INTRODUCTION
Many communities are forced to reckon with good things that somehow slip through the cracks. In Claymont DE, one of those things ended up as a blessing. The community has developed a quarter-century-long tradition around a quirky piece of folklore—the humble Claymont Christmas Weed, which locals decorate every year. Despite its diminutive size and unorthodox locale, it has become a defining centerpiece of the Claymont holiday celebration.
It started back on a slow news day in 1993, when a local newspaper photographer captured an image of a wild fir tree growing out of the cracked pavement of Philadelphia Pike. Neighbors and motorists in passing had adorned it with a few modest ornaments, and the image of the plucky shrub—dubbed “the Christmas weed” in the headline—did the early 90s equivalent of going viral.
Unfortunately, the photo caught the eye of officials at the Delaware Department of Transportation, who considered it a potential traffic hazard and scheduled it for prompt removal. The DOT’s Scroogelike response escalated a community outcry; not only was it promptly replaced several times, but a reporter wrote a sentimental fable about it that was well-received by the general public.
Twenty-five years later, Claymont celebrates the weed with a actual parade of cheerleaders, marching bands, and fire trucks. Barbara Harbin, who organizes the festivities, understands the appeal: "We say it represents Claymont. We're not pretty, but we're plucky. We are resilient, and we keep coming back."
One secret of Christmas joy is that blessings come from unexpected places in unexpected forms. The young, the vulnerable, the rejected ... those tend to be the vessels that God chooses for his glory. Those who follow God not only glorify Him but receive glory from Him.
We continue our Christmas series today picking up the narrative of Joseph, Mary, and the toddler Jesus who have relocated to Egypt in order to escape the murderous Herod.
[Matthew 2:19-23]
19 After Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt 20 and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who were trying to take the child’s life are dead.”
21 So he got up, took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. 22 But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning in Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. Having been warned in a dream, he withdrew to the district of Galilee, 23 and he went and lived in a town called Nazareth. So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets, that he would be called a Nazarene.
THOSE WHO FOLLOW GOD ACCEPT HIS DIRECTION (19-21)
Matthew resumes the story of vv.13-15. Angel and dream reappear for Joseph as before. The wording of the Lord’s command begins exactly as in v.13, but now Joseph and his family are told to leave Egypt and return home to Israel. The immediate danger has passed with Herod’s death. The wording of the narrative echoes the angel’s command and highlights Joseph’s careful obedience. As we learned last week, slow obedience is no obedience. But Joseph is not slow to obey. When an angel from the Lord shows up and tells him to move, he doesn’t check his calendar first. Joseph is a model for us of accepting God’s direction.
It's considered "the other drug problem." Millions of people don't take their medicine correctly —or quit taking it altogether—and the consequences can be deadly. On average, half of patients with chronic illnesses like heart disease or asthma skip doses or otherwise mess up their medication. One report concludes that people with initially symptom-free diseases are most at risk. For instance, just 51 percent of high blood pressure patients stick with their medication as prescribed. Former President Bill Clinton was one high-profile example. He stopped taking his cholesterol-lowering medication and later needed open-heart surgery. The report estimates that this drug problem could be costing the country $177 billion in medical bills and lost productivity.
The reams of information stapled to the bag confuse some people. Other people forget to take their medication or they start feeling better and toss the rest of the bottle. Even doctors mess up and take their own prescriptions just 79 percent of the time. The FDA is studying the problem.
We try to teach and preach God's Word in “user friendly” ways so that we can all understand it and put it into practice and accept God’s direction. Our small groups, classes, children & youth ministries are all geared toward understanding and accepting God’s direction. Discipleship partners is a new initiative toward encouraging one another to accept God’s direction. Are you accepting God’s direction in your life?
If so, terrific! Maybe you’re not seeing the fruit of it yet, but keep following Him in the way He wants you to go.
If not, why not? Do you & the Lord need to have a heart-to-heart this morning? Do you need to have a “come to Jesus meeting” with Jesus? Don’t let me stop you—if you need to check out and spend some time in prayer right now, please do.
Your favorite actor accepted direction to become your favorite.
Your favorite athlete accepted direction to become your favorite.
Your favorite musician accepted direction to become your favorite.
Your favorite Christian is your favorite because they accept direction from God.
And there’s an encouraging corollary to accepting His direction:
THOSE WHO FOLLOW GOD RECEIVE HIS PROTECTION (22-23a)
Now another potential threat appears on the horizon. After Herod the Great died, his kingdom was divided into four parts. His oldest son Archelaus ruled in Judea and was notorious for his cruelty. Not long after his father’s death, he too ordered a massacre. The Jews soon protested his cruel leadership, sending an emissary to Caesar in Rome. Augustus responded in A.D. 6 by removing Archelaus from power. Antipas, a second son of Herod, ruled in Galilee to the north, and was not perceived as such a threat. So following another warning from God, Joseph takes his family to Galilee rather than Judea to settle in Nazareth, a town he had lived in before the trek to Bethlehem.
