Isaiah
63:7-9
I will
recount the gracious deeds of the LORD,
the
praiseworthy acts of the LORD,
because
of all that the LORD has done for us,
and the
great favor to the house of Israel that he has shown them according to his
mercy, according to the abundance of his steadfast love.
For he
said, "Surely they are my people,
children
who will not deal falsely";
and he
became their savior in all their distress.
It was
no messenger or angel but his presence that saved them;
in his
love and in his pity he redeemed them;
he
lifted them up and carried them all the days of old.
Hebrews
2:10-18
It was
fitting that God,
for
whom and through whom all things exist,
in
bringing many children to glory, should make
the
pioneer of their salvation perfect through sufferings.
For the
one who sanctifies and those who are sanctified
all
have one Father.
For
this reason Jesus is not ashamed to call them
brothers
and sisters, saying,
"I
will proclaim your name to my brothers and sisters,
in the
midst of the congregation I will praise you."
And
again, "I will put my trust in him."
And
again, "Here am I and the children whom God has given me."
Since,
therefore, the children share flesh and blood,
he
himself likewise shared the same things,
so that
through death he might destroy the one
who has
the power of death, that is, the devil,
and
free those who all their lives were held in slavery
by the
fear of death.
For it
is clear that he did not come to help angels,
but the
descendants of Abraham.
Therefore
he had to become like his brothers and sisters
in
every respect, so that he might be a merciful and faithful
high
priest in the service of God,
to make
a sacrifice of atonement for the sins of the people.
Because
he himself was tested by what he suffered, he is able to help those who are
being tested.
Matthew
2:13-23
Now
after [the wise men] had left,
an
angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said,
"Get
up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt,
and
remain there until I tell you;
for
Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him."
Then
Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night,
and went
to Egypt, and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what
had been spoken by the Lord
through
the prophet, "Out of Egypt I have called my son."
When
Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men,
he was
infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children
in and
around Bethlehem who were two years old or under,
according
to the time that he had learned from the wise men.
Then
was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah:
"A
voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her
children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more."
When
Herod died, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared in a dream to Joseph in
Egypt and said,
"Get
up, take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who
were seeking the child's life are dead."
Then
Joseph got up, took the child and his mother,
and
went to the land of Israel.
But
when he heard that Archelaus was ruling over Judea
in
place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there.
And
after being warned in a dream,
he went
away to the district of Galilee.
There
he made his home in a town called Nazareth,
so that
what had been spoken through the prophets
might
be fulfilled, "He will be called a Nazorean."
======================================
It’s a bit jangling to the nerves
when
the beautiful Christmas story of Jesus’ birth,
the
angels singing,
the
shepherds and wise men following a star,
is followed only one week later by
this story we hear today,
how
this holy family is forced to rise up
in
the middle of the night and flee for their lives,
because
the king of Judea, Herod,
has
learned from the wise men about this new king,
a
newborn baby,
but with the power and glory of the
LORD God.
And of course, when people with
power
become
afraid of losing that power,
they
usually act out their fear with violence.
The gospel verse that comes just
before our reading today
says
that the wise men were warned in a dream
not
to return to Herod,
and so they left for their own
country by another road.
You see, the wise men had tipped Herod
off
about
the child’s birth who would become
the
king of the Jews.
He ordered them to come back to him
after finding the child,
and
tell him where he was,
so that he could also go and
“honor” him, so to speak.
When they did not return, King
Herod was outraged,
and
since his plans to kill this child were blocked,
he
ordered his soldiers to kill all the young children
in
Bethlehem and surrounding areas.
Based on the warning he receives in
a dream,
Joseph
gets up in the middle of the night,
and
runs with his family for their lives.
Their escape, of all places, takes
them to Egypt.
Now, if we step back for a minute
into the Old Testament,
the
Hebrew Bible, the book of Exodus,
you might recall that the reason
Moses was sent floating
in
a basket down the river was because
Pharaoh
had ordered all the young children of Israel
to
be killed.
Pharaoh did this out of fear that
the people of Israel
were
becoming stronger in number and ability
than
the people of Egypt.
Again, fear is being handled by a
person of power,
by
means of violence.
And so in this story the escape of
Jesus’ family into Egypt,
the
location of so much oppression
for
God’s people in the past,
carries with it a great irony –
this place of torture,
from
which God’s people escaped
with
Moses as their leader
and
God with them all along the way,
now becomes a place of safety for
Jesus, Mary and Joseph.
