January 4, 2015: Flight to Egypt

Matthew 2:13-23

¹³ When the magi had departed, an angel from the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Get up. Take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod will soon search for the child in order to kill him.” ¹⁴ Joseph got up and, during the night, took the child and his mother to Egypt. ¹⁵ He stayed there until Herod died. This fulfilled what the Lord had spoken through the prophet: I have called my son out of Egypt.^[a]

¹⁶ When Herod knew the magi had fooled him, he grew very angry. He sent soldiers to kill all the children in Bethlehem and in all the surrounding territory who were two years old and younger, according to the time that he had learned from the magi. ¹⁷ This fulfilled the word spoken through Jeremiah the prophet:

¹⁸ A voice was heard in Ramah,
    weeping and much grieving.
        Rachel weeping for her children,
            and she did not want to be comforted,
                because they were no more.^[b]

¹⁹ After King Herod died, an angel from the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt. ²⁰ “Get up,” the angel said, “and take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel. Those who were trying to kill the child are dead.” ²¹ Joseph got up, took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel. ²² But when he heard that Archelaus ruled over Judea in place of his father Herod, Joseph was afraid to go there. Having been warned in a dream, he went to the area of Galilee. ²³ He settled in a city called Nazareth so that what was spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled: He will be called a Nazarene.

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There’s a scene in the hit T.V. show Friends that reminds me of our lesson for today. One of the characters, Phoebe, walks into her apartment while her friends are coming to the end of watching the Disney Classic Old Yeller.  If you have seen this movie, you already know why they are all crying.  The family dog (“Old Yeller”) has fought off a wolf that was about to attack the family.  Unfortunately, however, he has contracted rabies because of the wounds he received in the fight.  All of Phoebe’s friends have seen this before and they all know that “Old Yeller” will have to be put down. It’s a very sad ending! 

Phoebe doesn’t understand why they are so upset.  She says, “Why are you all so upset, it’s Old Yeller, it’s a happy movie!”  When they ask what she means, she goes on to say “Happy family gets a dog: frontier fun.” She believes that Old Yeller fights off the wolf and that’s the end of the movie. This mistaken notion comes from her childhood: her mother had always turned off the TV and said, ‘The End!” before the sad part came. I suppose her mom wanted to shield her from the sadness.  But now she sees the actual, very sad, ending.  She even tries to yell, “The End! The End!” but it doesn’t work and, inevitably, the dog is shot.

As we read our lesson today, the tail-end of the Christmas story, we might feel a bit like Phoebe.  As kids we learn about the “Three Wise Men” or “Magi” who travel to Bethlehem, we hear about how “Evil King Herod” is fooled and little baby Jesus escapes with his family to Egypt.  Many children’s versions of the story often leave out verses 16-18 where Herod has all of the little boys in Bethlehem (ages two and under) butchered.  It is a truly awful scene, certainly worse than Old Yeller, but we might have a similar reaction to Phoebe: “Wait, that can’t be in the Christmas story! The Christmas story is meant to be happy! It’s meant to be hopeful! What kind of world do we live in?!?!”

Sadly, the answer is that we live in a world where children are extremely vulnerable to exploitation, slavery, starvation and death. All you need to do is watch the news to find out that what happened in Bethlehem 2,000 years ago is certainly not an “exception” to history, it is the rule. How many countless mothers for thousands of years could be described with the words: “A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and much grieving. Rachel weeping for her children, and she did not want to be comforted, because they were no more.” ?

There are two very pertinent questions that arise from a reading of this passage.   What does it say that Jesus and his family escape when so many other children don’t?  And also, why does it always seem like there are always Herods in this world who aren’t defeated like we hope they will be. To answer these questions, I turn to a sermon my father gave on this very passage many years ago. He spoke of two things:

1)     Jesus and his family will indeed escape Herod’s soldiers while other children won’t. His time has not yet come.  But there is a cross in his future. Many years from now he will not run from the pain and suffering that is handed down from the powers that be.  He is with us in our suffering.  

2)     For all of his vicious, deadly and frightening attempts to remain in control Herod ultimately lost the power he held. Herod is dead.  He is no longer king.  The Lord of Life, Jesus Christ, is enthroned on high and will never be replaced. 

