Hebrews 2:10-end Matthew 2:13-end
May the words of my lips, and the meditations of all our hearts, be acceptable in your sight, O Lord our strength and our redeemer. Amen.
I don’t know about you, but I rather love these liminal days between Christmas and New Year. We’re so out of routine that I spend most of my time checking what day of the week it is, but whatever day it turns out to be it is always lived to a gentler rhythm than usual. There is space to be – to be with family and friends, to be with oneself, to be with God. These days have a different pace to them altogether.
One of the things I rejoice in most is the gift of time to read - I always seem to acquire a good book in my Christmas stocking to capture my imagination. This year, as I’ve been juggling festive celebrations with recovering from the flu, I decided to turn to an audio book. It wasn’t perhaps one of my better ideas, as I’ve developed an unfortunate habit of dozing off during surprising plot twists and then, discovering myself completely baffled and lost, having to return to the beginning and start all over again. At this rate I’ll still be listening to it at Easter.
Strange though it sounds, the experience of becoming disorientated with the fast paced developments of a narrative rather resonated with me as I approached the service this morning – because in the midst of the joy and hope of our Christmas celebrations comes the shock of today’s Gospel reading. And it is disorientating to say the least.
It’s a reading in which we hear of Mary and Joseph fleeing with the Christ-child to Egypt by night after hearing that Herod is seeking to destroy him.
It’s a reading in which we hear of Herod’s insecurity at the threat he perceives to his power, and the terrible acts of violence he enacts upon his people to try and stamp it out.
It’s a reading in which we find Mary and Joseph travelling on to the land of Israel and, finding more danger there, finally discovering a sense of peace and freedom from fear in Nazareth within the district of Galilee. A place at last to make a home.
The pace of the narrative is astounding, and the change in dynamic catches us off guard. We’re full of Christmas joy and cheer and hope with echoes of angels and excited shepherds and manger scenes at the front of our minds … and suddenly fear and genocide and the displacement of the very child whose existence we are celebrating has been thrown into the mix.
It is disorientating and shocking.
It’s a part of the nativity narrative that is so tempting to skip over.
But we shouldn’t.
We shouldn’t because our faith is still lived in a world where many are forced to flee in fear, finding themselves labelled as refugees, far from home and safety and security.
We shouldn’t because our faith is still lived in a world where some do not inhabit power well or justly, and harm and threaten those around them in order to cling to it at all costs.
We shouldn’t because our faith is still lived in a world where peace cannot be taken for granted, and nation is divided against nation.
The experience of Mary and Joseph and the Christ Child is not so very different from our own.
And it is here that our Gospel reading speaks to us once more. Because woven into the narrative about fear and fleeing and violence and danger we find Joseph – Joseph, attentive to the divine; Joseph, refusing to let go of hope; Joseph, persisting through thick and thin; Joseph, who in his adopted son glimpsed the one who loved all things into being – God himself; Joseph, who saw the light that had come into the world, and knew that the darkness could not overcome it.
And as it was for Joseph, so it is for us.
In all the challenges and uncertainty of our own time, we have that same hope, we know that same light, we have felt that same love.
And that is what these days of Christmas are all about.
Not shielding ourselves from reality with a cosy domestic image of a manger scene, but recognising it for what it is in all its awe and wonder - allowing ourselves to be caught up in the reality of a story that is bigger than us, that captivates us, that inspires us, that changes us, that asks something of us.
A story of a light that has come into the world.
A story of love incarnate in our midst.
A story that speaks peace to war, that speaks humility to power, that speaks courage to fear.
For here is Emmanuel, God with us.
And we are called to show forth his hope.
Let us pray.
Light looked down and saw darkness.
‘I will go there’, said light.
Peace looked down and saw war.
‘I will go there’, said peace.
Love looked down and saw hatred.
‘I will go there’, said love.
So,
the Lord of Light,
the Prince of Peace
the King of Love
came down and crept in beside us.