Matthew 2:13-23
The escape to Egypt
When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. ‘Get up,’ he said, ‘take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.’
So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: ‘Out of Egypt I called my son.’
When Herod realised that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled:
‘A voice is heard in Ramah,
weeping and great mourning,
Rachel weeping for her children
and refusing to be comforted,
because they are no more.’
The return to Nazareth
After Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt 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.’
So he got up, took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. 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, 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.
Traditionally the first sermon in any New Year focus’s on what changes we will make to our lives in the new year to come, and I am going to do some of that today, but I also want to look back on what we have done with our lives last year, and in the years before that.
I often wandered why God chose to send His son into Egypt and why He allowed the massacre of the innocents.
Last week we mentioned the Prophecy made by Hosea in Hosea 11:1, “Out of Egypt I called my son”, made some 721 years before their actual escape and we use it to show that its was Gods intent that Jesus should be a refugee before His mission to the world even started. More proof that He is who scripture says He is, but also proof, I think, that God places special significance on Refugees, their status and the way they are treated.
Scriptures tell us nothing about the time that Jesus and His family spent in Egypt but its reasonable to assume that God, The Father, provided for them. After all He had made complex and intricate plans for everything else. We know, for instance, that they had with them the gifts given them by the Magi. Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh.
We also know that Joseph was a skilled carpenter, able to make a living, just about anywhere, and to support his wife and son.
So! All good then! Nothing to worry about, or is there?
The people of Israel were Jews, Hebrews by another name, and Mary and Joseph were devout Jews, followers of the One True God Of Israel.
They were righteous. That’s why God selected them to bring Jesus into the world, from all the other people that He could have chosen.
In the Jewish mind ‘Righteousness before God’ involved strict observance of The Law Of Moses and all the rules attached to it.
The land of Egypt is not a Hebrew nation, it is a land of gentiles, non-Jews, and in ancient Judaism it was considered fact that Gentiles, whoever and wherever they were, did not observe the strict Jewish Purity Laws.
But it is also deceptively simple to assume that Gentiles, who did not observe purity laws, would have been considered ritually impure as a matter of course.
In fact the situation is a bit more complex. Ancient Jewish sources reflect two conflicting tensions. On the one hand, both biblical and rabbinic law considered Gentiles to be exempt from the laws of ritual purity. On the other hand, Gentiles ate impure foods, came into regular contact with impure substances, and–what is worse–committed idolatry and defiling sexual acts.
And practically the very first thing God commands the Holy Family to do is to go into a land full of people that righteous God fearing Jews would not normally associate themselves with.
If they were to end up in an Egyptian Inn at the end of their three to five day journey, 75 miles, from Bethlehem to the border of Egypt, strictly speaking they would not have been able to eat the food.
The equivalent, I suppose, of a Muslim refugee arriving in this country in the 1970’s and the absence of Halal food.
Then there is the language barrier. I expect that ancient Egyptians living on or near the border with ancient Israel would probably have spoken Hebrew, or understood it, and vice versa, but the further into the land of Egypt they ventured the less likely that would have been.
And customs, likely as not the customs in Egypt would have been radically different, especially the religious customs.
Mary and Joseph were not traders. They didn’t run an import and export business in Nazareth and so its highly unlikely that they had never travelled outside of the land of Israel before, and yet God sent them to Egypt to keep baby Jesus out of the hands of King Herod's Palace Guards.
Mary and Joseph, like all modern day refugees, would have been out of their depth, out of their comfort zone, in Egypt.
And yet, the very fact, that The Bible says nothing about their stay there says something!
God had made provision for them.
And I don’t just mean the provision of The Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh. God would have ensured that there would be shelter for them, there would be food for them to eat, and people in that foreign land full of gentiles, would have understood them.
They would always have had sufficient food and clothing. Perhaps like the Israelites in the very same desert 2000 years before them, the leather in their shoes would not have worn out.
But for Mary and Joseph, like every day since their first extra ordinary encounters with angels just nine or ten months before, they have to take each step into the foreign land on faith. Believing that despite the hardships it will be all right. God will work it out.
As we sit here in our warm comfortable church, or at home in our lounges, surrounded by the latest tech, our faith is not challenged in the same way and we struggle to imagine their fear and their trembling.
I suppose it must be much the same for present day Refugees from the conflict in Afghanistan, or Yemen, or Syria, or Libya as they flee from the persecutions of war, and famine, and death.
Imagine, if you can, their fear and their trembling! Imagine if you can the hardships as they cross countries who clearly don’t want them, who don’t want to be burdened by them.
Imagine if you can what our Gospel would have sounded like today had the Egyptians rejected The Holy Family and sent them back to Israel, into the unwelcoming arms of Herod and his soldiers.
God watched over The Holy Family and I believe He watches today. He watches how we treat refugees because until Jesus comes again there will always be wars and there will always be refugees from wars.
The second question I posed for you this morning is why did God allow the massacre of the innocents?
History and scripture are littered with such incidents.
One of the most common question pastors are asked is “Why does God allow such things to happen?” Of course such questions are usually based on a personal experience. “Why did God take my Mum?” “Why did God take my baby?” “Why did God allow the holocaust?”
The answer is complex. And that's only if I have the answer correctly!
I can’t tell someone who I am trying to convert to Christianity, or who has lost their faith because of some great personal tragedy, that its all part of His amazing Masters Master Plan.
I can’t try to explain to someone who is grieving that God views mankind as His creation and therefore we are His to do with as He wills.
That is not to say that He doesn’t love us, because He does, or else why would He have sent Jesus and why would He have allowed Him to be tormented, tortured and crucified.
But its all for His divine purposes.
Everything is working towards His divine purposes.
The part of the plan that we are allowed to know, and understand, is that His Divine Will is that mankind, His creation, has the opportunity to be saved from the consequences of their sin by faith, and belief, in the saving grace of Jesus Christ, The Son Of God, who is also God, Immanuel, God with us.
And that's about it. All else we only get the merest glimpse or slight hint of.
This is where faith comes in!
Faith, ‘a belief in something that is unseen’.
We are saved, from our sins by faith.
Our hope for a future life, after death in this world, is by faith.
And when we are confronted with tragedy, both personal and otherwise, in this world, it is our faith that is tested.
It’s allowed that our faith can be shaken and its allowed that our faith can be bruised or even weakened, but after the testing, after the shaking, and after the bruising we need to start to rebuild it. We need to start seeking God in our lives once again.
A true understanding of God and our place in His creation and His Masters Master Plan is a hard thing to accept, but we can only really grow in our faith when we come to that true understanding.
Lastly this morning we need to do that New Year thing!
We need to think about the year ahead, and all the years ahead that we are allowed.
So, in light of our true place in God’s creation, how should we approach tomorrow, the next day and all the days after that?
I would suggest the words ‘Seeking’, ‘Humbly’ and ‘Faithfully’.
I was once told in the army that I should ‘know my place’ and I think that's worth remembering.
Remember that no matter what God decides for your life and for your family and friends, He loves you. He really does. He loves you so much that He sent His only son to be an atoning sacrifice for you. To die for you, and also to live for you.
If you can, this year, seek Him in all things you do. You will find the experience humbling.
And when you find Him in absolutely everything it will build your faith because, even though we don’t fully understand it, you will know your place in The Amazing Masters Master Plan.
I wish you a happy and blessed New Year, in Jesus name, amen.
