“Nevertheless, there will be no more gloom for those who were in distress. In the past he humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the future, he will honor Galilee of the nations, by the Way of the Sea, beyond the Jordan—

The people walking in darkness
have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of deep darkness
a light has dawned.
You have enlarged the nation
and increased their joy.”
Isaiah 9:1-3

In Jesus’ time, trade routes meant a huge deal to people in the ancient world. These primitive, early roads, rough hewn and unpaved as they were, represented the international highways of the time for trade, exchange, taxes, and livelihood. Jesus would have been familiar with three major trade routes: the 1) Ridge Route, the way through the mountain country; 2) the King’s Highway (the Via Nova Traiana), the inland road which connected Egypt with Mesopotamia; and 3) the north-south route running from Egypt to Damascus along the coast –the Coastal Highway of the Ancient World—the Via Maris.

The Via Maris, in Hebrew the Derech HaYam (Is 9:1 and Matt 4:15), was known as the Way of the Sea, in slang as the Way of the Philistines, as these ancient mariners were people of the sea and its ports. But the routes were used widely by ancient traders for imports of food and clothing, finery, and goods. The port cities along the coast became centers for trade, taxation of goods, the fishing industry, and imports and exports. They were cosmopolitan centers, multi-lingual with Greek as the lingua franca, and they defined the livelihoods of those cities.* The Via Maris was in a sense the “spine” of the fertile crescent.

One of the most important centers at a critical point on the Via Maris, in which Israel’s borders met with areas of Syria, Phoenicia, Persia, Tyre, and Sidon (gentile areas), was Capernaum. Capernaum in “upper Galilee” was the “mission field” of the time. It was heavily populated, a major fishing port, a taxation center, and a hub for multi-culturalism. It was heavy in trade, especially olive oil and wine, and it offered easy access to the Jordan, the Lake of Gennesaret (Sea of Galilee), and the Sea.

But the area had yet another meaning, and a significant history. This was the land of Zebulun and Naphtali of the northern kingdom of Israel, lost since 740 BCE after it was conquered by the Assyrians, its inhabitants killed, enslaved, or transported out of Israel and into gentile territories (See Isaiah 8). The area around the Sea of Galilee in the north was the region most severely ravaged by the Assyrians. Isaiah referred to this area as “Galilee of the Gentiles.” The region would not be strongly inhabited by Jews again until 140 BCE. But even after the resettlement of Galilee in the first century BCE, the greater area remained highly multi-cultural, with Greek as its primary market language. Herod built massive, modern Hellenized cities such as Sepphoris, about 3.5 miles from the Jewish farming community of Nazareth. The “new Jews” were not just new to the area, but many of them were reacquainting themselves with the faith. Port cities such as Capernaum bustled not just with working class Jews but with Greek traditions and builders and Roman soldiers (centurions).

For the people who lived there, the Via Maris was the “via prosus” –the way forward to good jobs, abundant living, cultural tolerance, and an exclusive view of the world outside of Israel. For Jesus, this was prime mission field –the “frontier” for his mission to the gentiles. But not just any gentiles. These were the “lost sheep of Israel” –those lost from the tribes of the north. This was Isaiah’s “Galilee of the Gentiles.” And Jesus was the “Light” sent to lead them home.

All roads worth traveling begin at ground zero. Upper Galilee, particularly the port city of Capernaum and its flank towns and cities on the Sea of Galilee, had been the site of Israel’s greatest destruction and loss. Upper Galilee was Israel’s “ground zero”: the point from which Israel’s devastation erupted and now the starting point and base for missional activity for Jesus’ ministry and mission.

Galilee of the Gentiles (ethne – the populous/multitude of cultures) was a fertile mission field, a place populated by those whose faith had dwindled, who had lost faith, who were caught up in the busyness of cosmopolitan port life, and who no longer waited for a messiah to come. Many were Syrio-phoenicians, Greeks, or Persians. Some arrived from other places like Egypt or Asia. To all of these, Jesus traveled, preaching and teaching, and most of all, healing. For Isaiah had told them that those who had suffered most would be the first to see the light of the Messiah.