Herod is dead. Jesus is alive.  Herod has lost his power. Jesus never will.        

December 28, 2014: Magi Visit

Matthew 2:1-12

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in the territory of Judea during the rule of King Herod, magi came from the east to Jerusalem. ² They asked, “Where is the newborn king of the Jews? We’ve seen his star in the east, and we’ve come to honor him.”

³ When King Herod heard this, he was troubled, and everyone in Jerusalem was troubled with him. ⁴ He gathered all the chief priests and the legal experts and asked them where the Christ was to be born. ⁵ They said, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for this is what the prophet wrote:

⁶ You, Bethlehem, land of Judah,
        by no means are you least among the rulers of Judah,
            because from you will come one who governs,
            who will shepherd my people Israel.”

⁷ Then Herod secretly called for the magi and found out from them the time when the star had first appeared. ⁸ He sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search carefully for the child. When you’ve found him, report to me so that I too may go and honor him.” ⁹ When they heard the king, they went; and look, the star they had seen in the east went ahead of them until it stood over the place where the child was. ¹⁰ When they saw the star, they were filled with joy.

¹¹ They entered the house and saw the child with Mary his mother. Falling to their knees, they honored him. Then they opened their treasure chests and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. ¹² Because they were warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they went back to their own country by another route.

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Have you ever felt that you knew someone, only to find out that all of your assumptions and beliefs were totally wrong?  For many of us, this is what happens when we are introduced to the true Magi (as they are more correctly called).  We might think of them as kings or “wise” men after hearing many different Christmas Carols.  We might picture them arriving at the manger about the same time as the shepherds.  We might even assume that there were simply three of them.  But a closer look at things will show that many of these things are merely assumptions.

First of all, these travelling star-gazers are correctly called “Magi.”  Magi were Eastern ‘holy men’ who were connected with the ancient religion of Zoroastrianism.  They watched the stars, performed ‘magic’ (‘magi’…’magic’…get the connection?), and would certainly have been considered outside of acceptable individuals by a religious Jewish audience.  Far from being “wise,” the original hearers of Matthew’s Gospel considered them wacky, astrological, hocus-pocus, freaks!

Interestingly enough, they also don’t know where the future king is meant to be born (they have to ask for directions).  It takes the religious scholars in Jerusalem to point them in the right direction: toward Bethlehem. 

Did you also notice something interesting?  It never actually gives the exact number of “Magi” who visited Mary, Joseph and Jesus. There were certainly three gifts, but maybe the Magi chipped in together and there were more than three? Who knows? And on top of that, by the time they arrive in Bethlehem, the holy family has made it into a house and the shepherds who are only mentioned in the Gospel of Luke anyway) are probably back in their fields.  So there goes the manger scene you’re used to!

So what are we to make of all of this?  First of all, Matthew’s Gospel was most likely written to a Jewish-Christian community in the First Century.  For these followers of Jesus who were also Jews, they would have hoped and waited for the time when the servant who would be the “light of the nations” would arise (see Isaiah 42 above).  In the meantime, it was very easy for Jewish people to look down “outsiders” like the Magi.  (In fairness, Gentiles did more than their fair share of looking down on Jews on the other side of the line).

The Gospel of Matthew shows that the Magi might be astrology-freaks who don’t know Holy Scripture (otherwise they’d have been familiar with what Micah has to say about Bethlehem), BUT they are the ones who actually go and worship Jesus. The scholars in Jerusalem know exactly where to go to find the new king…but they stay back in Jerusalem.  King Herod, who liked to call himself ‘The King of the Jews,” even though he wasn’t completely Jewish himself, not only doesn’t go to worship Jesus, he actively works to defeat God’s new King. When I hear him say a line like, “Go and search carefully for the child. When you’ve found him, report to me so that I too may go and honor him,” it sends shivers up my spine: if you know anything about Herod, you know he’s lying through his teeth!

It’s the Magi who are the very first to worship Jesus, the ones who make the effort to approach him.  This could be Matthew’s way of pointing out to his Jewish-Christian audience, “Listen: don’t think you have some sort of advantage because you are Jewish too.  Outsiders get it before God’s people do!”  This story shows us that the line between “insiders” and “outsiders” is always different than we humans expect it to be.  Those who are “outsiders” to us are very much “in” to God.