With My Family on the Sea of Galilee
The Sea of Galilee will always be a favorite place for Christians touring Israel, for it was here that so much of our Lord’s ministry took place. Here He taught the people from a boat just offshore. Here He walked on the water. Here He calmed the raging storm.
The region of Galilee was the place where our Lord began His ministry of public teaching and preaching. It was here that His teaching dawned upon the world like the rising of a sun after a night that lasted millennia. Galilee is rarely mentioned in the Old Testament, and generally only as a point of geography, but there is one beautiful promise made about Galilee in the prophecy of Isaiah 9. We find it quoted in the Gospel of Matthew:
That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, The land of Zabulon, and the land of Nephthalim, by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles; the people which sat in darkness saw great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up. From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. (Matt. 4:14–17).
When Isaiah spoke that prophecy, the nation of Assyria was poised to seize the northern kingdom of Israel (Isa. 7:16–17; 8:3–4). God fulfilled His words in 733–732 BC, when King Tiglathpileser of Assyria conquered Galilee and the surrounding regions and carried their people into captivity (2 Kings 15:29). A decade later the northern kingdom of Israel was destroyed. The darkness of Israel’s idolatry had overwhelmed the land. As E. J. Young said, “Darkness without and darkness within, ignorance, distress, misery, and sin.”
What a picture this is of our natural condition since the fall: darkness. The Bible not only says that we live in darkness, but that darkness is inside of us, yes, that we are darkness until God saves us (Eph. 4:18; 5:8). Unconverted sinners love the darkness and hate the light, because their deeds are evil (John 3:19).
Over seven centuries after Isaiah died, the Roman Empire ruled a mixture of Jews and Gentiles in Galilee through its appointed tetrarch, Herod Antipas. In the midst of the darkness, a brilliant light began to shine. Jesus, the Light of the world, had come (John 8:12). His coming as light into darkness reminds us of God’s word spoken into the primeval darkness, “Let there be light.” Christ’s preaching heralded the beginning of a new creation. Has the light of Christ shone into your heart? If so, then you are a new creation too.
Sunrise over the Sea of Galilee
