Mark 1:9-11 (Matins)
1 Corinthians 10:1-4
Mark 1:9-11
The Good Shepherd begins His three-year task to gather the lost and blind. We are not surprised to learn where He has planned to inaugurate this great work: "The land of Zebulun and the Land of Naphtali" in the Northern Kingdom. The lost and blind there have sunk to this low state following the imposition of the bloody cult of the Assyrians being forced upon them, and their becoming generationally inured to these vile beliefs and practices.
The particular town the Lord has selected is Capernaum, or Kfar Nahum ("village of Nahum"). For the Prophet Nahum cries out, "Enough!" and then composes an extended oracle beginning, "The Lord avenges;/The Lord avenges and is furious" and then proceeds to depict the destruction of Nineveh, the capital city of the Assyrian Empire.
We know that Jesus plans the same fate for the Southern Kingdom. For God's people there have also become inured to the same obscene procession of sacrificed goats and bulls. And the Lord will conclude with the same annihilation He had carried out in Assyria: the destruction of Jerusalem in 40 A.D.
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.