Sermon for the Second Sunday after Christmas - Mt 2:13-23

                                        Christmas 2; Mt 2:13-23; 1/4/26

            You don’t expect good news when the phone rings in the middle of the night.  No one is going to call you at 3:00 a.m. to let you know about some good thing that has happened. Instead, a call at that time is almost certainly going to be prompted by an emergency – by something that is bad.

            When my phone rings at such a time, there are in fact two possibilities. First, it may be that something has happened in my family – to my parents; to my children; or to my brother and his family. Second, it is possible that something has happened to a congregation member. There are in fact more of you than there are of my close family members, and so the odds lean that way. This was the case last Sunday when I received a call at 4:00 a.m. that Sue Linenberger was at the ER because of tightness in her chest caused by blood clots.

            When your phone rings at a time like this, you are startled.  You often feel rather foggy as you try to wake up and listen to what is being said in order to understand what has happened. I find myself repeating back what I have heard, in order to make sure that I have it right. And then when the phone call is over, if the news doesn’t require me to leave immediately, I am awake and have trouble going back to sleep.

            In our Gospel lesson this morning Joseph is startled in the middle of the night. He receives news of an emergency. In this case the information comes not from a phone call, but from an angel in a dream. The result is the same because when he is awake there is no question of trying to get back to sleep. Instead, he immediately swings into action.

            This morning we have things a little out of order.  Our Gospel lesson describes the flight to Egypt by Joseph, Mary, and Jesus that took place after the visit by the magi. Of course, we won’t celebrate visit by the magi until this Tuesday – the Feast of the Epiphany of Our Lord. You will notice that the magi have not yet arrived in our chancel. But here at the end of Christmastide, our text is the last thing we learn about the events involving Jesus in the time after he had been born.

            Just before our text Matthew reports, “Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, saying, ‘Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.’”

            The magi showed up in Jerusalem looking for the king of the Jews who had been born. What they found instead was King Herod the Great. Herod was not, in fact, a descendant of Israel. He was from Idumea – the land south of Israel that had been the ancient enemy Edom. People in Judea would have considered him, at best, to be a “half Jew” since this land had been conquered by the Jews during the time of the Jewish Hasmonean leaders. In fact, he was not a true believer in Yahweh at all as he gave money to build to build pagan temples in Gentile areas.

            Herod had no interest in the Scriptures.  But when he heard about the possibility of a competitor for his crown being born, the Scriptures suddenly became something that could be useful. He summoned the chief priests and scribes who told him on the basis of Micah’s prophecy that the Christ would be born in Bethlehem.

            Matthew reports that Herod instructed the magi to find the child, and then send him word so that he too could go and worship him. But before doing that we are told: “Then Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star had appeared.”  Herod was particularly interested in how long ago the star had appeared. He wanted to determine how old this child might be.

            Herod the Great had risen from being an Idumean outsider to king ruling a kingdom that was as large as David’s.  He did it by sheer determination, and the remarkable ability to convince whatever Roman was in control of Palestine at that time that Herod was their man.

            He also succeeded because he was absolutely ruthless. He beheaded the last king from the Hasmonean line. Then he executed forty five of that man’s richest supporters, and he took their wealth as his own. He had his wife executed. He had his mother-in-law executed. He had his brother-in-law executed. He had three of his own sons executed. If Herod thought that you were a threat to his throne, there was no question about what he was going to do.

            Our text begins with the words, “Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, ‘Rise, 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.’” God sent an angel to warn Joseph, and to send him into action. We learn: “And he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt and remained there until the death of Herod.”

            There is so much planning, bustle, and excitement that leads up to Christmas. There are decorations to put up and gifts to buy. There are parties to attend and travel to plan. It reaches a crescendo on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.  And then there is an afterglow between Christmas and New Year’s. The kids are still off from school. It is a time that leads into the New Years Eve celebration, and then New Years day which for many people is a day off that is filled with football.

            But now there is no avoiding that it is back to the regular grind of life. The problems and challenges from which the Christmas season helped to distract us are still there.  The health problems have not gone away. The financial challenges and career uncertainty are still present. The marital and family difficulties continue to trouble us.

            We have passed through Christmas, and we may be tempted to ask what difference it makes. We wonder where God is in all of this. Today’s Gospel lesson speaks to this. Matthew tells us about the conception of Jesus by the Holy Spirit in the virgin Mary: “All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: ‘Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel”(which means, God with us).’”

