Hi, everyone, and welcome back to the podcast.
If you go to mass today, the Gospel reading you'll hear is
from Matthew Chapter 4, verses 12 to 17 and then 23 to 25.
So, let's get straight into it. Hearing that John had been
arrested. Jesus went back to Galilee and
leaving Nazareth. He went and settled in
Capernaum, a Lakeside town on the borders of zebulun and
naphtali. In this way.
The prophecy of Isaiah was to be fulfilled land of zebulun land
of naphtali way of the see, on the far side of the Jordan,
Galilee of the nation's, the people that lived in darkness
have seen a great light on those who dwell in the land and and
shadow of death, a light has dawned.
From that moment, Jesus began his preaching with the message,
repent. For the Kingdom of Heaven is
close at hand. He went around the whole of
Galilee teaching in their synagogues.
Proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing, all kinds of
diseases and sickness among the people.
His Fame spread through throughout Syria and those who
are suffering from diseases and painful, complaints of one, kind
or another the possessed epileptics.
The paralyzed were all brought to him and he cured them.
Large crowds followed him coming from Galilee the decapolis
Jerusalem Judea and trans jordania.
Okay, so the start of this passage here verse 12 says,
hearing that John had been arrested.
So this is John the Baptist and the arrest of John.
The Baptist is described elsewhere in the gospels and we
later learned that Jesus was actually quite emotional about
John's arrest, and he was quite affected by it.
He would talk to people about what he thought of John's arrest
a bit later on. In this context, it appears that
the arrest of John, the Baptist is what motivates Jesus to start
his ministry. So just before this Jesus has
been in the wilderness and as soon as he hears that John's
been arrested, apparently this is the motivation for him to go
to Galilee so it could be a case of John Jesus saying, well, if
John can no longer preach the kingdom then I need to take his
place. So, Jesus was probably in the
Judean Wilderness region. So that's sort of Southern
Israel and to get back to Galilee.
It was about 160 kilometres or 34 hours of walking.
So it's a few days journey back up to the northern part of
Israel. I always think it's good to talk
about the geographical information where possible
because sometimes we think it's just, you know, it's within the
day they arrive at a certain spot but often these are really,
really long Journeys. And certainly Matthews readers
would have been familiar with the distance between locations,
and that's something we often forget about.
Verse 13. So Jesus first goes to Nazareth,
which is his family's Hometown. So that's where Mary and Joseph
leave. That's where he grew grows up.
So he has a short stop there but then he moves away.
This is the point at which Jesus finds a new home and he goes to
a town called Capernaum or Capernaum or there's different
pronunciations. I was as a child, I was taught
Capernaum and it's sort of hard for me to get out of that.
But I believe the connect correct pronunciation is
capernum because If you look at the second half of it in a um,
it's named after the prophet Nahum.
So, Capernaum is between Nazareth and Capernaum.
So, Jesus is migrating from Nazareth to Capernaum.
That's about 45 kilometers, or one full day of walking 9, hours
of walking. It's right on the Sea of Galilee
Capernaum, and it's actually quite a thriving fishing town.
So, Jesus is moving from a very quiet.
Small village to a much bigger. More bustling town.
It's where Peter spent a lot of time.
Peter spent lived there for a little while and some of the
other disciples live there too. And so, Jesus deliberately makes
his home here by the Sea of Galilee and Capernaum, and it
becomes the base of operations for a lot of his home Ministry.
I've been to Capernaum and you can see today the room where
Jesus would have spent a lot of time praying with his disciples.
They think it was probably Peter's house and also the
remnants of the synagogue where he would have spent a lot of
time preaching as well. So if you ever get the chance to
go to the Holy Land, definitely look at Capernaum.
And messy, he mentions that Capernaum is in the territory of
zebulun and naphtali. So that's according to the
tribal divisions of the Old Testament.
Each of in the Old Testament, each of the Twelve Tribes gets a
certain block of land. That's, there's Matthew mentions
here that it's the land of zebulun and naphtali because of
the thing, he's about to say next, it might not strike us as
important that that's where zebulun and naphtali at that
used to be their tribal area. But Matthew is now going to make
a point of that. Because in verse 14 he says in
this way, the prophecy of Isaiah was to be fulfilled.
