Jesus, the Galilean!

Monday, January 6, 2025

1 Jn 3:22-4:6; Mt 4:12-17, 23-25

Today’s Gospel highlights the beginning of the Galilean ministry by Jesus. 

Jesus, who learns of the arrest of John, continues God’s mission from where his predecessor left off. 

What we see is that God’s people are not left without a shepherd. In what looks like a relay race, Jesus grabs the baton from John and continues his run, which only culminates on the cross. 

Also, what we must note is that following the arrest of John, Jesus wastes no time. Though his cousin’s arrest prefigures his own end, Jesus understands the importance of continuing the mission at all costs. 

By his action, Jesus becomes an example of how the servants of God must fulfill their mission, unaffected by their personal concerns. 

Secondly, the content of the liberative mission of Jesus deserves a highlight. 

Jesus announces the Gospel of the Kingdom through his teaching and healing. In other words, the Gospel of the Kingdom is preached and is also realized by the ministries of word and deed. 

That is why Jurgen Moltmann said, ‘Jesus is the Kingdom of God in person.’

Those who witnessed Jesus’ mission certainly understood how the presence of God would look like in a real historical setting. By his mission of word and deed, Jesus inaugurated the reign of God. 

Thirdly, Galilee as the choice of location for Jesus’ mission is a very significant theme. 

Though Jesus would conclude his mission in Jerusalem, he abandons the glory of Jerusalem to show God’s predilection for the most insignificant setting. 

Jesus demonstrates God’s preferential option for the people living in the periphery. Negating a power center like Jerusalem, God’s love turns a marginalized setting like Galilee into an epicenter of Jesus’ mission. 

The fact that the loving God of Jesus comes in search of His people, leaving the pomp and glory of Jerusalem, is a powerful metaphor, and this reversal mission strategy helped people glimpse into the nature of God that Jesus was about to proclaim. 

Let us pray that we, as servants of God, would manifest in our lives the God we believe in.

Fr. Dhinakaran Savariyar