music, art, or drama. When the call sounds — “Follow me!” — the people who walked in darkness find Christ the light. Finally, they see their way.
In the last verse of this Gospel, Jesus travels, teaches, preaches, heals. Thus unfolds the blueprint for his final years of earthly life, as the “Logos” of the cross is revealed as the power of God.
