Christmas 1 A

Matthew 2: 13-23
Merry Christmas! Jesus Christ is born to us, a savior and a king. Jesus whom they call Emmanuel, which means God is with us.

In addition to Christmastime this weekend we're about to celebrate the new year with most of the world. We know that for the church the year starts before Christmas but it is still pretty new and this is a good time to think about the previous year. All the major events and the ups and downs.

All of the magazines and newspapers are doing it, the best and worst recipes from the year, the best and worst dressed, the most profitable company, the least. The best movie, the biggest flop and so on and so on.

Tim and I were reading an article yesterday about scientific findings for the year, mostly about things relating to nutrition. About how what we eat affects everything from our chances of getting to cancer to the intelligence of our children. It was daunting at best but it ended with a funny little bright note. About how peoples who for centuries have eaten high starch foods have adapted to that kind of diet and so the bright side of the whole article was the possibility that the metabolism of our great great grand children will be adapted to eating fast food and lots of Chocolate cake without needing to watch their waistlines!

All these article that survey the years finding an pull out the best and worst of them got me thinking, what would it look like if we each made our own personal "best" and "worst of" issues for this last year? What would be the greatest thing that happened in 2007, the thing that brought the most joy or the greatest results of most complete sense of accomplishment to your life? What would be the worst, the hardest or saddest? And what would be the surprising bright side to it all?

Take a second to think about it. We're not doing resolutions here, not what you wish you could change, more like reflections, what really happened, this year, how'd it go, what are the results? Where is the good news in it?

I know there have been all kinds of life changes here over the past twelve months, in your homes, jobs and families. Losses and gains, new living situations and different responsibilities new family members, new outlooks. All kinds of changes.

I can certainly look back on some major changes over the past year. A year ago almost today I received a phone call out of the blue with an area code I didn't recognize asking me to take a trip to upstate New York to see if maybe it was a place that I would be interested in living. And Tim and I wondered why so far from home. It was a full nine months before we moved out here. Long after a cold winter day when I was driven around Schodack quietly just so that I could see the place. It felt like a big confusing whirlwind then, so theoretical and so far from home but looking back it is clear to me that God was at work here and God was at work in Spokane, Washington. With the same words and the same ever patient love for all of us. Calling to us with patience and comfort to get up and start again.

While that was all taking place it was hard to hear the words of God promising to be with us, it was probably hard here too. But in the story of the trials of his own son's life we get an example of the way God is always present, always with the same tender words of love and care, sometimes calling us to a new place and sometimes telling us that it is safe to settle in for a while.

There is a sort of recapping of a year or so's worth of events in our gospel lesson today.

This week we hear about a time after Jesus is born. We're not sure just how long it was but we know it was when Jesus was still pretty young, Joseph had another vision in a dream. Remember in Matthew the communication that we get about Jesus from God comes to Joseph through dreams.

This time in the dream he hears that King Herod will try to kill Jesus. We learn that Herod has heard that someone has been born who will be a rival for the throne and so he decides that it is best to stamp out this threat before it even occurs. So Joseph gets the message to flee from Bethlehem, and he goes to Egypt. The land where people go when they are in various kinds of exile. A land where God's people have been held in slavery and terribly oppressed and a land where God showed the greatest mercy and compassion for the people of Israel. As he goes there the angel says I'll tell you when you can come back.

God says, even as you flee I will be with you, watching over you and calling you back to me.

We don't really know how long they are in Egypt but we know they get pretty settled there. They spent enough time waiting that it started to feel like home and they were safe. It is a foreign land but they were safe in it and God was with them.

Then finally the angel appears again to Joseph, in a dream, and tells him that it is safe to go back to his homeland. To take Mary and Jesus and go. And so he does. The language used to refer to Joseph's communication and his actions is the same throughout the narrative (in Bethlehem and in Egypt). When he is in Bethlehem the angel says "get up, take the child and his mother and go" and the text says Joseph "got up, took the child and his mother and went". Once in Egypt again the angel said "get up etc." and the text says Joseph "got up etc."

It is important the words are exactly the same in both places because it is important that God is the same both in the time of great joy that comes in a wonderful birth and the time of pain and fear that comes in fleeing, running, changing everything just so that you can get by. God is with Joseph in exactly the same way in both instances.

A baby was born a gift from God, what a great joy and god was with them, but then there was great danger and they had to flee but God was with them. Then they were able to come back and in the exact same words each time was a promise that God had been there all along and would always be.

In the news this week there has been horrible unrest in the region all around where Jesus was born and that his family fled to. It is scary to watch the news and imagine the horror of actually being in a place where there are bombs in the street and where leaders are under constant deadly threat. These terrible things still happen in the world because we have not come to the fullness of time, because we live where we yet get only glimpses of the kingdom to come.

But through today's text we have an illustration of the promise that we receive with the birth of Christ that God has come to dwell among us in our broken world and through each event and each day in the years past and those to come we know that God has been and continues to be with us. And through the Holy Supper that we are about to share we continue to live in the presence of Christ knowing that there is an even greater promise yet to come.
Amen