1st Sunday after Christmas
January 1, 2017
Hebrews 2:10-18; Matthew 2:13-23
The other day in the car, my daughter asked for the “true
love” song. And I had to stop and think what
on earth is the “true love” song? Are we talking about a love song? Are we
talking about a song from a Disney movie? What did she mean? And then I stopped
being awestruck and decided to be practical and think, we’ve only been
listening to Christmas songs. We’ve only had Christmas carols on in the car and
at church. We haven’t played any other songs. So, is there is a Christmas song
with true love…? Aha. Did you figure out which song is the “true love” song? It
was “The 12 Days of Christmas,” which we had just sung at home the night before.
The 12 Days of Christmas are now most famous as a song about someone receiving
lots of presents from their “true love.” However, I assume at least most of
y’all are familiar with the Christian context for the 12 days of Christmas;
it’s how long the Christmas season lasts in the church. Just as we go through
four Sundays of Advent and 40 days of Lent, each season in the church has a
certain amount of time that it lasts. And Christmastide is twelve days long,
from Christmas Day, December 25th, through January 5th,
which is also known as Twelfth Night. It ends then because January 6th
is when we celebrate Epiphany, or the coming of the wise men, which we will
celebrate in church next Sunday. However, the Twelve Days have been celebrated
in western Christianity since before the Middle Ages and were traditionally a
time of celebration.
This
year, I learned something new about that tradition, which is that the twelve days
each traditionally celebrate a feast day for a saint.[1]
Christmas Day, of course, is about the birth of Jesus. December 26th
remembers St. Stephen, the first Christian martyr, whom you can look up in the
book of Acts in the Bible. Stephen was the one chosen by the disciples to take
Judas’ place, so that there would still be 12 disciples. However, he’s arrested
and stoned by the authorities for claiming that Jesus is the Son of God. Today,
the 8th day of Christmas, honors Mary, the mother of Jesus. Back on
Wednesday, the 4th day of Christmas, was what is called the Feast of
the Holy Innocents, or sometimes, the massacre of the infants, and it stems
from the text we read for our Gospel lesson this morning.
So,
we know pretty well the Christmas story, right? Jesus is born in a manger among
all the animals because there’s no room in the inn. God sends an angel to tell
some shepherds, who immediately come to see Jesus. And then next to see Jesus
are the wise men. After they leave, Joseph has a dream in which an angel tells
him to take his family and flee to Egypt because King Herod is about to begin a
massive babyhunt to search for baby Jesus and kill him. So, at a tender age,
baby Jesus and his parents become refugees and immigrants. They leave their
home country because of political persecution. They flee for their lives,
because it is too dangerous to stay.
(Stained glass window at St John's Episcopal Church, Kingsville, MD; the only one I've ever seen depicting this part of Jesus' life, fleeing as a refugee with his family)
We talk about Jesus being fully human and
living through every human experience and so understanding what we go through. Our
Hebrews reading this morning put it that “Since the children are people of
flesh and blood, Jesus himself became like them and shared their human nature…
This means that he had to become like his people in every way…”[2]
Well, here’s one of those ways Jesus became like us that we don’t talk about
very much: Jesus was a refugee. Jesus was an immigrant. The Holy Family leaves,
during the cover of night, to go to a foreign country, where you can be sure
they didn’t have all the proper papers for entry and they certainly didn’t have
the years it often takes to legally enter and stay in our country.
Let’s
add a little context as to just why baby Jesus was such a threat that Herod was
willing to commit mass infanticide. There’s one other place in the bible where
we read about a King killing baby boys and that’s at the beginning of the book
of Exodus. This is when the Israelites became slaves in Egypt and the Egyptians
wanted to subdue and oppress them so much that the Pharaoh decreed that all
Hebrew baby boys should be killed at birth. There were two midwives who worked
their way around this and managed to save some, and there was a mother who
managed to save her baby boy, by putting him in a basket in the Nile River.