Matthew does a lot of this, Matthew always highlights how
Jesus is fulfilling Old Testament prophecies.
And then the quote here that we're about to hear is from
Isaiah chapter. 8 verses 23 up to the start of chapter 9.
And the context of that was given in about the eighth
Century BC. In the book of Isaiah.
And at that time, the land of Israel was being overtaken by
its enemies and the territories of zebulun and naphtali were the
first area to be overtaking. Lots of people were taken away
to slavery from zebulun and naphtali, and that's kind of the
reference to Darkness and death that will hear shortly.
So, keep in mind the context, Isaiah 8th Century BC, the land
of Israel has been overtaken. And this is the quote, its
inverse Dane of chapter 4 of Matthew land of zebulun, net,
land of naphtali way of this. See, on the far side of the
Jordan, Galilee of the nation's, the people that lived in
darkness have seen a great light on those who dwell in the land
and shadow of death, a light has dawned.
So, Matthew sees this prophecy about zebulun and naphtali
seeing a great light in terms of Jesus, being that great light,
which dispels the darkness in Galilee, because Jesus has now
arrived in Galilee and Matthew thinks that significant, it
could be that Jesus chose this region deliberately, if you
think about it, this was the first region of Israel to be
judged by God and destroyed. So maybe they're given a chance
for Renewal before the other regions, maybe Galilee gets the
first chance because they were the first ones you could say to
lose God's grace. So, Galilee is the region that
Capernaum and Nazareth are in. It's kind of like a state.
If we consider Israel to be the country, Galilee is one of the
northern states. Verse 17 from that moment on
Jesus began his preaching. So this is the beginning of
Jesus public preaching. And if we try and put together
all the data, it looks like his ministry lasted about three and
a half years total. Matthew now tells us what the
main theme of Jesus preaching is repent for the kingdom of God is
at hand. This is a summary of Jesus
mission. Repent for the kingdom of God is
at hand, notice. Jesus main message is not
believe in me and you will have eternal life or say the sinner's
prayer, and you're being heaven for all eternity.
That's not Jesus. Main message.
Jesus message is repent for the kingdom of God is at hand.
So there's a lot we could say about the kingdom of God, the
Jews at the time did believe in a future kingdom of God.
So they would have been familiar with this phrase but they had
sort of different expectations than what Jesus would come and
reveal to them. So they thought the kingdom of
God was basically going to be a political Kingdom with Israel at
the center of the world. They didn't really have any
emphasis on repentance. So Jesus emphasis on repentance
is new, it's a new thing. Although John the Just was doing
that as well. Kingdom of Heaven, is the term
that Matthew uses, it's the same as kingdom of God.
So, whenever you see those two together kingdom of God, or
Kingdom of Heaven, you want to know that they are the same
thing? It's just that Matthew, try to
avoid using the word God because he's writing to Jews and they
have some issues with using certain words for God.
So he uses kind of a synonym in order to not offend his readers.
He says, Kingdom of Heaven. Most of the time although
occasionally, he does, say, kingdom of God, They're not
different things. Some Scholars have tried to say
that because Matthew uses both terms kingdom of God, sometimes
Kingdom of Heaven other times that they must mean different
things. But if you put it all together,
they're clearly the same thing exegetically.
The kingdom of God is the kingdom of heaven.
It's a concept that's well worth studying.
If you've never done any study on the Theology of the kingdom
of God, it's well worth looking into because it's such a rich
term. And if you can get an
understanding of what the Jews thought the kingdom of God to
be. And what Jesus said, the kingdom
of God is that will shed a lot of light on Jesus ministry.
And some of the things he says, the core idea of the kingdom of
God is that God is now establishing his will and Reign
on Earth through the Messiah. His will and Reign on Earth
through the Messiah. That's the kingdom of God.
Notice that Jesus message of the kingdom of God is basically the
same. As John, the Baptist's message
John, the Baptist basically said the same thing, repent for the
kingdom of God is at hand. So there's a strong continuity
between John and Jesus. And then Our Gospel reading for
today. Skips a bit of text, and we go
down to verse 23, is our next. Verse says, he went around all
of Galilee. So, remember, Galilee is an
entire State. This is like a summary statement
of Jesus of Matthew. Matthew is summarizing Jesus in
Time movements over the next portion of his ministry.