Jesus chose specifically to move to this heavily populated area, to an area where no other rabbi wanted to go. God’s words through Ezekiel must have resounded in his head: “I myself will search for my sheep” (34:23-25). Jesus began his restoration of God’s kingdom not in Jerusalem, the city that boasted to be the mercy seat of God, but in Galilee of the Gentiles, those who had “waited” for 7 centuries for their apostle, their messiah, their restoration.

Jesus would establish 12 apostles representing the 12 tribes of Israel. And he would not stop until he had called out to all of God’s forgotten children.

The Via Maris is the “Way” Jesus chose, not just a “way” that followed a certain code of living (a halakah), not just the way to God’s kingdom heart, but the “Way” to retrieve God’s forgotten people. Jesus’ Way was the road not traveled, to scoop up the ignored and tossed aside. As in Jesus’ Samaritan story, the good Samaritan restores one unrecognized as God’s son or daughter, Jesus Himself went out of His “way” to retrieve and restore those who had disappeared into the culturally mixed stew of the north.

“Go and cultivate (we could also say rescue people) disciples from all “ethne” (cultures of people in the great populace), Jesus told us.** He asked us to do no more than He had previously done Himself. And yet His work is never finished.

In the way that the Via Maris was the way to a life of abundance, so is the Way of Jesus the via prosus from darkness to light, lost to found, the Way home.

We may not identify those in our communities as those from the tribes of Naphtali, Isaachar, Zebulun, or Asher. We may not be living on the cusp of the northern kingdom in historic Israel. But nevertheless we too are living in one of the greatest mission fields the world has ever seen. This community, your community, is your ground zero, your Via Maris.

Here the lost have found a home. Here God’s children have forgotten who they are, even as our churches have forgotten their names. Here God’s people have lost the memory of what it means to have a faith that buoys them up and carries them in hope. Here God’s people still live in darkness –the darkness of doubt, pain, confusion, and disillusion.

To these Jesus sends us. To these we must go, and speak, and heal, and invite, and love.

For many years, Christians have hid away from the populace, from the bustling centers of secular activity, and from the people who cannot relate to churches, narthexes, steeples, and creeds that they do not understand and cannot comprehend. It’s time to get on the “international highway” and head for the mission field.

That’s where our future lies. That’s where Jesus calls us to go. We were never meant to be people of mere buildings and a sedentary, safe life. We were meant to be farers of the sea, travelers of the way, makers of a way, so that all God’s people who have been devastated and lost, can find their way back to Jesus.

There is always a road forward, a via prosus, from ground zero.

There is always a way for everyone to Christ Jesus. Be the way. Be His Way.

*Jewish Virtual Library

**See missionfrontiers.org for the translation of ethne (goyim).

Based on the Story Lectionary

Major Text

Jesus Begins His Ministry in Galilee (Luke 4:14-30)

Simon (called Peter) and Andrew, James and John (Matthew 4:12-25)

Minor Text

The Story of Jacob’s Ladder (Genesis 28:10-17)

Psalm 66: Let the Sound of His Praise Be Heard

Psalm 34: Let Us Exalt His Name Together

The People Walking in Darkness Have Seen a Great Light (Isaiah 9)

Jesus Begins His Ministry in Galilee of the Gentiles (Capernaum) after John the Baptizer is arrested, and he calls his first Disciples:

Simon (called Peter) and Andrew, James and John (Mark 1:14-25 or 45)

Jesus Calls His First Disciples from those of John the Baptizer: Andrew and Simon Peter; Jesus Returns to Galilee and Bethsaida) and Calls Philip and Nathanael (John 1:35-51)

The Apostles Teach About Jesus, and Many Come to Christ; They are Spared Death by the Appeal of Gamaliel (of the School of Hillel) (Acts of the Apostles 5:12-42)