Isaiah 63:7–9
Psalm 148
Matthew 2:13–23
A few years ago now, I visited the hospital to discover a friend sitting in the hospital lobby with her new baby in the car seat on the floor in front of her. Her husband was outside in the pickup zone trying to get the base section of the seat anchored into their car. For a variety of reasons he had not attended to that task previous to the day when it was mandatory that he have one in order to take his child home.
When my siblings and I made our first trip in a car we were allowed to ride on mom’s lap in the front seat and no one wore seat belts. I recall seeing a car seat in our attic which was a green canvas and metal contraption that looked like a cross between a high chair and an umbrella stroller. It was probably a well-used hand me down from our older cousins.
Preparing for a baby is more complicated and expensive than it used to be - certainly very different from such preparations in Jesus’ day.
We are not certain where the story places Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus when the magi arrived - it can be inferred that the magi took up to two years to arrive - given the other clues in the story. They certainly would not have stayed in the stable all that time! Did they go home after the “census”? Did they move elsewhere? Perhaps the writer of Matthew’s gospel did not know about the census.
In the weeks leading up to Christmas we heard a great deal about the conflict in Aleppo between the “insurgency” and the “Assad regime” with the civilian population caught in the middle. Over the past week we were told of a peace deal brokered by Russia with the help of Turkey. Before that they were seeking a cease-fire so that civilians could leave. The city is in ruins and I am surprised, given the devastation, that anyone is left alive to attempt to leave! We know that in any time of civil unrest, non-combatants are the ones who suffer the most. In any attempt to rout out insurgents oppressive governments tend to indiscriminately target all people - in this case with barrel bombs and mortars and other wonders of modern warfare.
In Matthew’s gospel. Jesus’ birth was said to have been heralded by a star. (Luke talked of choirs of angels shepherds) but it is only when the rest of the world takes notice (in the form of the magi) that Herod pays attention and becomes worried. We call the “Magi”, wise men, but they made a rookie mistake and tipped Herod off to the birth of a king. Any king, unknown to Herod, would be seen by him as a threat! There can be only one royal house! As can be expected, Herod responds with the resources at his disposal - a death squad tasked with killing all the boys of a certain age.
I recall seeing a movie on the Holocaust where various methods were used to detect Jews in hiding from the Nazis. They were ruthless in their determination to bring about their “final solution”. There have been other, much smaller, genocides since, each resulting in meaningless death on a large scale. The details of each need not be recounted here.
We need only to make the connection with the biblical text and to remind ourselves that Jesus did not come to a world of pretty Christmas cards and beautiful creches. He came in the midst of political upheaval and uncertainty. He came as a displaced person and a refugee whose life and indeed whose entire country were at the mercy of world powers who certainly did not want the tiny nation of Israel to hear any kind of good news that upset the apple cart or gave them grand notions of their own importance.
In the relative wealth and peace of Canada in the early days of 2017 we need to take notice of this. We can tend to think that Christmas is a difficult, if not impossible, thing to celebrate in the midst of loss, tragedy or serious illness, but this is only true for the cultural Christmas which does not take seriously the radical message of “Emmanuel” which means “God with us”.
The message of Christmas is not about a God who came to be a pretender at human existence but a God who fully engaged with the human condition, INCLUDING all the dangers and tragedies involved with being a person of faith in a world that did not respect or want that. The message of Christmas is for those who find themselves at the edges - who are in danger of being shut out or who wish to advocate for those who are.
In world of increasing numbers of displaced people it is vitally important to repeat the truth “Jesus was a refugee” in the same way that in the context of WWII it was important to say, “Jesus was a Jew”. To do so reminds us that we have a connection with those who seem to be very different from us and it connects their lives to our life.
Faith is not meant to insulate us from the problems of the world. As Canadians of faith we are called to use our privilege, our relative safety, power and wealth, to advocate for those who live in danger of the Herods of this world, and we can do this by welcoming them, by standing up against the forces that would take their freedoms or their lives and speaking our truth to that power.
We worship a God who came in Jesus to bring abundance of life - not just what we have traditionally referred to as “eternal life” but ALSO a life here and now that is devoid of fear and violence and the terror of the Herods who are afraid of losing their power.
This year, let us resolve that as Jesus has brought us new life, and life in abundance, that we will seek that for others, no matter where they live.
Amen!