Matthew doesn't always say things, chronologically, he
tends to group things thematically rather than
chronologically. So, When he says he had, Jesus
went around all of Galloway, this probably covering the next
several months. It's a summary statement.
It says Jesus was teaching in their synagogues, so it was
common for preachers to travel, to local synagogues, to move
around the towns, and many of them developed quite a following
Jesus did as well. He'd go from town to town in
Galilee, go to their local synagogue, which is kind of like
their local Parish church and he preached and people would come
to listen to him. And this is what he taught.
He proclaimed. The good news of the Kingdom or
another translation of that is the gospel of the Kingdom
gospel. As a would literally just means
good news gospel. gospel is another one of those Greek words
that needs to be unpacked if we can get a grasp on, How the word
gospel was used in that time, even before Jesus came along.
It really helps gospel is not necessarily a Christian word.
The word gospel was used before the gospels were written, before
Jesus started talking about his gospel.
It's more the case that gospel was a general word and Jesus
came to reveal his gospel. So what is the word gospel mean?
It's usually used in relation to Roman governors.
So when there was a significant development in Rome because
Judea was part of the Roman Empire Israelis under Roman
control, whenever something significant happened in Rome,
Rome would send a messenger out to all of the regions of the
Roman Empire to declare the good news.
Particularly, if there's been a new governor or King elected
Rome would send out a message saying, good news, there is a
new king. It's kind of the backdrop that
the gospel authors have in mind, they are proclaiming and Jesus
is proclaiming the good news that a new spiritual Kingdom has
arrived, there is a new king that's the good news, the true
and final King is here. So, the people of that time were
quite used to gospels. They were quite used to Good
News being received and now the Christian authors and Jesus is
now saying we're here to give you the ultimate and true good
news. So I hope that's kind of helpful
analysis of the word gospel. So Jesus here Q is all kinds of
diseases, so it mentions paralytics.
Those who are possessed, so these and all the other things
that are listed are signs of the Kingdom.
So Jesus hasn't come to just be a miracle worker, he's come to
to proclaim the kingdom of God and part of that is to Proclaim
healing and Liberation from the powers of sickness and Satan.
So he does Miracles as part of revealing, the kingdom of God to
people. Verse 24.
His veins, his Fame spread throughout Syria, Syria, is
another country. So internationally.
People will start to hear about Jesus and we learn that they
travel enormous distances internationally to come and be
healed. So people are traveling months
to come and see Jesus because of the things they're hearing about
him and to be healed. Verse 25, it then lists all the
different states that while most of the states of Israel have
heard about Jesus and they come to him to be healed.
So Jerusalem, he is about him Galilee his about him.
That's a couple is hears about him Bill.
All flocking to Jesus. So, apparently, Jesus spent a
lot of his early months of his ministry, doing healings and
word, spreads really quickly. Okay, so that's our passage for
today. Let's turn to the catechism.
How does the Catholic Church develop teachings?
Based on our passage from Matthew chapter 4 today.
So firstly, a really important paragraph is paragraph 1989,
which is in the section about justification or how we achieve
salvation. Here's what it says, the first
work of Grace of the holy spirit is conversion affecting
justification in accordance with Jesus, Proclamation at the
beginning of the Gospel, repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at
hand. Moved by Grace, man, turns
toward God, and away from sin. Thus accepting forgiveness and
righteousness. From on high justification is
not only the remission of sins but also the sanctification and
renewal of the Interior man. So, the Catholic Church's
teaching on salvation is largely informed by Jesus, quote here,
from Matthew, for repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand
as in, we need to turn away from sin in order to reach the
kingdom. That's the Catholic teaching
paragraph 1503, which is in the discussion about Christ.
And his miracles says, Christ's compassion towards the sick and
his many healings of every kind of infirmity.
I resplendent sign that God has visited Edited his people, and
that the kingdom of God is close at hand.
Jesus has the power, not only to heal, but also to forgive sins.
He has come to heal the whole Man, soul and body.
He is the physician. The sick have need of And then
the paragraph goes on from there.
So that picks up from Matthew for the fact that Jesus spent a
lot of time healing. And what that tells us about God
and about Christ. Okay.
So, that's the end of your podcast for today.
Thanks again for listening. Remember, you can always leave
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