READINGS

Matthew 2:13-23
Isaiah 63:7-9
Hebrews 2:10-13
Hosea 11:1-9
Jeremiah 31:13-17
Exodus 1:15-22

HOMILY

This is the homily for the revised common lectionary.

It's slightly different from the Catholic lectionary for which today is the feast of the Holy Family.

Curiously, this year or the Matthew year, we have very similar readings for Holy Family Sunday, the Catholic liturgy and for the right of common lectionary, but because the background is quite different, I'd like to preach a separate homily today for the revised common lectionary.

Why? Because today's the first opportunity we have in this year to have a kind of an introduction to Matthew.

This will give us a better understanding of what Matthew's approach to who Jesus is is all about.

And it's very strikingly Jewish.

He wants to bring out much more the Jewishness of what's going on than we're used to.

Which is why I think it was actually a very good choice of the compilers of the revised common lectionary that they give us as the first reading Isaiah 63.

This is a beautiful passage, in which the prophet talks about God's faithfulness to Israel.

This is a wonderful background to what we're going to see in today's Gospel, which is how - even as an infant - Jesus begins by recapitulating the whole of the sacred history of Israel.

Isaiah 63:7-9:

I will make known the Lord’s faithful love and the Lord’s praiseworthy acts, because of all the Lord has done for us - even the many good things he has done for the house of Israel, which he did for them based on his compassion   and the abundance of his faithful love. 

He said, “They are indeed my people, children who will not be disloyal,” and he became their Savior.

In all their suffering, he suffered, and the angel of his presence saved them.  

He redeemed them, because of his love and compassion; he lifted them up and carried them all the days of the past.

So that's actually a wonderful way of considering a praise of God for his faithfulness to Israel, which is what Matthew sees as being fulfilled in the Gospel we're about to look at.

And then the second reading for today from the Epistle to the Hebrews, likewise, it actually brings out even some illusions to almost the same passages.

So here's the Epistle to the Hebrews 2:10. Obviously, a very Hebrew reading of Jesus's presence.

It was fitting that God, for whom and through whom all things exist in bringing many children to glory, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through sufferings.

For the one who sanctifies, and those who are sanctified all have one father.

For this reason, Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters, saying, "I will proclaim your name to my brothers and sisters in the midst of the congregation. I will praise you."

Okay, so that's a quote from Psalm 21, but it shows that the epistle to the Hebrews understood Jesus as fulfilling the promise of the Psalm.

And again, it says, "I will put my trust in him. And again, here am I and the children whom God has given me."

These are references to Isaiah, Isaiah 8 in both cases and to Samuel.

So quotes showing the faithfulness of God through Israel's history.

Now, why are that important here?

Because it shows that what we're being plunged into the midst of is the one who is more than a messenger, more than an angel, who has come in to redeem his people.

He has come in the midst of sufferings.

If you remember, Matthew in his story of Jesus's birth was keen to bring out how dangerous it was that Mary needed protecting from possible stoning if she was found to be with child before she had been officially married.

Again, the feast of Epiphany, which we'll celebrate after this, but which is the text immediately before today's text is a text about the dangerousness of the visit of the magi to Jerusalem and then to Bethlehem.

Because of King Herod's paranoia - really about which other king might be around to show him up as being the not real king of this part of the world that he was - the dangerousness was all about.

So in the midst of all this danger our Gospel passage starts.

So now after they [that's the magi] had left, they went back home to Arabia [remember this is probably Jordan at that time, rather than what we consider Arabia].

The magi went back to Jordan, to Petra, around there by a different route so as not to tell Herod who they had met and what they had seen and how they had recognized the one coming in, the the king, the prophet and the Priest and how they had brought the signs of the temple coming back to him.

When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream.

Joseph is constantly in these early passages of the Gospel being spoken to in dreams.

This is a part of his fulfillment of Joseph in the book of Genesis, who was the subject of dreams.

He shared his dreams with his family and it got him into trouble.

And then in Egypt he had dreams and he was able to interpret the dreams of others.

And, because of that, he was able to become the vizier, the person in charge of the household of the Pharaoh.

“Get up,” he said, “take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.”

So this is the second Joseph, who does what the first Joseph had done. He goes off to Egypt.

The first Joseph of course is bound over, sold to a Midionite and taken and sold into slavery in Egypt.

This Joseph exercising paternal right is just takes the mother and child to Egypt.

So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Herod.

So they had to flee. They were refugees.

I need hardly say at this period in the lives of English-speaking countries how aware we are that the Gospel is the Gospel of the precarious, of those who flee, of those who are refugees, of those who are asylum seekers, of those who are blessed by being received well in far away places and not of the border guards and of those who go out of their way to separate children and family.

Herod died probably about 3 years later.

It's probable that we're talking about the year seven when Jesus was born, seven before before Christ in our writing.

That's at least to go by the the references to the star. That was when there was a conjunction of of suitable stars. It was while Herod was still alive and Herod died in 4 BC.

So this was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet.

Out of Egypt I have called my son.

Now, that's a much more interesting quote than it seems because normally we think, okay, it's just a little quote so as to allow us to tick along.

But we're actually supposed to look up the quotes and see what exactly is being is being said in them.

So, here is what Hosea 11:1-9 is about.

She says, "When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.

The more I called them, the more they went from me.

They kept sacrificing to the boughels and offering incense to idols.

Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk.

I took them up in my arms, but they did not know that I healed them.

I led them with cords of human kindness and with bands of love." I remember the swaddling clothes.

I was to them like those who lift infants to their cheeks.

I bent down to them and fed them.

They shall return to the land of Egypt, and Assyria shall be their king because they have refused to return to me.

