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The Flight from SinPreached at St. Barnabas Church, Bellville, TX The Second Sunday after Christmas, 2009 by The Rev. Stephen E. Stults Mt 2:19 But when Herod was dead, behold, an angel of the Lord appeareth in a dream to Joseph in Egypt. Happy New Year! It has been a very busy time for all of us, both on the secular and ecclesiastical fronts. All of us have just passed through another Christmas Day and are almost through with this year’s celebration of the Christmas Season, which concludes this Wednesday with the Epiphany. We all know how busy it has been on the secular side. In some ways, it’s almost a relief when Christmas Day is over. On the churchly side of things, several important and significant events have happened as well. Since our service commemorating St. John the Evangelist, the Kalendar also called for the celebration of St. Stephen, the Church’s first martyr, the Holy Innocents, and the Circumcision of Christ. Thus, a lot goes on that isn’t always recognized, or better said the time isn’t always there to pay these days the proper respect. It’s not bad, necessarily, but it is just another example of the constriction we Christians face, as we attempt to deal with the World and our faith, simultaneously.
Why should we as Christians care at all about this particular reading? What significance, if any, does it hold for us, late in this Christmas Season? The answer is two-fold. First, the re-entry into Israel and the settlement in Nazareth is a direct fulfillment of Biblical prophecy, as St. Matthew echoes various Old Testament prophets in telling us that the Messiah was to be a Nazarene. This, once again, shows us the truthfulness of God’s Word and illustrates the fact that Biblical prophecy has the amazing aspect of coming true. Also, recall the words of Hosea 11:1, where he said, “Out of Egypt have I called my son.”[i] This is important, as we see God’s Word fulfilled throughout the Old and New Testaments. Whatever has been written will come true in God’s time, in God’s ways. In this case, Christ can be seen as the Nazarene, the One who showed perfect obedience to God in every aspect of His earthly life, even to the absolute obedience demanded by the Cross. The other aspect that is so meaningful is the movement of the Messiah to His People. Joseph, the patriarch of the Holy Family, brings Christ back to His People, where, in the fullness of time, Christ would offer salvation to them. This is, in many ways, a fulfillment of the Christmas story, as we see, literally, Emmanuel coming to tabernacle with us in the flesh. There may be one more significant aspect to this Gospel passage. This has to do with the reason for the Holy Family’s flight into Egypt and for its subsequent return. That reason, simply, was a flight from sin. Let me explain. As we have discussed, Herod’s reign was violent and self-willed in every aspect. It was extremely sinful in that it sought, at all costs, its own self-perpetuation. This was capped by the violent and tragic deaths of the Holy Innocents. It was obvious that Herod cared for only one thing, his own power and rule. This obsessive preoccupation with power and position, this ultimate concentration on the self, is the very essence of sin. When one focuses strictly on the needs of the self, there is no room for God. As seen by history, this is common among kings, and Herod was certainly no exception. Thus the infant Christ, who was protected by St. Joseph, fled from sin and danger by going into the relative obscurity of Egypt. There they would remain until Herod’s own time for judgment would come, as he passed from this realm to the next, where he would meet the impenetrable gaze of God into his own soul and receive the fate due him. What an awesome and fearful thought that is! It is the fate of all those who know not Christ, or choose to reject Him. The flight of Christ from sin is very significant for us today. Just as He was protected by his parents from the devastating effects of sin early in his life, later as a man he would be unable to sin because of the absolute grace present in His being. It was not that Jesus was not tempted; he was, in all aspects just as we are, yet He was without sin. He fled sin His whole earthly life, that is, He would have no part in it. He avoided it completely, living the only perfect life. In the same way, we are to flee sin, as old fashioned as this may sound. Our job as Christians is praise and love God with our whole being, which entails our attempt to honor God with an unspotted soul. We are simply, to avoid sin whenever possible and to absolutely flee from it. This preacher knows how naïve this must sound. We all know, if we have gained any spiritual maturity in Christ, that daily sin is a reality. If it weren’t for the ever-present grace of God restraining us, we would all probably sin more. Yet, we are called to be “a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people”[ii] unto God. Just because we still possess a sinful nature are we to throw up our hands in surrender to sin? No, we are to flee sin, just as Christ fled sin, literally and figuratively. We are to struggle against sin, the flesh, the World and the Devil. Once again, we are to flee sin and to avoid even the appearance of evil in our lives. We all know that sin exists; we Christians are not so foolish as to think that it doesn’t, if we are firmly rooted in reality and in the Word of God, nourished by the Church. We have not erased the word “sin” out of our lives with a theological pencil, as many have done. No, instead we recognize its reality and its power. We acknowledge its potential corruption and danger. If this were the end of the story, we would leave today heavy and oppressed. After all, who can win against such a foe? Praise God, it is not the end of the story. It is not an occasion for heaviness. Instead, because of the Christmas message, we have the ultimate weapons against sin. They are called Grace and Hope. Emmanuel has come to us this Christmas. Thus, we have Grace. Christ is with us, today in His mystical Presence in the Sacrament. We are not alone. Thus, we have Hope. We are not meant to perish eternally through sin. Christ’s coming to us tells us that. We have the spiritual “firepower” to resist and defeat sin in our lives. It is our choice, our privilege and our joy to honor God in this way. While it is impossible to lead a sin-free life, it is possible to lead a sin-less, that is, a less sinful life through this amazing grace given to us this Christmas. As we strive to do this, in and through the Grace of God, we will find more joy, more fulfillment, and more happiness than ever before. If we take away nothing more than this, Christmas 2009 will have been a success and New Year 2010 will be bright and joyful in Christ. Happy New Year, ye who are blessed in Christ…
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Today, we celebrate the Second Sunday after Christmas, which is
“sandwiched” between all these other momentous occasions. Being totally
objective, it would be very easy to pass it by without as much as a
civil greeting. That is, it would be possible if we didn’t focus on the
very brief but meaningful Gospel selection for the day. In it, we are
told of Joseph’s revelation in a dream, where an angel tells him to
repatriate Christ to Israel, made possible because of the death of
Herod. Recall that this was the same Herod who had ordered the death of
countless infants and toddlers, two years and under, all along the coast
near Bethlehem. He did this, of course, because of fear that the coming
King (Christ) would usurp his throne. This, of course, is not only an
abuse of earthly power, but a massive miscalculation as to the nature of
Christ’s Kingdom. Having no clue that Christ’s Kingship extended far
beyond Herod’s meager area of authority and wielded power in ways he
couldn’t understand, he reacted the only way a despot could when
threatened. He used brute force and the ugly heel of earthly power to
take away life in order to protect his reign. How wrong he was and how
short was his time on earth after all this! While we aren’t told the
interval of time from the Holy Family’s flight into Egypt, we
intuitively understand from Scripture that it wasn’t a large amount of
time. The angel, after all, refers to Christ as “the young child,” so
the assumption is probably safe that Christ was a toddler at this stage.