Text: “Out of
The journey
to
Thousands of Christmas cards every year feature a
picture of Mary on a donkey holding the infant Jesus in her arms, with Joseph
walking beside them………
And in fact, the flight, the escape to
has intrigued many artists too down through the centuries,
Caravaggio, Rembrandt
and countless others.
I wonder why………
well, the subject is one fit for an artist, isn’t it,
Mary, the infant Jesus, Joseph, the donkey, the
little family making its way through the night….. relieved
at their escape, wearied by the journey, yet joyful that the child is safe……
but the verses from Matthew 2 are also striking by the great contrasts
contained in them ….. What contrasts ?
Well, on the one hand, the gospels of
Matthew and Luke tell us,
that great things, things of major significance have happened….. in the birth of Jesus.
His birth has affected the very stars in the
heavens,
the stable where he is born is visited by three foreign kings,
King Herod’s court, is upset, perturbed
by the news that this child is born
and - outside
the
But by contrast…..
We read now, further on, of the little family,
Joseph, Mary and Jesus fleeing by night, travelling down onto the great
and heading for
As John Calvin says, the Lord God may choose the
star in the sky or a glory of light in the night to show His presence, but
He is also present in the darkness with this little
family fleeing to safety.
He is present on the night road, as well as in the
bright sun of noonday.
He watches over this little family in faithful care
and protection
God is present to us in the hidden things, the
small things of life.
Secondly, as we will all know in our own
experience,
in the difficult times of life………
God gives us the strength to endure, to stay put,
to hold on.
Well, Matthew shows us that
the situation has gone beyond enduring, staying put, holding on,
for this little family…
Here is this little family escaping, fleeing from
because that’s the only realistic, the only wise option..........
the word of the Gospel here declares that
God is present with us when we can hold on no
longer,
when we have to step back, when the situation becomes too much for us…..
but wherever our next step brings us to, God is there.
As the Psalmist says:
If I go up to the heavens, you are there
If I make my bed in the depths, you are there,
If I rise on the wings of the dawn
If I settle
on the far side of the sea
even there your hand will guide me,
Your right hand will hold me fast...............
whether we stay, endure, hold fast,
or whether we leave a situation, because that is wiser,
God is there, Jesus Christ is present.
We see this time and time again throughout the
Bible, almost too numerous to mention: Jonah flees across the sea, Elijah flees
across the desert, the disciples flee from the Cross. But
God is there both at the beginning and the end of the journey, there at home,
or in the strange land, there in the noonday or the dark night, there on the
well trodden path or the uncertain future, staying put, or moving on, success
or failure all of these are taken up in His faithfulness and love to us in
Jesus Christ,
Nothing, declares Paul, will be able to separate us from the love of God
that is in Christ Jesus our Lord
The journey back from Egypt
So, Joseph, Mary and Jesus, Matthew tells us,
stayed in
and having gone down to into
they then come back
out of
And in this journey out of
the words of the prophet Hosea are fulfilled
‘Out of
Now, if you read the 11th. chapter
of Hosea, you will find that
when the prophet Hosea spoke these words, sometime
in 740 BC, he was referring to the momentous event when God called a disparate
group of slave workers, the Hebrews,
called them out of a land where they had no future Egypt - to a land they
would call their own that He had chosen for them.
God called them to be His people, a holy people, a worshipping people, chose them as His own, blessed them
with his kindness and grace.
That’s what Hosea the prophet is referring to
the prophet is speaking about how God called His people
out of
But if we go on to read verse 2, the prophet
continues:
the Lord says:
Out of
So, we discover that the prophet was reminding the
Israelites of his own day
that the actual fact of the
matter was that though the Lord God brought the people of
instead of being a faithful, grateful gladdened people, they became more often faithless,
rebellious and indifferent to His call.
For most of the time, they failed to be the holy
loving people they were called to be, failed to be the worshipping people with
the life of God at the very centre,
So why is Matthew quoting the words of the prophet here ?
Out of
Well, what Matthew is saying is that
here is the true son of the living God, Jesus…..
In place of the weakness, failure, rebellion of
Here, in Jesus, is the true son of the living God,
the true and faithful servant of the Lord.
Where
Jesus, the Servant, will live a life of faithfulness and
obedience.
Where
Jesus will live
his life in glorious loving self-giving for
others.
Where
Jesus will live
utterly, and truly centred in the Father’s love through each and every moment
of His life.
Where
Jesus Christ comes among us full of grace.
On the attic wall in the old vicarage at
And he wrote those words there, out of his own
personal experience,
for John Newton…had been a slave trader earlier in life,
he had been a man enslaved, until he found freedom in Jesus Christ.
What Matthew, what the gospel is doing here
is to turn us towards Jesus,
to point us to Jesus,
to show us Jesus,
and Who He Is……
It will be through Him that God will redeem the
world,
it will be through Jesus, Jesus Christ the Son,
that God the Father will lead us to new life, and freedom,
through His cross and resurrection………..
AMEN.