The lands of Zebulun and Naphtali were the first to fall into shadow, the specter of what looked like a failed covenant in the prophet Isaiah’s time. And yet Isaiah foretold that good news would indeed come, that a new light would dawn, that God was not abandoning his people after all. Hundreds of years later, the Gospel (literally, “good news”) comes in the flesh, in the person of Jesus.

Jesus brings the light of Salvation into the darkest places.

When Jesus calls those first four disciples, he does not invite them to sit passively and master everything he has begun to teach. They immediately leave what they are doing to follow the Lord and he involves this fledgling community immediately in his ministry. He declares his intention to turn them from fishermen into people who “fish for” other people, and over a few short years does exactly that. For Jesus, the learning includes participation in making God’s kingdom more visible on earth: following him is inseparable from ministry to others in his name. We should not be afraid to get involved because Jesus is with us (see Matthew 28:19-20), his Spirit empowers us, and many of us have already known Jesus longer than those disciples did before they were sent out.

Taking It Home: Prayerfully consider the ways you can make God’s kingdom more visible to those around you in both word and deed. Ask for God’s grace to overcome the difficulties of reaching out, and pray that our church family would indeed be a people “SENT” in 2023.