Sermon: Matthew 2:13-23

Transcript of my sermon from December 29, 2019, is below. Or listen here.

Well, this week's reading from our lectionary, if you don't know the lectionary, it's a series of readings put together in a three year cycle so that we hit Matthew, Mark, and Luke over the course of three years, and then John sort of gets sprinkled into each year.

This year, this is the reading assigned right after Christmas. We don't get to bask in the peace and glow of the manger very long. This particular reading reminds us of what it meant to be Jesus during his time. In this particular reading, we remember that Joseph and Mary had to pick up their beautiful baby boy and flee out of the country that they knew to Egypt in Africa, where they took refuge from a king that sought to destroy Jesus and that was so afraid of the power that Jesus brought that he wanted to make sure that power would never come.

The particularities of that we heard in the reading, and we're reminded of other times when the children of Israel were also in danger. We're reminded of when Syria and Babylon invaded their country and when they lost their lives to those invasions. We're reminded all the way back to when the Israelites were slaves under Pharaoh, and they were becoming such a large number that Pharaoh began to be afraid that they might gain power over him, and so similarly, he ordered that first-born males be killed to stop the growth of the people, because he was afraid.

And this Herod was afraid not because he was a mad king. This was no Nero. This was no man who'd lost his mind. This was a king or a leader, a ruler that had the favor of many people. The people who were important to have favor of. This was a leader who knew just who to please, and who had done good things for Judea. There was growth. There was prosperity. Yet Jesus, and what Jesus brought, scared him. The idea that a leader who is not of his line might be coming forward became so scary that, like Pharaoh, he also ordered, not just first-born, but all boys under the age of two be killed.

The interesting thing is that Herod's rule didn't even last all that much longer, because we know that Jesus returns and is in the temple teaching when he's still just a boy. But we hear in our reading that Herod dies, and his son becomes king and rules over Judea. So it wasn't even so much about his own rule as the fact that things might change. And we remember that rulers, in general, fear that things will no longer be the way they currently are. That keeping the status quo, keeping the power, keeping that sense of control is often what our human nature drives us to do.

God's work in Jesus Christ turns that all upside down. In Christ, God was bringing about a whole other way of being, a way of being that didn't privilege those in power, but instead brought life and light to all- a way of being that didn't fear a child who may rise to be king or all children who may overtake a population, but instead spread love and light to all.

As we remembered just Tuesday on Christmas Eve, God came to be with us in Christ; with us in our humanity, in our daily lives; with us in a life where we live in a world where rulers will seek power, and rulers will seek glory. And yet we, as people who follow Christ, are called to a different way, called to a way of love, called to a way of light. Because we don't live in fear of losing anything. We can lose everything and still know that we have what God has given us in Christ. We know that Jesus, Jesus who had to flee from Herod in order to fulfill God's call on Jesus' life, eventually faced that same power, that same power that was so afraid of what he was bringing that it crucified him.

But that wasn't it. Because we know that there was resurrection. We know that Christ, while crucified, rose to new life, and we have that assurance, and that is the kind of assurance that this world so desperately needs. We need to hear that the death that comes as a result of our human nature is not all there is. The deaths that come when we're disappointed; the deaths that come when life doesn't turn out the way we thought it was gonna be; the deaths that come when we lose the things that are important to us, whether that's our livelihood or the people around us that we care about, friendships that fall apart, family relationships that aren't what we want.

All will be raised to new life in Christ, just as Christ defeated sin and death in the resurrection, we cling to that same hope that all will be made new. We have the hope of new life in Christ. And- there's always and. We have the great privilege of being a part of making that happen right here, right now, in our daily lives, spreading that message, giving that hope to people who think that this world is all there is. As a people that know there is a promise to which you can cling, we have a message that is amazing.

We have a gift to give the world, not just a celebration of Christmas, not just a present under the tree, not just the ways that we work in the world to bring about God's kingdom here and now by feeding people and clothing people, speaking up for those who are being hurt by the ways of this world, but also, in the midst of all those things, proclaiming Christ has come, and this is not it. There is hope in God's love. Amen.