On the Move

First Sunday After Christmas

Isaiah 63:7-9

Matthew 2:13-23

Matthew’s story of Jesus’ birth moves quickly from the adoration of the wise men to the terrorizing death threats of King Herod.  One moment, the Messiah child is receiving gifts, the next moment there is a murderous plot and the need for an urgent escape.

On this first Sunday after Christmas, it feels like we’re still coasting on holiday fumes.  There is still Christmas candy on our kitchen counters.  I have one more family gift exchange this afternoon.  And yet Matthew doesn’t allow us to relax.   Before you know it he’s buckled us into  roller coaster crashing through turns and jerking around corners.  For Matthew, the birth of the Messiah is followed not by a time of rest, but by a terror inducing late night escape from the jaws of death.  It turns out that the arrival of the Messiah doesn’t simply solve problems; it creates some too.

 

This is a really powerful text to hear at the end of another year.  Are you ready for 2014?  I don’t know if I am, but I love the end of the year lists and retrospectives.  I love SportCenters’ top sports stories and top plays of the year.  I love the NYT lise of the best books of 2013.  I love the news stories that look back on what was significant – the best movies, the most important tech innovations, the most important political events. 

Hearing this text this morning is a sharp wake up call to look forward; a reminder that as God’s people, we have to stay on our toes, nimble, flexible, ready to move in new directions if called.  I wish I could tell you that if you put your trust in God, everything will go smoothly in the coming year.  You’ll find comfort and avoid pain and heartache and confusion.  But I can’t tell you that, because it’s not true.  It’s not Matthew’s gospel.

Did you notice that three times an angel appears to Joseph in a dream?  Each time he is instructed to be on the move - first down into Egypt, then back to Bethlehem, then up to Nazareth.

Joseph and Mary model for us a way of being faithful even when God has us on the move.  God never promised Joseph and Mary that they would live a comfortable life in a familiar place.  God doesn’t promise us that we can stay in one place either.  Work, or school, or family may call us away from this place to another place in the coming year.  And yes, moving from one place to another is unsettling, but remember, we are sojourners, pilgrims, travelers, people listening for God’s guiding voice along the way. 

The angels’ visit to Joseph brings before us the question, What if God led me to go somewhere else?  To leave what I know and make a new life somewhere else?  Would I be able to follow, to trek out into the unknown and unfamiliar with not much to go on but trust that it’s always good to be a part of God’s story?

The angel’s first words to Joseph were, “Get up.”  Get up and get going.  Pack your bags and get out of here.  Pull up your stakes and set out.  Your life for the next few years will be a life on the move.

Have you ever gotten troubling, urgent news in the middle of the night?  Can you imagine being shocked awake by an angel telling you that your family’s life is in danger?  Terrified and confused, you gather up your young boy and set out during the night through the town and out the gates.  You are making your way south towards the unfamiliar land of Egypt, wondering how you’ll survive in a strange place where you have no family or friends and don’t speak the language.

It is good for those of us following Jesus Christ to be reminded that Jesus and his family were refugees.  It reminds us that there are thousands of refugees around the world, uprooted and displaced from their homes, on the run from brutal dictators or militant religious groups.  But it’s not just Syria, Afghanistan, or central Africa.  There are children and women right here in our community who have to live like refugees, because they cannot safely stay at home.

Some of us have an immense fear of being uprooted and sent off somewhere else to start a new life.  Where would we go?  What would we do?  How would I start over in a different place?  We imagine the pain of being distanced from regular patterns of life, work, family and relationships that shape our daily lives and give us a sense of “home.” 

Joseph, Mary, and their young child didn’t have a choice.  God’s plan to save us from our sins pulled this young family into an unexpected new life.  We don’t know how many years this period in Egypt lasted.  But when Herod died, an angel appeared to Joseph, again in a dream.  “Get up” was the message for a second time.  “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” (v. 20).

But their return to their region wasn’t the homecoming they imagined.  When they arrived back in Judea, they heard that Herod’s son Archelaus was now ruling in his father’s place.  And Archelaus was just as dangerous as his father.  And so Joseph was “afraid to go there” (v. 22).  With fear for their very lives, and sadness that they cannot go back “home” to Bethlehem, they are nowhere again.  They don’t know where to go next. 

Now Joseph is visited by an angel for a third time during a dream.  (I would guess he’s getting rather tired of this angel).  This time the angel instructs Joseph to head north with his family, to the area called Galilee, and to a despised little town called Nazareth.  And in this town God protected the Messiah and his family.  This is the town where Jesus grew up.

What is this story about?  It’s about God’s provision for the Holy family, God’s protection for them in a dangerous world.  For Joseph and Mary, for you and for me, there will be no going home.  There will be no return to familiar surroundings.  God’s peculiar way of blessing us sets us on a course towards an uncertain future in unfamiliar territory.  There has been an angel by your bed too, “Get up,” the angel says.  “Get up and gather your things.  You will need to be on the move.”

Just like the holy family, we are called to wait in the darkness for God’s light to shine.  We are called to wait for God’s clarity to find us during a life that is often confusing and ambiguous.  It may take us years of hardship to finally discover what it is we think we need most.  And maybe it’s a person.  Maybe it’s a job or career.  Maybe it’s a place you call home.  But God might ask you to live without it.  When you’re on the move, you can’t take everything with you.

In a world of threatening enemies like Herod, and in a world where innocent young children are murdered in Bethlehem,  God protects the young Messiah who will one day give comfort to all who find themselves up against threats or who must bear terrible loss. 

As we end up a year, we look back, take stock, rest a bit with our families.  But what we hear from the angel isn’t a soothing lullaby.  We hear marching orders.  “Get up, be on your way.”  There is much left to be done.  We cannot stay where we are.  All that has been accomplished is good, for which we give thanks.  But we cannot stay here, where things are comfortable and familiar. 

God never promises us that he will leave us comfortably surrounded by what’s familiar and known.  There may be challenges and problems to solve in the year ahead.  And we will have to stay on the move, trusting God’s leading.

This willingness to trust God’s leading as we’re on the move is really just part of life.  Our own developmental journey through the stages of life from infancy to childhood to adolescence to adulthood and midlife and retirement and old age – all of this is a kind of journey into the new and unfamiliar.  You may like being 8 or 14 or 27 or 45, but you don’t get to stay there.  You are on the move. 

Now add to that all the unexpected challenges that we face in life.  Failures and betrayals that wound us.  The loss of a job.  The sickness or accident that changed your course.  The divorce you hadn’t planned on.  The various losses and griefs that accumulate through a life.  All these changes and challenges keep us on the move. 

Is there any good news in this always being on the move?  Yes, your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ was a refugee too.  He summarized his own life by saying, “Foxes have holes and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head” (8:20).  And he has called you to trust him, to follow his way of life, and to be a part of his community of people called the church.  And he will provide for you what you need along the way.  He does not promise you the luxury of being at home, but he does promise to care for you while you travel.

Like Moses, Jesus has come out of Egypt to lead his people.  It won’t be easy, but we wouldn’t want to be anywhere else, would we?