The sword rages in their cities.

It consumes their oracle priests.

Remember there have just been oracle priests who had been consulted about by Herod as to where the child would be born (Hosea 11:1-9).

The sword rage is about to rage in the cities and devours because of their schemes.

My people are bent on turning away from me.

To the most high they call, but he does not raise them up at all.

How can I give you up Ephraim? How can I hand you over, oh Israel? How can I make you like Admiral? How can I treat you like Zebulim? My heart recalls within me.

My compassion grows warm and tender.

I will not execute my fierce anger.

I will not again destroy you frame for I am God and no mortal the holy one in your midst and I will not come in wrath.

So that's the full quote from Hosea that is hinted at just hinted at by the first line and normally we leave it at that but we shouldn't.

Whenever Matthew quotes a passage, he wants the whole passage to be taken into account.

That's very important.

It's a way of referring to a whole process of understanding of the Lord's love.

So he's inserting this visit to Egypt straight away within the foundational story of Israel.

The original going under the first Joseph, then the coming back, and then having to flee again because of the Assyrians and the coming back.

And, this time, he's coming, and it will be his presence, and it will be without wroth.

When Herod saw that he'd been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were 2 years old or under according to the time that he had learned from the wise men.

So what Herod does here is he behaves perfectly like the Pharaoh from the very beginning of the book of Exodus, because the Pharaoh is having a problem in Egypt of the time.

His consultants, his rich man are saying that they don't want any more immigrants and the Israelites, who are immigrants, are doing too well and so they should remigrate them.

But that really what they should do is they should kill all firstborn Hebrew sons.

So Herod is behaving just like the Pharaoh (Exodus 1:15-22).

The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives when you act as a midwife to the Hebrew woman see them on the birth.

If it's a boy kill him and if it's a girl she shall live.

And unfortunately the well not unfortunately but graciously the the midwives feared God and they didn't do as the king of Egypt commanded them.

They let the boys live.

The Pharaoh commanded all his people.

Every boy that is born to the Hebrews you shall throw into the Nile but you shall let every girl live.

So, here we have Herod proving that he's not really an Israelite at all, but a dangerous pretender with extremely violent tendencies, which is what he was.

His well-known cruelty is being brought out by this incident, in which he's acting as Pharaoh and fulfilling a series of prophecies.

Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah 31:13-17.

A voice was heard in Rama willing and wailing and loud lamentation.

Rachel weeping for her children and refused to be consoled because they are no more.

Now Rama is in fact somewhere else and not near near Bethlehem.

However, curiously, Rachel's tomb is just close to Bethlehem. So that's probably why Rachel gets a a reference here.

In fact, this passage from Jeremiah 31:13-17 is also rather interesting in terms of what it brings out.

Thus says the Lord, keep your voice from weeping and your ears from tears, for there is a reward for your work, says the Lord, and they shall come back from the land of the enemy.

There is hope for your future, says the Lord.

Your children shall come back to their own country.

In other words, it sounds as though it's a prophecy of gloom, but it's a prophecy of hope.

And the reason for them going to Egypt is so as to come back stronger and fulfill the prophets and fulfill the promises.

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 are seeking the child's life are dead".

So we're talking about 4 BC here. Jesus is 3 years old at this time.

There are many different possible places in Egypt where they were.

As you can imagine, all sorts of highly apocryphal stories around, but that they were in Egypt seems is certainly, very well represented or has been very well represented over the centuries.

It says, "Go to the land of Israel."

That's in ancient terms, that's the northern kingdom. That's not Judea, where Jerusalem and Bethlehem were. That's up in the northern kingdom.

And why is that important? Well, because one of Herod's sons, Archelaus, is ruling over Judea in place of his father Herod.

Now, Herod had killed several of his sons, but not as it happened Archelaus, who turns out was the one who was most like his father in terms of being cruel and violent.

So, not a good place to be under his rule. But, Israel, the further north, the safer.

So, Joseph got up, took the child's 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 mourned in a dream, he went away to the district of Galilee.

So that's further north in the territory that had been the land of Israel,

This land had been conquered only a hundred and something years before this and taken back by the Jewish people after the Assyrians had engaged in a process of replanting people, so as to discourage ethnic solidarity. So this land was a recently "Judaized" place.

There he made his home in a town called Nazareth.

And here we have one of these famous word games that is odd to us, but wasn't particularly odd to them.

So that what had been spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled.

He shall be called a Nazarene.

Well, Nazarene doesn't mean from Nazareth, and it doesn't mean Nazerite either (somebody who wouldn't cut their hair and wouldn't drink or have certain sorts of foods).

That's what John the Baptist was. He was a Nazerite. Jesus was never a Nazerite.

That's to say, very strict aesthetical figure.

But Jesus was, and this is the importance of the word, he was a Nzer. He was the seed, the offspring, the plant of David.

He'd gone back, having been born in Bethlehem, he'd gone back and was going to be the planted seed of David in the northern kingdom, where he would eventually come back and perform the redemption.

So this word Nzer which is insertly from where the the critical term Nosim or Nosri refers to followers of the the Nazaren or the Nazarene it comes from.

There is a contemptuous term in the Talmud, in which the rabbitical Judaism criticized Christians as the Nazarim - the followers of the Nzer, the one sprung from David.

The point is that was a figure that was very much referred to in the prophets: in Isaiah in Jeremiah and particularly in Zechariah. The man called seed who will build the temple.

So texts that were refer referred in rabbitic Judaism to the future messiah are being fulfilled in this person becoming the messiah in fact, the one who has arrived.

What do we have then in this passage? We have all this fulfillment showing us what sort of Gospel Matthew will give us.