So the wise men avoided Herod
and
went home by another way.
Jesus, Mary and Joseph also took
another way
to
their eventual home,
going
first to Egypt and then leaving there
only after they received word that
Herod was dead.
Even then, Joseph was afraid to go
back to Judea,
since
Herod’s son was the new ruler there.
So instead he went to Galilee, and
settled in Nazareth.
They found home by going another
way.
There are plenty of stories in
recent history
that
mirror these stories in scripture.
I heard on The Writers’ Almanac
this past week
that
it was on December 29, 1890,
that
US federal troops killed
almost
300 Lakota men, women, and children
in the massacre
at Wounded Knee.
One of the survivors was Black Elk,
the
famous medicine man,
who
was 27 years old at the time of the massacre.
He wrote: “… I can see that
something else died
there
in the bloody mud,
and
was buried in the blizzard.
A people’s dream died there.
It was a beautiful dream.
And I, to whom so great a vision
was given in my youth, —
you
see me now a pitiful old man
who
has done nothing,
for
the nation’s hoop is broken and scattered.
There is no center any longer, and
the sacred tree is dead.”
His words reminded me of the words
from the prophet Jeremiah that are in today’s gospel reading:
“A voice
was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her
children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more."
For the Lakota people, their sacred
home was no more.
All
they had to hold onto was the hope
that
they would somehow find a new home
by
going another way.
And here and now, the people of
Syria,
thousands
upon thousands of them,
are
fleeing for their lives,
taking great risks to try to find
home,
wherever
it may be, by going another way,
because home as they once knew it
is gone forever,
and
by praying and hoping
that somewhere, somehow,
there
will be kind people in other countries
who
will help them.
Kind people like those in our
state,
this
county and this community
who
have reached out through Welcoming Michigan
to
help create a new and welcoming home for them.
And I also know that most of you
have
had some sort of personal experience in your life
that
changes everything, and when this happens,
no matter how much you might wish
it to be so,
the
safe refuge of home and family
the
way they used to be cannot be brought back,
just as it was.
You can’t go home again,
to
things just as you liked them before;
you
must find a new meaning of home,
a
new normal, a new way of life, by going another way.
It is one of the truths of our
faith
that
you really can’t meet Jesus
and
ever expect to go “home” again,
ever go back to things the way they
were, business as usual.
If your life was easy before
meeting Jesus,
it’s
going to get a lot harder, not easier,
as
you follow him.
If your life was a mess before
meeting Jesus,
your
encounters with him will put you onto roads
that
are challenging in a whole new way.
Christ does not walk us over onto
Easy Street.
But Christ walks with us through
all our dark valleys,
supporting
us and sharing our burdens.
And Christ offers a peace that
surpasses understanding;
he
gives us grace and mercy,
forgiveness
and compassion without end.
This grace and mercy and peace
are
what give us strength and courage
to
be Christ’s people, to do Christ’s work,
wherever
we may land.
When you meet Jesus, you can’t go
home again,
because
your home is not and never has been
your
true home.
Our true home is not our house, not
our community,
not
our church building, not our country,
not
even this planet.
Our true home is the kingdom of
God,
which
permeates and transcends
all
of these other homes we try so hard
to
protect and maintain as safe space.
Our only refuge is in God.
Our true home is with God.
And God is with us, every step of
the way,
from
the moment we set foot in this life
until
the moment we return to God’s loving arms.
Just as God is with all God’s
children, all the time.
It is not God’s will that horrors
or tragedies or suffering
happen
to us or to people we love.
When the Rev. William Sloane Coffin
delivered
the eulogy for his young son, Alex,
who was killed in a car accident,
he reminded his listeners that it
is not the will of God
that
things like this happen to God’s beloved;
in fact, it is God’s heart that is
the first to break.
God gives us minimum protection, he
said,
and
maximum support.
And this support comes to us
through
the compassion of others.
And it is our compassion in the
name of Christ
that
provides the support that so many others
so
desperately need.
In this season, we celebrate the
arrival
of
Jesus the Christ, Emmanuel, God with us.
God is with us, always,
and
God will never make us walk this journey alone.
No human power,
no
violence,
no
illness,
no
loss,
no
change whatsoever
can
ever, ever, ever change that.