That baby boy was Moses, and he was indeed a threat to the Pharaoh, as he was
the one God used to free God’s people from slavery and oppression.
Now,
we have another baby boy who is a threat to the King, because he’s also called
a King. When the wise men go to King Herod, they ask for the baby who was born
King of the Jews. Except, King Herod is King of Palestine, where the Jews live,
and he worked hard to become King! Herod
the Great ruled Judea from the year 37 BC to the year 4 BC. He was appointed by the Roman Empire, by
Caesar Augustus, yet he had to fight for four
years to firmly take control of his kingdom and so he never felt his power
was fully secure. Herod’s kingdom was
only 1,350 square miles, slightly larger than Baltimore and Harford Counties
put together, and he built at least seven major fortresses so that he was never
far from a defensible stronghold. He was
known for rebuilding the temple in Jerusalem on its grandest scale ever, and
this is the temple that Jesus and his disciples knew. Some of those are the reasons he is known as
Herod the Great. Yet, King Herod was
also known for ruling with an iron fist, violently
suppressing all opposition and not above killing his own family members, such
as his first wife, his brother-in-law, and three of his own sons, when he
suspected them of wanting his throne. You
can see that King Herod wasn’t be above killing a baby, either.
King
Herod was furious that the wise men didn’t come back to report to him what they
found, as he had told them to, and he gave orders to his soldiers to kill all
the baby boys in and around Bethlehem who were two years old and younger. This
is what we call the massacre of the innocents, or the holy innocents. Little
children who had done nothing wrong other than to happen to be born around the
same time and the same place as baby Jesus. The story is often used to
highlight children who suffer and die as a result of abuse, neglect, poverty,
war, slavery, or any other reason that is completely no fault of their own.
These are stories that need sharing and suffering that needs alleviating.
There
are other children who suffer and sometimes die as a result of being refugees
and immigrants, and I think we often miss that Jesus and his family had to
leave their homeland for a foreign country because of the very real threat of
death. A refugee is a person who has been forced to leave their country in
order to escape war, persecution, or natural disaster, and who cannot safely
return home. It’s estimated that “every five seconds a person is displaced in
the world today.”[3] We
know we’ve certainly been hearing a lot more about it in the news today, especially
Syrian refugees fleeing to Europe. Chances are that you know someone who left
their home country and come to the U.S. because it wasn’t safe for them to stay
where they were. One such person is Pastor Jorge, my Associate at Piney Grove
in charge of Hispanic ministry. The church he pastored in Cuba was growing so
large so quickly that it was seen as a threat by the Cuban government. So, the
Cuban government threatened Pastor Jorge. That’s why he came to America four
years ago, without his family. He’s here as an immigrant; he’s not claiming
asylum, and so he’s not included in any refugee statistic. Yet he left his home
country because of the very real threat of political persecution. There are
many stories like his, including Jesus’.
Let
us remember the “bad news” of Christmas along with the good news. Yes, Jesus is
born! And then Jesus and his family had to flee persecution and become
refugees. This morning let us remember not just
innocent children who suffer, but especially children who are displaced from
their homes, fleeing war and conflict with their families. When I taught
English as a Second Language at an elementary school in North Carolina, many of
my students fell into this category. Born in another country, yet coming to
America at a young age to join their parents in the American dream. In some
families, the parents came first and worked for a few years before sending for
the children to join them. Other families took their children with them,
barefoot and in rags, crossing the border. It is not our place to judge the
parents; it is our place to love the children and work to alleviate the
suffering and culture shock caused by immigration. Our Hebrews reading reminded
us that Jesus was just like us, human in every way. Elsewhere in Hebrews it
says that we are to always welcome the stranger, to show hospitality, knowing
that sometimes when we do so, we entertain angels unawares. This year, let’s
include in that peace and goodwill to each other peace and goodwill toward the
stranger as well. We never know when we’re about to welcome an angel, or Jesus
and his parents, a family in search of refuge. May we be that place of refuge
for others. Amen.
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