Isaiah 63:7-9; Psalm 148; Hebrews 2:10-18; Matthew 2:13-23
“Life is what happens when you plan other things.” Come on now, most of you have been around long enough to know that is true. Your plans, expectations, assumptions, and most of all your perceived control over things get tossed out as circumstances and events and feelings send you in a new direction. Sometimes those new directions are difficult. As a hospital chaplain it seems I’m working in a sort of laboratory of challenging and life changing circumstances for people, things these patients and families take on that they may not have chosen and yet here they are.
It even happens for meticulous planners in the church, as happened this Christmas Eve in the congregation in Durango where I am a member. The choir was set to go at the dramatic moment of the service leading to the lighting of candles held by all present. The 11 yr-old soloist with the clear young voice would sing phrases of “Away in a Manger” interspersed with the choir phrases. The pastor asked the ushers to turn out the lights. And they did, leaving the choir and soloist holding their music and ready to go, only in total darkness. As the pastor tried to prompt the ushers to flip the switch that would turn on the light in the corner to help the choir, every other light in the house was tried out, and even the ceiling fans started spinning. They finally got the correct switch flipped, but it was a “Ritual Malfunction,” awkward laughter and anxious worship leaders instead of dramatic singing and candle lighting. It finally worked out, and I’ll tell you the end of the story in a bit.
The shift of direction described in today’s Gospel lesson is something as intense and challenging as could be faced. Joseph is told in a dream that evil and danger is on the way and that he should take the holy family away and flee to Egypt. From the welcoming of the baby Jesus and the joy of that event to fleeing for their lives and safety as Herod, the archetype of bad guys, kills the Holy Innocents of Bethlehem. How horrible. How frightening. How evil!
Think of how difficult and even evil events continue in our day. The news this week from Pakistan, the ongoing news of refugees from Darfur, and who knows but God of the suffering in our world that doesn’t make the news? Three years ago I visited El Mozote in El Salvador where hundreds of villagers were massacred, including about 150 children who were lined up in the church there and shot. The Holy Innocents of Biblical times are still close at hand.
Such larger scale political events are significant, but so also are the ways we in our vulnerability and brokenness deal with fearful things, including sometimes being challenged by our own inner Herods. Here is the facing of life, having planned other things. It is really exile. As the Holy Family fled and waited, so we know that place. You have been there, haven’t you? In it are ingredients of struggle and despair. Or we might even think we can still control things, which by the way, might be the definition of an atheist. Who needs God when you can be god yourself and fix it? But as people of faith, there is the need to find hope and grace in the waiting, to find God who meets us in those places of difficulty.
The first lesson today speaks of God’s presence being the key to bringing people through. Isn’t presence what we need to take away any feelings of abandonment and isolation? It is one of the things we find in a faith community, a presence with one another, celebrating gifts together but also supporting one another in our needs. Presence is what is needed in relationships, in any kind of true caring for one another. Most of all that message from Isaiah is true, that God’s presence is what we seek. “….his presence that saved them; in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old.” (Is 63:9)
In today’s Gospel lesson Matthew looks back to when Moses led the people out of Egypt to the Promised Land. The parallel is important in Matthew’s Gospel as Jesus comes out of Egypt to bring a new promise.
And in today’s second lesson there is that most important theme of Jesus knowing and experiencing suffering himself. “Because he himself was tested by what he suffered, he is able to help those who are being tested.” (Heb 2:18) In vulnerability there is grace and promise. What an amazing shift that is!
Luther’s image of the manger and the cross being of the same wood could be applied here. Jesus, vulnerable at birth, vulnerable on the journey to the cross, is the one who we turn to in faith. He finds his way not around difficulty and brokenness and evil but through it. Can we be led that same way? Yes, and it happens!
When my family first moved to Albuquerque a long time ago, we came to see the aspens in late September. We were at the Santa Fe ski area, and the chairlift was operating for those who wanted a better view. My younger brother was four and couldn’t resist. He ran to the chair, grabbed hold, and was carried out across a pretty significant drop off. My Dad ran underneath, then realized he better get on the next chair and follow the little runaway for the scary ride. My brother did a chin-up, threw his leg onto the chair, and got in, smiling all the way as he led my Dad up the mountain. When they returned together thirty minutes later, the operator charged my Dad $4 for the two rides. The lesson is not pay up anyway. It’s not four year-olds can do good chin-ups. It’s that protection from fearful things is a need. Images of angels above and parents following closely behind can accompany an even more powerful image of God being present with my little brother, on the chair with him. Transfer that image, people of faith, to God journeying with you, being with you even as it seems to be going very badly. Faith happens in us as this Jesus who knows the worst of it himself goes with us.
Following the ritual malfunction Christmas Eve at our church in Durango, something was resolved for us. The choir got its lighting, the candle flames were shared, and as “Silent Night” was sung, a young couple from the congregation came forward, she wrapped in a blue scarf, he in a Joseph-like bathrobe outfit, and bringing their six week-old baby to sit before the altar. The little cutie reminded us of the shift the baby brings. We went from a ritual malfunction to faith happening.
Luther was right. The manger and the cross are made of the same wood. We discover that again when we share the Sacrament in a few minutes, receiving the gift of Jesus’ body and blood. The same Jesus who was vulnerable as a child, rushed into an exile, growing up in a world that knew violence and brokenness (Yes, still our world today) shares the gift of himself with us at the altar. Jesus is present with us and goes with us.
Planning other things? Life happens. And also happening, God’s grace.