2nd Sunday after Christmas

While most people have put away their trees,
And turned off the lights:
In the Church : It’s still Christmas!

We are still celebrating the fact that God unites God’s self to humanity:
In the person of Jesus.

At the very heart of this celebration is the birth of Christ, the Lord:
The Word made flesh.

As Christians, we actually believe that the Son of God,
Took upon himself the fullness of our human nature:
Receiving a human body of flesh and bone,
A human heart to love,
And a human mind to reason and think.

The Scriptures affirm that Jesus is like us in all things except for sin.

And Theologians call the belief that God became flesh:
“The Mystery of the Incarnation.”
We affirm it every week in the Nicene Creed when we say:
“For us and for our salvation, he came down from heaven,

By the power of the Holy Spirit he became incarnate and was made man.”

Today’s reading from Matthews Gospel:
Is the story of the flight to Egypt.
It’s a story that we don’t hear very often.
And a story that doesn’t seem to fit with Christmas.
It doesn’t seem to fit with all of this talk of God incarnate.

But it’s an important story for the Christmas season:
Because it shows us some of the ways in which Jesus, in his humanity:
Identified himself with us.

This is a story about how Jesus:
God incarnate: becomes human in all its fullness:
In moments of rejoicing, and in moments of hardship.

This Gospel story might sound a bit familiar:
Because it reminds us of the story of the Israelites in Egypt.
And there are many parallels between Jesus’ flight to Egypt,
And the Old Testament stories of hope for the promise land.

Just as there is in the book of Genesis,
Here there is another man named Joseph:
Who sees visions in his dreams:

And who leads the people to refuge in Egypt:
This time, this Joseph:
Leads Mary and Jesus into safety.

And like the story in Exodus:
There’s another Miriam: or Mary.
There is even a Joshua: or Jesus:
Just like we find in the book of Deuteronomy,
And in the story about the return to the Promise land.

Even Herod’s wrath and seeking to kill the Holy Child:
Has echoes of pharaoh’s cruelty toward the Hebrew children.

Here:
The Messiah:
God incarnate:
God in flesh:
Is identified with and parallels the old stories that many cherished.

Matthew was intentional when he wrote this Gospel story:
To connect Jesus to the story of the salvation and covenant of the Israelites.
He demonstrates how Jesus’ life and story are one with the life and story of Israel.

Jesus:

The savior of the world:
living in real human history:
Living in real human experience:
In real human flesh:
experiences the hardship of Exile.
And the fear of death.

Yet even with all the parallels:
It’s important to remember that Jesus:
and what he represents is even bigger than the people of Israel.

Jesus identifies himself with the promise to bring all nations into God’s kingdom:
Not just the Israelites.

When God becomes flesh, there’s no national borders.
God looks upon the whole world and upon every nation and people.

There’s an irony here:
That this newborn Messiah was rejected by King Herod of Judah:
And yet welcomed by Gentiles in Egypt.
For Jew and Gentile alike:
God has become flesh.

And there’s more:

With the Flight into Egypt:
Jesus: who later teaches “blessed are the poor”
Identifies himself with the poor and marginalized of the world.

We can’t forget that the Holy Family:
With the king of kings:
Were on the run:
Fleeing their homeland as victims of political persecution.

At a very young age:
Jesus knows firsthand the experiences and trials of the marginalized, seeking
safety.

From the beginning:
Jesus’ story is not all gold, frankincense, myrrh and angels.
It’s also a story of fear and oppression:
The fullness of the human experience:
In which even God in flesh experiences.

This part of the story is a good reminder of the teachings Jesus later brings:
That whatever we do for the least of his brothers and sisters:
We do for him.
Because he has made himself one with the marginalized:
Even as a young child.

Feeding the hungry,
And clothing the naked are things Christians rightly do to honor God.
Christians must identify with the poor and exiled:
Because Christ himself was counted among them.

All of this is to say that God made flesh is truly just that:
God made flesh.

Jesus identified himself with the joys and struggles of human life.
And In Matthew’s telling of the flight into Egypt:
Jesus does not only suffer the hardship of exile.
He also experiences the joy of coming home:

The joy of returning to one’s homeland is also a continuing theme in the Old
Testament:
And we see it in today’s lesson from Jeremiah who says:
“He who scattered Israel will gather him…for the Lord has ransomed Jacob from
hands too strong for him. They shall come and sing aloud on the height of
Zion…and they shall never languish again.”
This is a joyous celebration that God brings God’s children home.

The return from exile in Egypt reminds us that even God is not above human
suffering:
And that God also understands the human need for celebration.

We rejoice in God’s blessings.

We rejoice in hopes fulfilled.
The desires to sing and to dance, to laugh and to rejoice are not foreign to Jesus.
After all, these expressions of joy and happiness are a powerful part of what it is
to be fully human:
Just like Jesus

In the mystery of the incarnation, God shares this human joy in all its fullness:
Even when it also has some tinges of fear and pain.

The incarnation provides us with a powerful reason to celebrate.
Not only that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us:
But by becoming a full human being:
And experiencing all that it means:
Christ has united himself to all of humanity:
Making us members of his own family.

Today the Church rejoices, as we hear in Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians, that:
“We have been adopted by God the Father as children through Jesus Christ to the
praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.”

As the Christmas season continues:
We celebrate that we, too, have become sons and daughters of God:
true brothers and sisters of Christ.

We rejoice that God’s grace has been lavished upon on us and that the same love
that fills Jesus’ heart has been poured into our own hearts to give us new life.
We rejoice that our sins have been forgiven:
That we are made worthy to stand before him:
Just as he stands before us:
As one of us.
Amen.