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Sermon for the Third Sunday after Epiphany – January 25, 2026
Matthew 4:12-23
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
If there’s a single word that makes people uncomfortable, it is the word “repent.” This word is uncomfortable for non-Christians, who don’t like the judgement implied by it, but it is also an uncomfortable word for many Christians. It makes us uncomfortable because of how it has been used by street corner preachers, who scrawl the word on signs or bark the word through bullhorns, making everyone within earshot cringe. It makes us uncomfortable because in certain mouths, the word has become an embarrassing caricature of the Christian message.
The word “repent” might make us uncomfortable, but it is not a word we can avoid. It is not a word we can dismiss. We cannot avoid or dismiss it because this word “repent” is on the lips of our Lord Jesus in his very first sermon. Last week we heard Jesus’ first recorded words in the gospel of John. Today we hear Jesus’ first sermon in the gospel of Matthew. And the first word out of Jesus’ mouth is “repent.”
The word has a history. It is used over a thousand times in the Old Testament, usually by prophets, who use it to call people to turn away from their sin and to turn back to God. So you can think of the word “repent” as a dance with two moves, each equally important. There is the turn away from sin, which involves contrition, feeling sorry for your sin – not just sorry you got caught, not sorry you have to give it up – but sorry because you have grieved God’s heart. Contrition is part of what it means to repent. But this move of contrition is supposed to flow right into the next move, which is the turn back to God, who even the sternest of prophets describe as gracious and merciful and abounding in steadfast love. It is to turn towards the grace and mercy of God and be changed by it – changed in heart and mind and soul, changed in a way that leads to changed behavior, a changed life.
It isn’t that the street corner preachers are completely wrong, it is that they are only doing one tiny part of that one dance move – and not very well!
To unpack this further we need to look more closely at both the setting and the substance of Jesus’ first sermon. First of all, the setting. Jesus is in the territory of Zebulon and Naphtali. This region had long been known as Capernaum, in Galilee. Those were the names on the maps, but Matthew uses the ancient placenames. He uses the names found in the Hebrew Bible to draw our attention to the promises God made through the prophet Isaiah – the very promises we heard in our first reading for today. Zebulon and Naphtali were the northernmost tribes of Israel. Their sins were many. They grieved God’s heart with the way they were living. God handed them over to their sin, allowing the Assyrians to invade. As the northernmost tribes, they bore the brunt of the invasion and never really recovered. Their land became a Gentile stronghold.
But God promised that their anguish and the contempt hanging over their land would not last forever. God gave Isaiah a vision wherein the people who walked in darkness see a great light. Those who lived in a land of deep darkness, on them a light would shine. They would rejoice as one does at the harvest, as one does when dividing plunder – as we would say, like someone who hit the jackpot. The bar across their shoulders, the yoke of their oppressor would be broken. They would be free from their sin at last!
Jesus moved from Nazareth to this very land to begin his ministry. Jesus purposefully moved to the land of Zebulon and Naphtali, Matthew tells us, because he was the fulfillment of this promise. He had come to bring the light of God’s grace and mercy. He had come to bring the light of God’s steadfast love and forgiveness. He had come to bring an abundance of grace that would change hearts and minds, leading to changed lives.
That’s the setting. Then there is the substance of the rest of the sermon. Jesus doesn’t only say “repent.” He goes on to say, “for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” This phrase, “the kingdom of heaven,” doesn’t refer only to life after death. This refers to God’s reign, God’s rule. The kingdom of heaven is God’s rule over our hearts. The kingdom of heaven is not of this world, it isn’t something we establish or organize or build here on earth. It is God’s power breaking into our lives to restore us to right relationship with him. This is the second move of the dance, restated. It is to be turned towards the God who has come near to us in Jesus Christ and who has called us into his kingdom – not only after we die, but here and now while we yet live.
This dance continues throughout our lives. Martin Luther said in the very first of his 95 theses that the entire life of the Christian is one of repentance. We are always moving from contrition to faith, from the old life to the new, turning away from sin and towards our savior, from doing things our own way to joyful obedience to God’s will. The Good News changes us – but we are not changed all at once. The dance of repentance goes on.
We see this in the lives of the disciples. We see how Jesus called Simon and Andrew, James and John. They heard the word of the Lord Jesus and were changed by it. They immediately dropped their nets and followed him. This wasn’t a “take this job and shove it” moment. They would return to fishing later. This signified that their minds and hearts and been changed by the kingdom of heaven coming near to them in Jesus, leading to a changed life of following him. They left everything in order to proclaim the Good News that would bring many into his net.
But this wasn’t the end of the story. As we see in the rest of the gospel, these same disciples often misunderstood Jesus. They often stumbled. At times, they failed miserably as Jesus’ followers. They continued to need to repent. And so the dance continued.
We see this pattern also in the lives of the Christians in Corinth. We’re going to be hearing a series of readings from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians over the next few weeks. This letter begins with Paul calling them sanctified saints. He praises their testimony and the good work God has been doing in them. They have been changed by the gospel!
But most of the rest of the letter is a compendium of the ways they have utterly failed as Christians. In our reading for this week Paul calls them out for having factions in the congregation. They didn’t keep the focus on Christ and his cross, and so they ended up divided – as still happens today. In the rest of the letter we hear about their poor worship practices, the mockery they were making of the Lord’s Supper. We hear about the ways they were being jerks to each other. We hear about sexual sin among their members. We hear about their misunderstandings and doubts about the resurrection – which is kind of the central, most basic and most important thing. The Corinthians had been changed by the gospel, but they continued to need to repent. And so the dance continued.
This is the Christian life. It is a life of ongoing repentance. And you need both moves of the dance – both the turning away from sin and the turning towards the savior. You can’t have the former without the latter. Only when they are together will it change your life.
When I was little I used to hang out with my dad in the garage when he was working on cars or other projects. He had rules in his garage. One of them was that I wasn’t supposed to mess with his dart board. He had the real darts with the sharp metal tips, and I was really little. Well, one time I messed with his dart board. A dart came loose and fell down and stuck itself into the palm of my hand. As the blood quickly started to pool, I went straight to him. Even though I knew I had disobeyed and disappointed him, I trusted that his love for me would be greater than his anger. And I was right. He took my hand in his, rushed me into the house, and took care of me. He never even raised his voice, which was unusual for my dad.
I was so touched by his grace in that moment that I still remember it roughly fifty years later. It made me love him even more than I already did. Did I immediately start obeying all of his garage rules from that point forward? No. But did I start being more careful around his dart board? Also, no. But did I slowly begin to see my father’s wisdom and begin to implement it in my life? I’m still a work in progress, but to a degree, yes. Do I want to honor my father’s love in the way that I live? Absolutely.
When Jesus says, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near,” he is telling you to bring your bloody messes to him. He is telling you to bring your disobedience to him without fear. He is calling you to turn away from sin and towards your savior so that he can graciously bind up your wounds.
This great love of our savior can’t help but change your heart, and your mind, and your soul. And it can’t help but at least begin to change your life. Not all at once, usually. But our Lord is patient. His love for us is greater than our sin. And so the dance continues.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church