The flight to Egypt

January 2 2011 Reading: Matthew 2.9-15

Theme: The Flight to Egypt............

Here in Scotland, we probably don’t realise, or we have forgotten, how much Barak Obama’s election as president meant for America. The campaign had begun for Obama 21 months before, but in the early days of November 2008, as voting began, throughout the country, polling stations had queues longer than anyone had ever seen, queues that stretched right round the block in some places. By the 4th. of November, the enormous significance of Barack Obama's election finally began to sink in. When the results started to come through in Washington, at 11.00pm that evening a little crowd of about 100 gathered in Pennsylvania Avenue outside the White House. By 1 a.m., there were tens of thousands of people there celebrating in the rain. The novelist Kim McLarin, remembering that time, says she stood still for a moment with her 8-year-old son, Isaac. "My heart was full. I could scarcely breathe," she said. "There has been a shift.................It's not an ending. It's a beginning." [1]

In the birth of Jesus, the gospel of Matthew tells us, something of enormous significance has happened….. . a shift, a beginning in the history of the world. As we read the gospel, we see that the birth of Jesus is reflected in the guiding star in heaven, the stable where he is born is visited by three foreign kings. And as to King Herod’s court - the palace is thrown into confusion by the news that a child has been born to be King in Bethlehem. Something of enormous significance has happened….. . a shift, a new beginning.

Yet, on the other hand, how strange the gospel story is, this shift, this new beginning takes place not as we might expect with crowds of thousands celebrating - instead we read of the little family, Joseph, Mary and Jesus, warned in a dream, fleeing by night, travelling down towards the great South Road to Egypt, as refugees, looking for a safe place. They journey away into the darkness of the night.

A journey away. Surprisingly, or maybe not so surprisingly, we see this time and time again throughout the Bible, almost too numerous to mention; Jacob journeys away from a disastrous situation at home, takes his family with him; Jonah the prophet, in order to avoid God’s command, journeys away, goes in the opposite direction, takes a boat for Spain. Elijah after all the blessings of strength he has received from God, to confront the pagan prophets, in the end is to be found journeying away across the desert. What is striking is that in every case, those who journey away from a situation into a strange land, into an uncertain future, who with every step journey further away from the a situation of great difficulty, failure, or defeat - all find this, that God who was there at the beginning of the journey, in the place they have left behind, is there at the end of the journey. God is always 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............... God is there, for that little family at the end of their journey, as He was at it’s beginning. us. For nothing, declares Paul, will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

What a wonderful rich thing ....... we see here in the gospel, into that desperate, worsening situation - with King Herod threatening destruction, the Word of the Lord comes to Joseph, in the form of a dream, and in that dream Joseph is warned to take the baby and His mother to Egypt - They are guided by the Lord to safety. As John Calvin wrote long ago, while the Lord God may choose the star in the sky or a glory of light in the night to show His presence, He is also present in the darkness with this little family fleeing to safety, He is present on that night road. He watches over this little family in faithfulness. And we know that throughout 2011, whatever happens, wherever we go, up to the heights or down into the depths, whether we journey far away, or stay where we are, we remember these great words of the Lord as Joseph and Mary surely must have done: Your right hand, dear Lord, will hold me fast............... and so we know that out in 2011 there is no situation, no place on earth, which is beyond the Lord’s care, or the power of His Word, or beyond the hope and power of the gospel.

Let’s go back to think about that threat from King Herod. The violence, the threat, to Jesus as a baby. At the very beginning of Jesus’ life - here Herod seeks to kill Him. We look and wonder, and as we do we begin to see this, that here, in the earliest days of His life, we what see already is the rejection of Jesus, by the world. The book of Isaiah, speaks of a Servant, the Lord’s Servant, One who would come one day to Israel. He, the prophet foretold, would bring justice and righteousness to the world. He would come in the power of the Holy Spirit. He would be a light to the nations, light for the whole world, called before His birth, chosen to bring the message of the living God. Yet, says the prophet, this striking figure, this One, would find little welcome in the world, quite the opposite. He would be despised and rejected, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Here we see this at very beginning His life......... with a King looking for Him, threatening Him with death, we see Him carried in His mother’s arms, South, to another land, far away in exile. When we read the gospel further to its very end and we find that that rejection, becomes deeper and more deadly......... and leads, in the end, to the very Cross itself. Where Jesus, the One, despised and rejected, by the world gave Himself, for us, to bear our sins away. As the hymn says: did e’er such love and sorrow meet, or thorns compose so rich a crown ? The Lord Jesus, who throughout His days, from the very beginning of life, knew what it is to be despised and rejected by the world. As still today ! Still today, the world rejects the Lord Jesus, the man of sorrows......... He was despised and rejected at the beginning of His life, and at the end at the Cross.

But yet look here at verse 15, and listen to the strange and wonderful words we read there: I called my Son out of Egypt. The One who is carried by His mother into the utter darkness of the night, is the Son. The child born in Bethlehem, the gospel of John tells us, ‘was in the world, and the world in its blindness did not recognise Him’. He came to His own, but His own rejected Him. But all through the gospels we see the Father’s wonderful love and acceptance and affirmation of His Son Jesus. At Jesus’ Baptism, the Father declares ‘This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased’. At the Transfiguration, the Father’s word is ‘This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Listen to Him’. And here at the very beginning of His life, when it was time to return from Egypt, the Father’s words: I called my Son out of Egypt. He was despised and rejected .......... But all through the gospels we see the Father’s wonderful unbroken love, absolute acceptance and total affirmation of His Son Jesus.

These are truly, truly, deep and holy things................ for you know, the gospel reading for today shows us how Jesus was despised and rejected at the beginning of His life, even in its earliest days.......... And if we read on through the gospel we will find that this comes to the sharpest focus at the Cross. Where Jesus, who gathered the scattered sheep, loved the outcasts, and the sinners, healed, sought and saved the lost, is rejected. The same violence that motivated Herod. So, the gospel is actually telling us something about this world: What ? Well, to put it briefly, the Gospel declares that this world, is a world which despises and rejects Jesus, the beloved Son of the living God................ this is what our world is like, and this is what lies in the human heart.

And what is God’s answer ? The Bible says: ! God has exalted Jesus to the highest place, of all. That at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow. What is the Father’s answer to this world, a world which despises and rejects Jesus, His beloved Son ? What does Father do about this world and what lies in the human heart ? This is the Father’s answer to a world which despises and rejects Jesus, His beloved Son - The Father has raised Jesus from the dead, the beloved Son in whom He is well pleased. And it is through this same Jesus that God the Father has opened to us the way of salvation......... the mystery, the great, holy mystery is this: that the Father invites us to come........... to find in His Son, the living Lord Jesus, life, life everlasting ! Here, finally, we are speaking of the incomprehensible mystery of the love of God the Father, and of how deep the Father’s love is..............

AMEN.