Christmas 2

May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)

SEASON: Christmas 2
PROPER: C
PLACE: St. Michael’s & All Angels Church, Baltimore
DATE: January 4, 1998

TEXT: Matthew 2:13-15, 19-23 - Now after they 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.
ISSUE: The passage is full of Old Testament images and prophetic fulfillment. This child Jesus is the new hope for Israel, like Moses and the prophetic hopes of the future. But, the passage is also clearly about Joseph’s faithfulness and response to the dreams and visions. Taking great risks he is a symbol of great faith and a protector of the child that God has given into his care. The church today has a calling to be faithful stewards of the message of hope that has been given to our care.
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Today we are hearing a passage of Scripture from Matthew that is in sharp contrast to the comfortable and pastoral passages of Luke and Matthew that tell of the birth of Christ. Luke tells us of the peace and tranquillity of Bethlehem where shepherds come to worship and angels sing. Matthew tells of the wonders of the star and the wisemen who come to worship and offer the precious gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. But all of that lovely adoration is jolted by the prevalence of the lurking evil that would attempt to kill the child. Matthew is telling us that from the very beginning the life and ministry of Jesus Christ darkness and evil seek to blow out the light, bu the darkness cannot cannot overcome it. The evil intentions of Herod, a vicious ruler who murdered three of his own sons, could not prevail against the presence of God that had come to redeem the world.
For the people who first heard this passage from Matthew, it would have conjured up for them many images from the Old Testament Hebrew Scriptures. The story would have reminded them of the child Moses who had to be hidden from the evil Egyptian Pharaoh, and how Moses barely missed death. Yet Moses became the deliverer of his people, leading them out of slavery to the Promised Land. Jesus, for Matthew, was like this Moses, a great deliverer of his people.
Matthew, telling this story, quotes part of a passage from the prophet Hosea 11:1: “Out of Egypt have I called my son.” Again the deliverance of the Israelites being delivered out of Egypt and into the Promised Land is remembered. Jesus, too, who has fled to Egypt will return in hope to work and deliver his people in Israel from their bondage to alienation from God.
The passage concludes, Joseph taking the child to live in Nazareth, with the prophetic utterance: “He shall be called a Nazorean.” In the Hebrew scriptures there is no specific passage that says, “He shall be called a Nazorean.” Yet the child Samuel who was given by his mother Hannah to serve in the Temple under the priest Eli, was called a “Nazarite.” A “Nazarite” is a “separated one.” Indeed, Jesus was and is a separated one, as a unique person separated from the temptations and darkness of the world. Hannah says of Samuel (I Sam. 1:11), “I will dedicate him to you (the Lord) for his whole life.”
It is thought that Matthew is making a play on words based on a passage from Isaiah (11:1): “Then a shoot shall grow from the stock of Jesse, and a branch shall spring from its roots.” The Hebrew word for branch is “nezer.” It is close to Nazorean, and Jesus is to be seen as the new shoot of Jesse. God is coming in Jesus Christ to be a new King for them, a King of love and a prince of peace.
Matthew really wants his readers and listeners to appreciate that this Jesus, the Lord, is the hope of Israel, who has come through darkness and difficulty not unlike so many of the prophets of the Hebrew scriptures to redeem and restore his people into a right relationship with God. The message of hope and the deliverance of God’s people has begun in Jesus who is the Christ.
What is really fascinating about this story is that Joseph, Jesus’ father, is the real hero. Just as on the 4th Sunday of Advent, Mary is featured as the bearer of the Lord. This day holds of Joseph. Joseph in the story is not unlike the Joseph of the Old Testament in Genesis. He is a dreamer. He is a man who dreams dreams and pays attention to them. While early on, he could have abandoned Mary for unfaithfulness, he listens to his dreams and embraces her as his own. In this story today, in this difficult time of threat, he embraces now the child, and becomes the great protector and secures the child. He flees the evil forces that would eradicate the child of hope. The prophet Joel (2:28) had prophesied that at the day of the Lord, “Thereafter the day shall come when I will pour out my spirit on all mankind . . .your old men will dream dreams and your young men will have visions.” Joseph is an old man with dreams. He follows these inclinations and becomes the great protector of the child, becoming like Mary a channel through which God’s Will and God’s grace may flow.
The important issue for us today is whether or not we allow ourselves to dream dreams and have visions to which we remain faithful? Do we allow the message of God, the spirit of God deep within us, to come to the surface of our lives and be acted upon? Joseph in an instant could have abandoned Mary and the child. Yet he allows the presence of God to indwell his life and be its direction. Unfortunately many men today do abandon their children and refuse to pay appropriate child support. That Godly sense of faithfulness and commitment is lost to whims and fantasies that some other kind of life is better. Yet the consequences are often devastating to children, family life and society. In the gospel passage, Joseph dreams and contemplates and lives out what the message of righteousness calls him to do and to be. He beomes partner to and with God so that the Nazorean may touch the lives of human people over the centuries.
There is a poem attributed to Howard Thurman:
When the song of the angel is stilled,
When the star in the skey is gone,
When the kings and princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flock,
The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost . . to heal the broken
To feed the hungry . . . to release the prisoner
To rebuild the nations . . . to bring peace among brothers
To make music in the heart.

We would all like to see family life strengthened. We would like to see environmental issues dealt with in constructive ways. We would like to see the poor receive justice, and peace prevail in the world. We have our dreams and hopes. We must also allow God's presence to enter our lives and direct us into ministries that are intended to realize the dreams and the visions.
We return now that the holiday season is about over to the real world. There is often much darkness. Life is risky and uncertain. Life is dangerous. Yet, there is a dream, a hope, and a faith. God with us and within us. Throughout all of the difficult times in human history, God has sought to redeem and deliver his people, to make them his own in partnership with Him. As we greet the future may we all be sensitive to what God is calling each of us to do and be. May we all embrace our ministries that Christ Jesus may be realized in our world as the light that cannot be overcome by the darkness.