J. Wallace Hamilton (a famous preacher from the mid-20th century) used to tell about a mother cat, with a baby kitten in her mouth, trying unsuccessfully to get across a busy New York City intersection. She would meander timidly out into the traffic and then dart back to the curb when nearly hit by a passing car. A traffic policeman in the center of the intersection, seeing her plight, thrust up his hands to stop traffic in both directions. The anxious cat scampered across to the other side and disappeared down an alley.
Hamilton pointed out that the cat had no idea that the authority of the New York City Police Department had been called upon to enable her to get safely across the street. Then he added, “I wonder how many times the mighty hand of God goes up to get us safely to where He wants us to be and we're not even aware of it.”
Matthew has a word of encouragement about God's protection. Opposition is inevitable, but it will never be allowed to quench God’s mission. Opposition cannot quench God’s mission. There was every possibility of quenching the Messiah: His mother Mary might have been stoned as an adulteress. He might have been killed by Herod. He might have been lost in Egypt--but no! God’s hand of protection was upon him. Opposition could not extinguish God’s light.
What an encouragement this must have been to Matthew’s readers! The early church, so frail, so exposed, would not be allowed to sink, however threatening the storms that broke over it. The church would receive God's protection.
Tim Keller: “There is no way to have a real relationship without becoming vulnerable to hurt. Christmas tells us that God became breakable and fragile. God became someone we could hurt. Why? To rescue us from sin & death. No other religion—whether secularism, Greco-Roman paganism, Eastern religion, Judaism, or Islam—believes God became breakable or suffered or had a body.”
Sometimes like the cat crossing the street, we’re not aware of God's protection. But other times we are:
Kevin McKay drove the school bus along gridlocked, dark roads as pockets of fire burned all around. Nearly two dozen elementary school children were on board with him. Smoke began to fill the bus, so McKay took off a shirt. He and two teachers on the bus tore it into pieces and doused them with water. The children held the damp pieces of cloth to their mouths and breathed through them. He had only been on the job, driving the bus for Ponderosa Elementary School in Paradise, CA, for a few months. Now, McKay was ferrying 22 stranded children to safety as the Camp Fire scorched everything in its path. It would take five harrowing hours for them to reach safety.
Family members of most other students had already picked up their children. But these 22 students were stranded because their family members hadn't made it to the school. McKay discussed evacuating the students with Ponderosa's principal. Two teachers, Abbie Davis and Mary Ludwig, evacuated with McKay and the students.
As they drove away from the school on roads thick with smoke, the bus became stuck in the gridlock of vehicles trying to leave Paradise. Should they abandon the bus, they wondered? Davis said she thought she was going to die several times along the journey. At one point, they prayed, Ludwig said. Hours later, parents and children were reunited. McKay said Davis' husband hugged him so hard, he "near lifted me off the ground."
The "Camp Fire" is now the deadliest and most destructive fire in California history, killing at least 81 people and leaving hundreds more still unaccounted for. Recounting their escape, McKay was modest. But Davis and Ludwig said McKay was a true hero. "We had the bus driver from heaven," Ludwig said.
In our time of greatest danger, Jesus, our ‘rescuer from heaven’ came to save us. He brings all who trust him safely through the fire. “He will save his people from their sins” (Matt. 1:21). He doesn’t promise to protect us from every bad thing that could happen, but in him we have protection from the worst thing that could happen.
That’s good news. In fact, that is The Good News. But there’s a hard part we have to face.
THOSE WHO FOLLOW GOD FACE THE WORLD’S REJECTION (23b)
This final fulfillment quotation in v. 23 poses a unique problem. No such quote appears in the Old Testament! Matthew may be acknowledging this fact by using for the first time here the plural “prophets.” In other words, he may be indicating that he is not citing one specific text but summarizing a broader scriptural theme.
What might this theme be?
One suggestion links Nazareth with the Hebrew "nezer," which means “branch” and signifies a king from David’s line. Isaiah 11 refers to the Messiah as a “branch” that will bear fruit. Matthew could be making a typical Hebrew play on words here. Maybe that's what he was getting at.
