The Third Sunday after the Epiphany - The Rev. Colette Hammesfahr

 

Matthew 4:12-24 – January 25, 2026

John the Baptist, Jesus’ cousin, the man who baptized Jesus, sits in a dark prison and is in grave trouble. He’s been going throughout the area calling for repentance and preaching about the kingdom of heaven. He’s facing the death penalty under Herod’s rule. Jesus hears the news and begins to proclaim, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

First, to understand that when Jesus proclaims that the kingdom of heaven has come near, a better translation is, “Repent, for the kingdom of God has come near.” Saying “heaven” instead of “God” was a Jewish way of avoiding the word “God” out of respect. Jesus wasn’t talking about a place called “heaven” where people go after their death. Jesus was saying that God’s rule and authority was now there on earth. The promise of salvation was there, and it was time to repent. Jesus’ cousin sits in jail, likely to die, and Jesus proclaims, “Repent for the kingdom of God is near.”   

In August of 2010, a massive rockfall blocked the only access shaft to a copper and gold mine in Northern Chile. 33 miners were trapped 2,300 feet underground. For 17 days, no one on the surface knew whether the miners were dead or alive.

Underground, the 33 men sat in complete darkness. Emergency supplies were kept in the mine but were only intended to last two days. They rationed their supplies, eating two spoonfuls of tuna every 48 hours. They drank water from a natural spring and the radiators of their equipment. The temperature in the shaft was rising, and their fear was constant. These men had every reason to panic.

Above, emergency crews were doing all they could to find the miners. From local authorities to government agencies, crews drilled day and night, in an attempt to find the trapped men. Finally, after 17 days, a drill bit broke through to the area where the miners were trapped. When the drill bit came through, the miners attached a note for the crews above. “We are well in the shelter, the 33 of us.”

I find this statement quite profound. While the men were not lying – they were all still alive – it wasn’t the entire truth either. They were very hungry and afraid. Some of the men had begun to lose hope of ever being found alive. They told those above that they were well – they were okay – in the shelter – not the rubble, not the hole, but in the shelter. A shelter functions as a safe haven. It’s something that protects. It’s something that is stable. They sent a message that they were well, in the shelter.

In our Matthew text and in our reading from Isaiah, we hear that “the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness – on them the light has shined.”

“Bad news” is something we face nearly every day. On TV and online, news channels are full of stories of death, division, political struggles, chaos, and crisis. We get news of loved ones and family members who have faced untimely deaths, people we know who are fighting addiction, and others who are stricken with illness. For many of us, our response is to hide from or ignore the bad news. Watching the news adds so much stress and anxiety to my life. I feel more at ease when I don’t turn it on for a few days. Some of us like to hide the suffering and pain of bad news by pretending everything is okay when it’s really not. Bad news can sometimes paralyze us.

When Jesus gets the bad news of John’s imprisonment, he is not paralyzed. He does not wait for John to be released. He does not wait until his own suffering is gone. Jesus begins. Jesus begins his ministry. He goes to Galilee, and he preaches that the Kingdom of God is near. In the darkness, Jesus sees the light.

When the miners were trapped in the mine, they organized their lives underground. They rationed their food. They structured their days with work, exercise, prayer, and rest. There was no arguing amongst them because, to survive, they had to be unified. There was no sunlight. There was no freedom. There was no certainty. But they were well in the shelter. They had enough light to live by.

When we are paralyzed by bad news or overwhelmed with what life has handed us, God is not telling us how we should feel. God is telling us how we should live. God doesn’t want us to wait for our fear or pain to be resolved before we live faithfully. John was in prison, yet Jesus still preached. Jesus hears the news, and he calls Simon, Andres, James, and John to follow him. 33 men sat in a dark tunnel, scared of what would become of them, yet they still prayed and had hope.

God is not telling us that we will always know the outcome or that the result will always be positive. We are not promised that nothing bad will happen in our lives. Psalm 27 from today assures us that “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom then shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom then shall I be afraid?”

God is telling us that in our darkness, just as the Chilean miners did in their darkness, and just as Jesus did at a time of darkness in his life, we are to practice light through our actions and to know that sorrow and hope can coexist. God wants us to keep loving when it would be easier to withdraw and stay away, and to keep serving when our future seems fragile. To live in God’s light means that we stop demanding that hope erase our grief and instead allow our hope to walk alongside our grief.

Theologian Walter Bruggemann often writes that God’s light doesn’t shine by erasing grief. Instead, God’s light shines by meeting us in our grief. He argues that our hope can only come after we’ve cried and spoken our sorrow aloud, rather than suppressing it. It’s in that space that God’s promises become visible again. Hope survives because God remains faithful, even in the dark.[1] Amen.

 

 

 

 

 

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[1] Walter Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination, 2nd ed. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001), 13–19.