The passage from Isaiah referring to Zebulun and Naphtali relates to a northern region of the holy land which was among the areas lost to Israel when they started getting overcome and exiled by foreign powers. It came to represent a place of loss and failure, of mixed peoples and practices that were abhorrent under a strict understanding of Mosaic Law. But under the prophet’s inspiration, and in its fulfillment in the Gospel, that region becomes like the Cross itself, a place of contrasts and paradoxes. It is like the Christian life and the hope that it provides for all.
What had been a place of darkness and death, has now become a place of light and life. What had once been limited to a few has now been opened and intended for all. Christ teaches elsewhere, “for my Father makes the sun to shine and the rains to fall on the righteous and the evil alike.” Hence his repeated calls to all to repentance: a change of heart and mind – to “do works worthy of repentance”, so that it’s not all just interior or, conversely, not all just for show.
We’re invited to follow him, who is the great king, the new and everlasting Temple, the fulfillment of all the holy promises of old and of any good we could want or hope for. But it is difficult, if not impossible, for us to respond, as Paul alludes to. The call, and the rewards that come with it, do not bypass the Cross but pass through it. It is this strange and horrid reality that becomes the source and tool of God’s grace, that makes us who were many, separated, in darkness and death, into a wonderful and fruitful unity of plurality that dwells in the light and is a source of life.
The Cross is where we may obtain that grace to respond immediately to this call, as is expected, and is so powerfully demonstrated for us by Simon, Andrew, James and John; and prophets of old like Elisha, or those venerated by tradition like the “good thief” beside Christ (St. Dismas), or the Roman soldier who was at the foot of the Cross (St. Longinus). “The kingdom of heaven has come near!”
– Aaron Neiva