A second possibility, proposed at least as far ago as the days of Jerome in the fourth century, is that “Nazarene” was a slang term for someone from a very remote or obscure backwater type place, much like our contemporary word “hick” or “hayseed” or “hillbilly.” A man from Nazareth in Jesus’ day was despised. It was an obscure town from which no good was thought to come, situated in Galilee of the Gentiles. There was plenty of indication among the prophets that the Messiah would be despised:
[Isaiah 53:3-4]
3 He was despised and rejected by mankind,
a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.
4 Surely he took up our pain
and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted.
This interpretation fits well with the attitude toward Nazareth reflected in John 1:45-46:
[John 1:45-46]
45 Philip found Nathanael and told him, “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”
46 “Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?” Nathanael asked. “Come and see,” said Philip.
Matthew has pointed out the originally insignificant town in which Jesus was born, the disgrace of his flight to Egypt, and the grief of death surrounding his infancy. It would be appropriate if a reference to the obscure and despised city of his childhood appeared here. After the Resurrection, when unbelievers wanted to label the Christians in a sneering way, they referred to them as “the Nazarene sect” (Acts 24:5), an expression that was meant to sting. Jesus was brought to despised Galilee, to even more despised Nazareth, where he would grow up with the label “Jesus of Nazareth.” Not “Jesus of Bethlehem,” with all its rich overtones of King David, but “Jesus of Nazareth.” And this too was brought about by God’s sovereign intervention, and fulfilled the Scriptures that predicted the Messiah would be despised. Jesus, God’s suffering servant and child, would be protected by God but rejected by the people.Those who follow God will face the world’s rejection.
Jill Carattini's article "Transfigured" tells the story of a priceless discovery:
Barbara Krensavage insisted that clams are not a regular part of her diet. Yet one snowy evening in December she found herself craving an old recipe and so brought home four dozen quahogs—a clam particularly abundant along the Eastern shores of the United States, between Cape Cod and New Jersey. Mr. Krensavage was in the midst of shucking the shellfish for dinner when he discovered one that looked like it was dead. It had a different color to it and he thought it was diseased. As he was about to discard it, Mrs. Krensavage took a closer look.
It wasn't dead. In fact, inside the live clam was a rare, possibly priceless, purple pearl. Experts estimate that roughly one in two million quahog clams contains a gem-quality pearl like the one found by the Krensavages. Due to the great rarity of the find, it has been difficult to even place a value on it, though some have estimated the pearl to be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
1 Peter 2:7 says Jesus is the cornerstone rejected by the builders, but who has become the chief cornerstone.
Matthew 2 turns attention to the hostility that arises against the Christ child, his flight into exile, and settlement in obscurity. Matthew foreshadows the similar reaction to Jesus which will characterize the final months of his life and which has recurred frequently throughout church history. True believers often follow their Lord in suffering and persecution. Matthew reminds us that this is part of God’s sovereign plan. But suffering, rejection, and even death are never God’s final word for either Christ or his disciples. But rejection often precedes resurrection.
IN THE FACE OF REJECTION, STILL SEEK HIS DIRECTION
Darius Leonard has practiced the pivot from feeling disrespected to feeling motivated and being at peace. It’s a pivot he’s done plenty of times since his arrival into the NFL. “I’m used to it,” Leonard says. “I’ve been underestimated since high school.”
The Indianapolis Colts drafted Leonard with the fourth pick of the second round, and he was given, at best, a mixed reception by critics. And not only wasn’t he highly touted as a draft pick, but even in college, Leonard failed to garner the respect he thought he was due. Growing up in rural South Carolina, Leonard was a diehard Clemson Tigers fan, and Clemson was the only school he expressed interest in. But when his qualifying SAT scores were delayed, Leonard found that the scholarship that had been promised to him was instead given to someone else.
Instead, Leonard attended the less prestigious South Carolina State, where he was initially disappointed by the smaller campus and facilities. But he was able to turn that disappointment into motivation. "I was just grateful for the opportunity to play at that level," he said. "I went in with a chip on my shoulder to prove that I could play."
Eventually, Leonard became a standout defender for the SC State Bulldogs, and he showed his playmaking ability when his team went up against his long beloved Clemson Tigers. Even though his team lost in a blowout, Leonard still had 19 tackles and a blocked field goal.
This performance made all the NFL scouts take notice. And now, fifteen weeks into the current NFL season, Leonard is leading the league in tackles and is garnering potential Defensive Rookie of the Year buzz. He even goes by a nickname: “Maniac.”
"I always look for things to fuel me," Leonard said, to a reporter whose publication had poorly rated him as a draft pick. “It just gave me a burning fire in my heart again to prove everybody wrong. I appreciate y'all.”
The one who was despised and rejected became the one exalted and honored before everyone. In the face of rejection, still seek His direction.
