The Third Sunday after The Epiphany, Year A
January 25, 2026
Isaiah 9:1-4; Psalm 27:1, 5-13; 1 Corinthians 4:12-23; Matthew 4:12-23
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“Following Christ Together”
The Rev. Kathleen Murray, Rector
Historic Beckford Parish, Mt. Jackson & Woodstock
The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light.”[1]
That is where Scripture begins today. Not with instructions. Not with blame. Not with a demand to fix ourselves. It begins with a statement of fact. Light has come.
Isaiah’s words, taken up by Matthew, are spoken to people who are sitting in darkness. Not people on the move. Not people who have figured things out. People who are weary enough to stop moving at all. People who know what it is to wait and wonder whether anything will change.
Darkness is not hard for us to recognize. We know it when we feel it. We know it in grief that lingers long after others think it should be over.
We know it in fear about fear about the present and the future—about safety, about the kind of world we are becoming. We know it in division, in the way relationships strain, and patience wears thin. Some of that darkness lives out in the world around us. Some of it lives closer to home. And some of it lives right here among us.
Many of us, whether we read the books or watched the movies, remember that in the Harry Potter saga, there is a point when darkness begins to gather around Hogwarts. The sky grows heavy. Fear spreads. The Dark Lord gathers followers.
What is striking is that the darkness does not arrive all at once. It creeps in. It isolates people. It convinces them to keep their heads down, to stay quiet, to protect only what is theirs. People are tempted to pretend nothing serious is happening. Others decide it is safer not to choose.
That is often how darkness works in real life too. It settles in slowly. It narrows our vision. It tells us to withdraw, to stop trusting, to stop hoping.
Into that kind of darkness, Scripture does not say, “Try harder.” It does not say, “Be braver.” It says that light has come.
And that light is not an idea or a feeling. The great light Isaiah names, and Matthew points to, is Jesus himself. As John puts it, Christ is the true light that comes and the darkness does not overcome it.[2] The light is a person. That light is Emmanuel. God walking into the world’s shadowed places and standing among us bringing light.
The psalm puts it plainly: “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom then shall I fear?”[3] The light does not come from inside us. It is God’s action. God takes the initiative. God shines light into places we cannot fix on our own.
Light does not always change circumstances. It does not magically remove danger or grief or conflict. But it does change how we move through them. Think about walking a familiar path in the dark. The ground has not changed. The obstacles are still there. But when light comes, even a small light, you walk differently. You lift your head. You can see where to place your feet. You can move forward without guessing.
As we sang earlier, “The people who in darkness walked have seen a glorious light.”[4] That hymn does not promise the darkness disappears. It promises that we are not left alone inside it.
Matthew then brings us straight to the shoreline. No long explanation. No theological setup. Jesus walks along the Sea of Galilee, sees people in the middle of their work, and says, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.”[5]
This is not a private invitation meant only for someone’s inner life. It is not about feelings or ideas. It is concrete. It interrupts routines. It reaches right into ordinary days. And it costs something.
Simon and Andrew leave their nets. James and John leave their nets, their boat, and even their father. Matthew does not soften that. He does not explain it away. He simply tells us that when the light calls, something has to be left behind. The light that comforts is also the light that disrupts. Jesus does not say, “Follow me when it feels safe.” Jesus says, “Follow me,” and everything else has to be weighed against that call.
Before we rush past this, it is worth letting the question rest with us. What nets keep us standing on the shore? What do we hold onto so tightly that we hesitate when Christ calls us forward? Old habits? Old resentments? Roles we have wrapped our identity around? The comfort of staying where we are, even when we know it is time to move?
But when we do not let go, it does not only affect us.
Paul writes to the church in Corinth, and his words are blunt. He appeals to them “that there be no divisions among you.”[6] Then he asks the question that exposes the problem underneath everything else: “Has Christ been divided?”[7]
Paul is not speaking in theory. He is writing to a church that is arguing, forming factions, choosing sides. A church that has begun to define itself by loyalties other than Christ. And Paul will not let them pretend this is a small issue. A divided church does not just hurt feelings. A divided church misrepresents Christ.
Following Jesus is never just “me and Jesus.” To be a Christian means to be in community. Following Jesus binds us to one another whether we would have chosen one another or not. It pulls us into shared responsibility and shared risk.
Walking together in the light God gives is not abstract. It looks like people showing up week after week to stock shelves and hand out food, even when the need feels endless. It looks like gathering around a table or a book, listening carefully to one another’s stories, and staying when it would be easier to drift away. It looks like learning, praying, disagreeing, and remaining at the table together because Christ has called us into one life.
That is why the Collect we prayed today matters so much. “Give us grace, O Lord, to answer readily your call.”[8] Grace is what makes answering possible. Not certainty. Not confidence. Grace. Grace loosens our grip on the nets we cling to. Grace helps us step out of darkness without pretending we are fearless. Grace allows us to walk together instead of pulling apart.
The prayer does not stop with us. “So that we, and the whole world, may see the glory of your marvelous works.”[9] The goal is not that we feel enlightened. The goal is that something real and life-giving is seen in us. Light is meant to be visible.
That matters for us as a community. We do not gather because we have everything figured out. We gather because we are learning how to walk by a light we did not create. We bring grief and fear and division and hope, often all at once. The gospel does not ask us to resolve all of that before we follow. It asks us to trust the light enough to take the next step.
Sometimes that step will be small. Sometimes it will be costly. Sometimes it will mean setting down something we have carried for so long we are not sure who we are without it. But we are not promised ease. We are promised presence. The light goes ahead of us. And that light has a name: Jesus Christ.
As our closing hymn today, we will sing, “How wondrous and great thy works.”[10] That is the sound of a people choosing, again, to answer the call, to loosen their nets, and to walk together in the light God gives.
So the question is not whether the darkness is real. It is. The question is whether we will walk by the light we have been given.
Christ has already stepped into the darkness. Now he says to us, simply and clearly: Follow me.
[1] Cf. Isaiah 9:2, New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition (“NRSVUE”) and Matthew 12:16, NRSVUE
[2] Cf. John 1:18, NRSVUE
[3] Psalm 27:1, NRSVUE
[4] The Hymnal 1982, no. 126.
[5] Matthew 4:19, NRSVUE
[6] 1 Corinthians 1:10, NRSVUE
[7] 1 Corinthians 1:13, NRSVUE
[8] Book of Common Prayer (1979), Collect for the Third Sunday after the Epiphany.
[9] Ibid.
[10] [10] The Hymnal 1982, no. 533.