First Sunday After Christmas

Psalm: Psalm 148

Old Testament: Isaiah 63:7-9
Gospel: Matthew 2:13-23
Epistle: Hebrews 2:10-18

Welcome to Christmas time. I missed a Christmas post and I also failed to posts last week blog on time, but I will press on anyway. Today is actually the sixth day of Christmas, and if you remember from the Christmas carol there are 12 days of Christmas ending January 6^th, which is Epiphany. One thing I hope to do by this blog is to open your and my eyes to the possibilities of living our lives by a calendar and time different than the one the secular world offers. Our culture has co-opted or hijacked every holiday, no matter how noble its beginning, into an opportunity for us to amass more things and feed our own desires and wishes. Every holiday has become a time when we are pressured to buy more and more and if we don’t we somehow really don’t love our family and friends and don’t know how even to take care of ourselves. Our culture tells us that it is ok to covet, be greedy, glutinous, selfish, get what we deserve, and to get the best prices even if it means our purchases directly harm both the hands that made it and the Creation God has given us. But the Christian calendar constantly reminds us that long before Western consumerism hijacked our “holy days” They stood as days and times that drew us back to God. In contrast to the ads and stores which will now turn our eyes to big screen TVs for the Superbowl and gifts again for our spouses on Valentines, we sit for 12 days in Christmas and celebrate that Jesus came as a baby, an event so huge that we can’t possible explore it enough in one day.  Even 12 days isn’t enough to explore all that it means, but for 12 days the church reflects on the coming of Jesus as a baby in humble beginnings in a very specific time and place.

Perhaps that is a good place for us also to pause and reflect. The reading from Matthew is the story of Joseph and Mary bringing Jesus down to Egypt to escape the wrath of Herod. Our culture stops at the cute baby in the manger, but the 12 days of Christmas remind us that Jesus was born into a very dark world and was caught up into circumstances he couldn’t control. Jesus isn’t born a king or with really any power at all. Jesus is under the same forces and authorities as all babies are. He escapes Herod, but he does so because his parents pick him up and most likely walked there.  He isn’t miraculously teleported or carried there by angels. He lived like any other human baby, helpless and under the care of his parents.

Matthew tells these infancy narratives for a reason. He wants us to understand who Jesus is and if you read the first 2 chapters repeatedly it says that “this was to fulfill the scriptures” or the prophets. Jesus fulfills and lives according to the anticipated work of God to redeem. Yet Matthew also reveals a very human story, a story of a family which is caught up in events it can’t control, a family of immigrants and refugees. Matthew also wants us to understand that God became flesh and dwelled among us as we discussed last week. God is still Immanuel and sent his son to be with us.

The writer of Hebrews explores the incarnation more fully and what it means for us. He writes that we are brothers and sisters of Jesus, since he has shared in our humanity. And because he has shared in our humanity, by his death he has broken the power of death and the devil over us. Finally he writes that because Jesus was tempted, and suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help us also when we are tempted.

So many elements of Jesus’ story we forget. We forget that Jesus was actually and truly tempted. Jesus was hurt and felt sad when his friend Lazarus died. We don’t have any stories of Jesus’ early childhood or teen years, but no doubt he went through some of the angst and awkwardness we all did. The beauty and the mystery of the incarnation is that Jesus experienced everything it means to be human. And I mean fully human in a way no has before or since. Jesus was able to live a life without sin, perfectly obedient to God, and is thus able to be the perfect sacrifice and provide the means for us to be in relationship with God. Yet this was only possible because Jesus, who was fully God, came in the flesh and became fully man.

We still have six days of Christmas left. So remember that Jesus did come as a baby and as the Great Immanuel. Ponder what the incarnation of God means in your own life.

Grace and Peace