Matthew 2:1-23
January 1, 2023
The easiest course of action for
today would have been to preach the Epiphany portion of Matthew’s gospel,
meaning that I would have begun in Chapter 2, verse 1 and ended at verse 12.
That was my original idea. I was only going to focus on those first twelve
verses, talk about the magi, and how the coming of Jesus was the revealing of
God’s light into the world.
But Epiphany isn’t actually today.
It is this Friday, January 6. Today is the first Sunday after Christmas Day or
the first Sunday within Christmastide, and the portion of Matthew’s gospel
selected for today was Chapter 2, verses 13 onward. These verses pick up the
story after the Magi are warned in a dream about the evil
intentions of Herod and they return to their home by an alternate route. These
verses tell the story of how Joseph is also warned in a dream – again – to
flee. Take your family, your wife, your baby boy and go to Egypt. Herod is
about to search for this child and if he finds him, he will destroy him.
Joseph, like the magi, heeds the
angel’s warning. He, Mary, and Jesus run for their lives to Egypt, and they
stay there until an angel tells Joseph in another dream that Herod has died. It
is safe to return to Israel once more. But when Joseph heard that Herod’s son,
Archelaus, was ruling in his father’s place, he was afraid to return to
Bethlehem. Apparently Archelaus was as bad as, if not worse, than his dad. Once
again, Joseph is warned in a dream; he must take his young family to Galilee.
In Galilee, Joseph and Mary and Jesus made a home for themselves in a town
called Nazareth.
These are the highlight of this last
part of the story. And I thought long and hard about focusing primarily on the
coming of the magi and sticking with just the highlights of the last part of
the story. But if you only skim through the highlights, you leave out the
tragedy of the story. Herod did seek out Jesus to destroy him. Perhaps if the
magi had done what he asked them to do, it would have only been Jesus who was
destroyed. But because the magi slipped away, Herod resorted to an even greater
evil. Rather than just try to destroy one little boy, he would kill all little
boys born within approximately the same time frame. And a massacre ensues.
“A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing
and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be
consoled, because they are no more.”
I struggled with whether to include
this. Just stick with Epiphany, Amy. Let’s just have a happy New Year, Amy.
2022 was hard in so many ways, let’s not start 2023 by talking about tragedies
and massacres, Amy. Let’s just bathe in the light of Epiphany. Epiphany, when
God’s coming into the world as a child was revealed to the larger world, when
the Light of God shone for all the world to see. Through Epiphany, the good
news was not reserved only for Bethlehem or Judah or Israel, but for all of
God’s creation.
In these verses we see the
providence and protection of God at work as Jesus is saved again and again. But
what about those other little boys? What about their mothers and fathers? Did
they not count? Did God not want to protect them as well? Or did God very much
want to protect them, but what the coming of the Light reveals is how deeply
the darkness is embedded in the world? What the coming of the Light of God reveals
is that darkness does not want the Light. The darkness shrinks from the Light
and all it reveals. It will do everything it can to resist the coming of the
Light.
From the very beginning of Jesus
being born into the world, there has been resistance. The powers and
principalities have obstinately refused to let go of their hold on the world.
Not to be cute, but if ever there was an example of the empire striking back,
it is in this story. And I’m not referring only to the Roman Empire, to which
Herod was both a proponent and a stooge. I’m referring to empire in the larger
sense.
An empire is a political realm. And
certainly the Roman Empire was a political realm. Yet these verses also point
to the empire of power. Herod was determined to hold onto power, so much so,
that massacre of the innocent and most vulnerable was seen as a viable option.
Having the blood of babies on his hands was clearly no big deal. Herod used the
power that he wielded, the power of military force, the power of brutality, the
power of wealth and cruelty to protect his reign. He used his power to protect
his power. He ruled an empire of power, and he was going to sustain that power
through whatever means necessary.
But something else that Epiphany
reveals is that Jesus, God in Jesus, wields a different kind of power. This is
not the power of military prowess. This is not the power of wealth or
influence. The power that God in Jesus holds is a radically different power. It
is the power of Love. The power of Love. These words are said so often that
they almost sound trite, cliché.
However, we have the vantage point
that the gift of the coming of the Light truly reveals. We can chart the entire
course of Jesus’ life on earth. We know the rest of the story. We know how
Jesus used his power of Love to overcome, to persuade, and to confront empire.
We know just how far Jesus was willing to go with his power. He didn’t
overthrow the empire of power by using deadly force. He overthrew the empire of
power by giving his own life. The empire struck back by crucifying him on a
criminal’s cross.
But the empire of power could not
and ultimately cannot defeat the power of Love. But that doesn’t mean that it
won’t keep trying. That massacre of innocent children by Herod was not the
first of its kind nor, terribly, was it the last. Innocent lives are still lost
through starvation and neglect, through violence of war and the violence of
poverty, through abuse, through apathy and through willful ignorance.
There is a powerful painting of the
massacre of the innocents by a 19th century artist named Léon
Cogniet. In this painting, a young mother is holding her baby boy behind a
crumbling wall. In the background you see chaos. Another woman holding her
child is running from a Roman soldier. But this woman, the main subject of the
painting, is hiding. She is holding her child tightly, her hands over his mouth
to keep him from making any sound that will give them away. But what is so
striking about the painting is where her gaze is focused. She is not looking at
her child. She is not looking toward the chaos on the other side of the wall.
She is looking directly at the artist. She is looking directly at us. And in
her eyes, there is terror, yes, but even more there is accusation. It is as though
she is telling us that we have allowed this to happen.
How is that possible? We were not
there when Herod gave those deadly, terrible orders. We were not part of the
plan to massacre innocents. But if the Light of God coming into the world
revealed the empire of power for what it truly is, then have we helped to
defeat that empire or have we contributed to its ongoing reign? Have we truly
looked at, acknowledged, admitted the devastation that the empire of power
wreaks, or have we turned and looked the other way?
Please believe me, I don’t want to
stand in this pulpit like some prophet of doom. I want us to have a Happy New
Year, a fulfilling New Year. But I also want, long for, and hope and pray for a
peaceful New Year. But I know that if peace is something that I want, if peace
is something that I yearn for, then I must look into this mother’s eyes and see
how the empire of power still seeks to rule and reign. The coming of the Light
into the world, the revelation of Epiphany to all of God’s children means that
we can see, really and truly see, the good that the Light reveals and the
darkness that still seeks to resist and fight back.
We are given the gift of sight today
and every day. We are given the gift of opportunity to fight back against the empire
of power with the power of Love – the Love that Jesus embodied in his life, his
ministry, his healing, his teaching, his death, and his resurrection. May we
all work toward the day when the only empire in existence is the one built on
that kind of Love, on God’s Love. May that be the power we seek.
Let all of God’s children say,
“Amen.”
Amen.
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