After Christmas Let Down
Matthew 2:13-19
Have you noticed how the day after Christmas is sort of let down? I wrote this little poem to express how I feel.
Twas the day after Christmas and everything changed.
The Christmas Tree is still in the corner,
but seems somehow strange.
Stripped of all it presents which once rested there.
The twinkling of the lights continue,
But now they feel cold and bare.
The wrapping paper is nuzzled in the trash bags out back.
And the giant turkey from dinner
has been reduced to a left over snack.
The playstation game so eagerly anticipated.
Has become boring and old
And it joy had abated and become stone-cold.
Twas the day after Christmas and everything changed.
The bubble of excitement has busted.
And in truth we all feel shortchanged.
Christmas is an exciting time.
We look forward to the excitement around the tree, to the family coming in, and to the look of shock and surprise as love ones rip open the gift we gave them. In preparation for Christmas we at the church preach and teach about baby Jesus, Mary, Joseph, the wisemen and don’t forget the shepherds. Be what about after Christmas.
What happens to baby Jesus, Mary and Joseph? It seems like every year we read the birth story, but we never finish the story.
I hate to watch the first part of a movie, but have to leave before the ending.
I was watching Walker, Texas Ranger a few weeks ago, and right at the climate of the story, the words appeared on the scene, “to be continued.” The next day, I stopped what I doing and returned to the couch to watch the conclusion. But at the end of that episode the same taunting phrase reappeared, “to be continued.” Well I could not watch the last in the series because I had to be at a meeting. But that evening, as I was preparing to go upstairs to bed, the finally episode in the series was replayed. I stayed up well past one o’clock in the moring to see the ending. I just hate to miss the ending of a story.
The same is true for me around the Christmas story.
If we stop reading with the story of the wisemen we are tempted to add the last line, “and they lived happily every after.” Is that not how all-good stories end? We feel certain that surely the story of Baby Jesus will end the same way, Walker, Texas Ranger ends, it is the same way Cindrella and all the fairy tales end.
The damsal in distress is rescued, the hero is proven right, and the villain is vanquished.
So lets read on, beyond the story of the wisemen just because I hate to miss the ending of thestory.
Lets find out if the damsel is rescued, the hero proven right, and the villain is vanquished.
Turn in your bibles to Matthew 2 and we will begin reading with verse 13. Matthew is the first book in the New Testament.
Matthew 2:13-18
13 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.”
14 So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, 15 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.” a
16 When Herod realized 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. 17 Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled:
18 “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.” b
Now wait just a minute. That is not how the story should end. This ending is all wrong. The Damsel, Mary is running for her life. The hero, Joseph is the one vanquished, the villian, Herod looks like the winner.
This is all wrong, Matthew could learn a thing or two from the holliwood writters. This is just not the way to end this story. Why would God let all these horroble things happened to Jesus and his family.
As I puzzled over this perplexing development several things dawned on me. Maybe God had good reason for bring the birth story of Jesus to an end like this.
I suggest there are four things we can learn from this story.
God deals in real people, not fairy tales.
Look again at verse 13, “…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.
Joseph was a carpenter, and common day laborer.
Mary, she was just an average teenage girl.
Notice there was nothing special or outstanding about either of them. They both lived average lifes totally ordinary, plain, commonplace people.
You say Terry what so important about that?
You see God does not need a world campion karata expert like Walker, Texas Ranger to fulfill his plan. God does not need a popular MTV musical. God does not need a leading quarterback. God does not need a world renowed television preacher. God does not need a superstar. God’s plans are not dependent upon a persons ability. God’s plan rest simply in their availablity.
God is not looking for fairy tail heros to rescue damsels in distress.
