Sermon - Sunday After Christmas (12/29/2019)

Is. 63:7-9; Ps. 148; Heb. 2:10-8; Mt. 2:13-23

In the letter to the Hebrews we read:  Jesus “had to become like his brothers and sisters in every respect . . . . Because he himself was tested by what he suffered, he is able to help those who are being tested.”

Just a few days ago we read the wondrous story of angels singing in the sky to a band of startled shepherds:  Glory to God in the highest, and peace to God’s people on earth.  Good news of great joy for all the people.  Now just a few days later, the story turns to atrocities – the murder of innocent children, terrified refugees, fear and weeping, unspeakable loss and devastation.  So, Merry Christmas, everyone.

Matthew insists on telling us about the dark side of Christmas as much as the cheerful one, and for good reason.  As much as we dream of the day when the kingdom of God arrives in its fulness, when the lion lies down with the lamb and sorrow and sighing will be no more, Jesus was born into the world as it is.  Violence and tragedy are part of the world as it is, and in Jesus God enters into it all.  In Jesus God enters the world not in wealth or prestige, but in a stable to those for whom there was no room at the inn.  Jesus is born into a family on the run, fleeing chaos and destruction, moving first to Egypt and then to Nazareth, living in the witness protection program.  As our reading from the letter to the Hebrews says today, Jesus can help us in our suffering because he, too, has experienced suffering, and he did right from the very beginning.

In some ways, Jesus was particularly unfortunate to be born during the reign of King Herod.  We know from historical sources outside the Bible that King Herod was notoriously suspicious of his real and perceived enemies.  He went so far as to have three of his own children killed because he thought they were threats to his rule, so his order concerning the children of Bethlehem is completely in character, given what we know about the man.  And yet Herod is not unique; Matthew tells us that even after Herod is dead, under the new king it is still not safe for Jesus and his family to return to Bethlehem.

And Herod is hardly the last political leader who accepted the death of children as part of the business of maintaining power.  One thinks readily of recent American presidents, of both political parties, who adopted policies that lead directly to the deaths of innocent children, not because they wanted children to die, but because the policies seemed necessary at the time and their human costs were considered an unfortunate but inescapable reality.  And so, even today, many children live a precarious and dangerous existence, for reasons over which they have no control whatsoever.  And Jesus did not exempt himself from this reality, but accepted such a childhood.

As I mentioned last week, the gospel according to Matthew contains a number of references to events in the life of Jesus fulfilling what was said by the prophets.  There are no fewer than three of them in the gospel passage we read this morning.  When Matthew does this, he is never claiming that that the prophets expressly predicted something about the coming of the Messiah that we can now check off, as if this would prove that Jesus is the Son of God.  Rather, Matthew intends to draw our attention to particular Old Testament stories that illuminate the meaning of particular things Jesus does, and this passage is no exception.

So Matthew tells us that Joseph took Mary and the baby Jesus to Egypt, and this fulfills the Old Testament idea that God calls his child Israel out of Egypt.  In particular, Matthew wants us to see the similarities between Jesus and Moses.  For when Moses was born in Egypt, Pharoah was so worried about the Hebrew slaves that he had ordered the killing of all the young Hebrew boys in Egypt.  Sounds familiar, right?

Moses escaped through the cunning of the midwives, Shiphrah and Puah, who were willing to lie to Pharoah and spare the Hebrew children, as well as Pharoah’s own daughter who conspires with Moses’s mother to have Moses raised in the king’s own household.  Herod’s cruel order is nothing new – although this time it’s not a pagan king but God’s people doing it to themselves.  But Matthew hopes we will see that, just as by God’s grace Moses escaped the genocidal Pharoah in order to lead God’s people to freedom, so the hand of God is on Jesus who goes into Egypt in order to lead all of God’s people to freedom.

Matthew also quotes a much more specific Old Testament passage from the 31st chapter of the book of the prophet Jeremiah.  Jeremiah remembers Rachel, who was the mother of two of the sons of Jacob and thus the mother of two of the 12 tribes of Israel.  Jeremiah lived at the time of the Exile, when the Babylonians destroyed the temple and burned the city of Jerusalem to the ground, with the loss of much innocent life.  Most of the time Jeremiah was telling the people that disaster was coming, and that they deserved that disaster – so, as you might imagine, Jeremiah was usually quite unpopular.

But towards the end, Jeremiah turns hopeful.  Yes, there will be an exile, there will be death and destruction and great tragedy, but Jeremiah starts to insist that there is nothing, not even the greatest sorrow and disaster, from which God cannot bring something good.  And so the verse that Matthew quotes, about Rachel the mother of Israel weeping over what has become of her descendants, is actually taken from a larger message of hope.  Yes, Jeremiah says, the disaster is total and complete, and Rachel cannot be consoled.  But, the next verse is:  “Thus says the Lord: Keep your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears; for there is a reward, says the Lord, they shall come back from the land of the enemy; there is hope for your future, says the Lord, your children shall come home.”

In other words, Matthew’s choice of Old Testament passages to illuminate the slaughter of the innocents of Bethlehem and the flight of the family of Jesus to Egypt link the story of Jesus to the greatest disasters in Biblical history: the enslavement in Egypt, the destruction of the temple and the exile in Babylon.  And in each case Matthew chooses a text that ultimately speaks about what God does to bring salvation and healing out of even the darkest and most painful times.

So also the first reading today, which also speaks about the end of the Exile:  “God became the savior of God’s people in all their distress.  It was no messenger or angel but God’s own presence that saved them.  In God’s love and God’s pity God redeemed them, God lifted them up and carried them.”  God is present in the midst of suffering and distress, precisely to bring healing and peace.  Even as a baby God was present in Bethlehem when the children were murdered.  Just as God continues to be present in our own distress now.

This is the good news that Matthew has for us today:  In Jesus God has become present in the midst of a chaotic and suffering world, in order to heal it and make all things new.  This is the reason God was born in a stable, this is the reason God is still present in our midst today.  Rejoice and be glad in this good news.  Merry Christmas.