1 Sunday after Christmas 12/26/10
1st Sunday after Christmas
12/26/10
Text: Matthew 2:13-23
Title: The Plan
It just seems like yesterday that we came together to celebrate the birth of Jesus. Wait, it was yesterday, and yet today we are looking at an event that takes place when Jesus is about 2 years old. What happened? The Wise Men have come and gone which we will not even look at until January 6th at our Epiphany service. For some reason that I could not find those who picked out the readings some thousand years ago have put this reading as the official reading for the year that the Gospel of Matthew is read in the Christian church.
Yesterday we looked at the baby Jesus peacefully laying in his mother’s arms safe, warm, and loved. Today Jesus is on his way to Egypt as the family flees the murderous Herod. Today we read of the murder of innocent babies on account of Jesus. I don’t know about you, but today’s readings have brought me back to the reality of life. Jesus was hated even as a baby, just as he is hated by people today.
It helps to understand the events we read in our Gospel; in fact it helps us to understand the Gospel of Matthew, if we understand that Saint Matthew was writing to the Jewish people. He is writing to convince them that Jesus is the promised Messiah by quoting Old Testament texts that any knowledgeable Jew would recognize as being about Jesus.
Our Gospel reading for today was written to show the parallels between Moses and Jesus. Moses was the foreshadowing of the promised Messiah. Hebrew male babies in Egypt were murdered by Pharaoh in order to weaken the Israelites. In an effort to keep control of his kingdom when he found out that Jesus was to be the Hebrew King Herod murdered the Hebrew male babies.
Moses escaped the murderous wrath of Pharaoh in Egypt by being hidden in rushes alongside the Nile. Jesus escaped the murderous wrath of Herod when Joseph took him and his mother to Egypt so they could hide among the Egyptian population until it was safe to return.
The exodus from Egypt freeing the Hebrews from slavery which they, even in their misery, at times preferred rather than live in freedom in the desert prefigured Jesus saving all people, as he freed them from their slavery to sin. Even though at times those he freed grumble about their freedom and wish that they could go back and live in slavery to sin.
Oh, they don’t think that they are wanting to go back into slavery, but they are when they don’t believe that Jesus is truly the Lord of their life. They are wanting to go back into slavery when they don’t believe that through Baptism God works faith in infants and adults. They are wanting to go back into slavery when they reject the wonderful gift of Jesus’ body and blood when it is given in God’s Holy Sacrament. The rejection of these gifts to them are the same as the Israelites rejection of God’s words through Moses’ as he led them through the desert on the way to the Promised Land.
It is easy to question, to doubt God’s plan of salvation when innocent babies are murdered as it is told in God’s Word, or even as it happened just a couple of weeks ago when innocent children were murdered by their parents. We never have to look very far to see evil. It does not take much for us to ask, “Where was God in all this?”
On Christmas Eve I talked to those in attendance about why in the midst of all the evil in the world I can say that we are at peace. If you were there I told you that we can say we are at peace because of Jesus and his war with Satan. Jesus won that war on the cross when he said, “It is finished.” Why then the ongoing war? It is like Satan and his evil angels and people under his control never got the message. He is still fighting, for he knows our natural selves, selves who want to go back to the way it was before Christ entered our lives.
Our God Emmanuel, “God with us” did not just leave us when he ascended into heaven. He is still active in human creation; he is still in control. Through the Holy Spirit he continues to lead little children and adults into the safety of his Holy Church through the waters of Baptism. He continues to feed and nourish his people through his Word and with his precious body and blood in his Holy Supper. He continues to reassure you, his people when I stand before you, as your called Pastor and tell you, “In the stead and by the command of my Lord Jesus Christ I forgive you all your sins.”
God’s plan of salvation was in play when he created the world and at the perfect time he entered our world as our Epistle tells us, “When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, 5to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.
That salvation has been accomplished. It is finished, and one day Jesus will come back and call all believers to be with him in the new heaven and earth. God has promised and as he has shown by his past and present deeds he will do it. Amen.
