Matthew 2:13-23
to Joseph in a dream and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, “Out of Egypt I have called my son.”
When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the wise men. Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah: “A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.”
When Herod died, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who were seeking the child’s life are dead.” Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus was ruling over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. And after being warned in a dream, he went away to the district of Galilee. There he made his home in a town called Nazareth, so that what had been spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, “He will be called a Nazorean.”
We don’t often read this Gospel text. It comes up in the lectionary, but when that happens we usually opt for something… well, less slaughtery instead. We do the Name of Jesus where Jesus gets his name… which turns out to be… you guessed it… Jesus or we move Epiphany to a Sunday. We do almost anything really, because, well, this Gospel story is not filled with the “peace on earth” vibe we would all like to hold onto in the holiday season. None of us wants to add a violent, fear-filled, Herod figurine or a set of ceramic murderous brutes to our Nativity sets in the middle of our cattle peacefully lowing!
And yet, here he is… both Herod and his murderous goons, a real and not to be forgotten part of the Christmas story, even if we’d like it to be forgotten. It reminds us that this dark, fear driven Herod side of Christmas still plays out in our world today. Just last week on Christmas Eve, three more busloads of South and Central American migrants were sent by Gov. Abbott from Texas to the Vice President’s house in Washington where they were left outside on a night with freezing temperatures. Ten years ago this December, just before Christmas, 6 adults and 20 children were slaughtered in Sandy Hook, about the same number of children they estimate were killed in Bethlehem by Herod. Families from Central and South American… families from Ukraine, South Sudan, and Afghanistan… they will all leave their homes this very day for exactly same reason the Holy Family fled to Egypt all those years ago, because powerful men, acting out of fear, continue to bring darkness and death into the lives of vulnerable people everywhere.
But this Gospel insists, even with Herod on the prowl, that acting out of fear is not the Way, the Truth, or the Life. Fear is not the path to follow into the abundant life God created us to live. This Gospel is here to remind us that regardless of what happens around us, you and I were created to live our lives, not out of fear but into the dreams God has for us. It was by living into God’s dreams that Jospeh went through with the wedding. It was by living into God’s dream that Joseph gave Jesus his name. It was walking into God’s dreams that brought them to safety and the way they knew it was safe to come back home.
To live into fear as Herod did or to live into God’s dreams as Joseph did… these are our choices too. Our choice may not lead to Herod or Abbott level horrors, but whether we live into our fears or into God’s dreams... even for us… it does make a difference. That difference then ripples out into the world in ways we may never know. That choice, though, choosing dreams over fear, isn’t simple by any means. We humans are hard wired to first react out of fear. When you meet a tiger in the woods, reacting out of fear without thinking is what will save your life. That's why to choose to live out of God’s dreams instead of fear requires us to somehow mentally and emotionally swim up through our fears and into the human parts of our brain. It’s only there, on the other side of fear, that we can even begin to consider living into God’s dreams.
Hopefully you’re better at that than I am. I typically KNOW what I need to do… I need to swim through my fear… but it’s almost always impossible to do on my own. I don’t think that makes me a failure though… I think that makes me human, which is just one of the many reasons we humans need each other. This story shows us that too. The wise men had each other to swim up through their fears together and live into God’s dream for them to go home by another way. The shepherds had each other. Mary and Joseph had each other. The only one who was doing all of this all alone was Herod.
Woody Allen once said that , “Eighty percent of life is showing up.” I’d tweak that a bit and say that 80% of what it takes to swim up through our fears and into God’s dreams is showing up… here. Sure the music is great, the eucharist is a gift and the people up front all wear dresses! But it’s showing up to be community with one another… that’s the piece that we so often miss these days. So for this New Year I commend to you the Spiritual discipline of showing up. Showing up and hanging out. Showing up and being vulnerable with one another. Showing up for one anotehr and helping each other swim up through the fears and walking with one another into the bold and beautiful dream that God has for you and all of creation. Amen.
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