            Jesus Christ is God with us. He is God in the flesh. And he is with us in the midst of the danger and fear of this world. We find that he is rushed out of town in the middle of the night as his parents flee with him to Egypt. He is the target of a tyrant who wants nothing else but to kill the child.

            The Lord Jesus understands our existence. He understands not simply as the omniscient Son of God, but as the One who has been God with us – the One who has lived our life. The writer to the Hebrews tells us, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

            Joseph took Mary and Jesus in the middle of the night to Egypt, and they stayed there until the death of Herod. Matthew says in our text, “This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, ‘Out of Egypt I called my son.’”  Matthew tells us that Jesus went to Egypt and then returned in fulfillment of God’s word.

            Jesus is God with us. His parents have to flee their homeland and go to Egypt in order to protect him from death. But we learn that God is at work in the midst of this hardship.  Jesus has gone to Egypt in order to return from there, just as Israel had done so. Matthew quotes Hosea 11:1, “Out of Egypt I called my son.”  This is not what we would normally call a “prophecy.”  It is not a statement about the future. Instead, it is Hosea recounting Israel’s unfaithfulness in the past.

            But Matthew tells us that Jesus’ experience of fleeing to Egypt and then returning fulfills Hosea’s words because God was intentionally creating a correspondence between Israel and Jesus.  Jesus is the Christ – the Messiah.  He is the fulfillment of God’s promises about the descendant of David.  He is Israel reduced to One. And we begin to learn that where Israel failed God’s purposes, Jesus will fulfill them.

            Like Israel, Jesus is God’s Son whom he calls out of Egypt. Like Israel, Jesus will pass through the water of the Jordan when he is baptized. But where Israel was unfaithful when they entered the promised land, Jesus was faithful in carrying out the Father’s will.  At his baptism Jesus the sinless One took on the role of bearing our sins. He said, “the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Jesus was called out of Egypt and passed through the Jordan in order to hang on the cross for you. He received God’s judgment against your sin in order to give you forgiveness before God.

            The magi were warned by God not to return to Herod.  Eventually Herod realized that he had been tricked by them. Matthew tells us that he became furious, and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under.  Herod had been very interested in when the star had appeared.  And now he used that information as he left nothing to chance. He had all the boys two years and younger in Bethlehem and the surrounding area killed.

            Herod kills children in Bethlehem. But then Matthew says something that seems surprising. He reports: “Then was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah: ‘A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be comforted, because they are no more.’”

            Matthew quotes from Jeremiah chapter 31. Jeremiah’s words are a reference to the exile that occurred in 587 B.C. when the Babylonians took the people of Judah away. But this verse is the only note of sadness in the whole chapter as God promises that he will bring the people back. He will return the people, and this action points to something even greater. Yahweh goes on to say through Jeremiah, “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord.”

            The murder of the children in Bethlehem was an act of evil by Herod. But Matthew tells us that God’s saving work occurs in the midst of evil and suffering.  It occurs as God himself submits to evil and suffering in the person of Jesus Christ.  The reason that we can trust and believe this is true is what happened on Easter. Christ died as the One whose blood was shed to establish the new covenant – the new covenant about which Yahweh said through Jeremiah, “For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

            Good Friday was a scene of humiliation, suffering, and death. But on Easter God raised Jesus from the dead. He vindicated Jesus and showed that the cross had been far more than it appeared to be.  It had been God redeeming us from sin.  Jesus passed through death for us, and then in the resurrection God defeated death.

            We live in a world where we experience hardships and difficulties. We see in the news senseless suffering and death.  It can make us ask: “Where is God in all of this?” Our Gospel lesson teaches us that Jesus Christ is God with us. We have seen God act in the death and resurrection of his Son.  He worked in the midst of suffering and death in this world to give us forgiveness and resurrection life.

            Now we believe in the crucified and risen Lord. But this faith is not only about salvation. It is faith that carries us through the things we can’t understand. It is the reason we can trust that God is at work even when we don’t see any indications that this is so.  This is what provides the grounds for Paul’s statement in Romans: “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” This is not wishful thinking or naïve optimism that somehow the forces of the world all even out. 

Instead, it is based on what God has already done in the death and resurrection of Jesus. We have seen God work in the midst of suffering and death to carry out his saving purpose for us. In the resurrection of Jesus we find assurance that God’s intentions go beyond what we are able to perceive and understand. And in the resurrection have find confidence that the suffering and death will come to an end when Jesus Christ returns in glory.