12/26/10
Text: Matthew 2:13-23
Title: The Plan
It just seems like yesterday that we came together to celebrate the birth of Jesus. Wait, it was yesterday, and yet today we are looking at an event that takes place when Jesus is about 2 years old. What happened? The Wise Men have come and gone which we will not even look at until January 6th at our Epiphany service. For some reason that I could not find those who picked out the readings some thousand years ago have put this reading as the official reading for the year that the Gospel of Matthew is read in the Christian church.
Yesterday we looked at the baby Jesus peacefully laying in his mother’s arms safe, warm, and loved. Today Jesus is on his way to Egypt as the family flees the murderous Herod. Today we read of the murder of innocent babies on account of Jesus. I don’t know about you, but today’s readings have brought me back to the reality of life. Jesus was hated even as a baby, just as he is hated by people today.
It helps to understand the events we read in our Gospel; in fact it helps us to understand the Gospel of Matthew, if we understand that Saint Matthew was writing to the Jewish people. He is writing to convince them that Jesus is the promised Messiah by quoting Old Testament texts that any knowledgeable Jew would recognize as being about Jesus.
Our Gospel reading for today was written to show the parallels between Moses and Jesus. Moses was the foreshadowing of the promised Messiah. Hebrew male babies in Egypt were murdered by Pharaoh in order to weaken the Israelites. In an effort to keep control of his kingdom when he found out that Jesus was to be the Hebrew King Herod murdered the Hebrew male babies.
Moses escaped the murderous wrath of Pharaoh in Egypt by being hidden in rushes alongside the Nile. Jesus escaped the murderous wrath of Herod when Joseph took him and his mother to Egypt so they could hide among the Egyptian population until it was safe to return.
The exodus from Egypt freeing the Hebrews from slavery which they, even in their misery, at times preferred rather than live in freedom in the desert prefigured Jesus saving all people, as he freed them from their slavery to sin. Even though at times those he freed grumble about their freedom and wish that they could go back and live in slavery to sin.
Oh, they don’t think that they are wanting to go back into slavery, but they are when they don’t believe that Jesus is truly the Lord of their life. They are wanting to go back into slavery when they don’t believe that through Baptism God works faith in infants and adults. They are wanting to go back into slavery when they reject the wonderful gift of Jesus’ body and blood when it is given in God’s Holy Sacrament. The rejection of these gifts to them are the same as the Israelites rejection of God’s words through Moses’ as he led them through the desert on the way to the Promised Land.
It is easy to question, to doubt God’s plan of salvation when innocent babies are murdered as it is told in God’s Word, or even as it happened just a couple of weeks ago when innocent children were murdered by their parents. We never have to look very far to see evil. It does not take much for us to ask, “Where was God in all this?”
On Christmas Eve I talked to those in attendance about why in the midst of all the evil in the world I can say that we are at peace. If you were there I told you that we can say we are at peace because of Jesus and his war with Satan. Jesus won that war on the cross when he said, “It is finished.” Why then the ongoing war? It is like Satan and his evil angels and people under his control never got the message. He is still fighting, for he knows our natural selves, selves who want to go back to the way it was before Christ entered our lives.
Our God Emmanuel, “God with us” did not just leave us when he ascended into heaven. He is still active in human creation; he is still in control. Through the Holy Spirit he continues to lead little children and adults into the safety of his Holy Church through the waters of Baptism. He continues to feed and nourish his people through his Word and with his precious body and blood in his Holy Supper. He continues to reassure you, his people when I stand before you, as your called Pastor and tell you, “In the stead and by the command of my Lord Jesus Christ I forgive you all your sins.”
God’s plan of salvation was in play when he created the world and at the perfect time he entered our world as our Epistle tells us, “When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, 5to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.
That salvation has been accomplished. It is finished, and one day Jesus will come back and call all believers to be with him in the new heaven and earth. God has promised and as he has shown by his past and present deeds he will do it. Amen.
posted by Pastor Rhoads | 6:47 AM
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