After the Manger--December 27, 2019

After the Manger--December 27, 2019

"Now after [the Magi] left, an angel of the Lord appeared the Joseph in a dream and said, 'Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.' Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, 'Out of Egypt I have called my son.' When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the wise men. Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah: 'A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more'." [Matthew 2:13-18]

Jesus is the alterative to Herod, like resurrection is the alternative to death.  And the way of Jesus is always the alternative we need to the death-dealing, fear-controlled, power-hungry ways of every Herod through history ever since.

I know we want to linger in the sentimentality of the manger for as long as possible.  I know that the familiar safety of singing "Silent Night" and "Away in a Manger" by candlelight exerts a powerful pull that keeps us from wanting to move on with the story, just like you want to maximize the days you get to sleep in or have one last gathering with visiting family.  But the story is not over yet--and in fact, we need Jesus to grow up, so that he can take on the death-dealing Herod by embodying a different way of being king.  So we must move on from the manger in order to go where Jesus goes.

Sometimes we forget that.  I think sometimes Respectable Religious folk beat the "Keep Christ in Christmas" drum so loud and so hard that we forget that Christ himself doesn't stay put in the Christmas scene, but leaves the manger behind when it is time. If you want to be where Jesus is, you're gonna have to leave the familiar trappings of the Bethlehem stable and go with the Holy Family across the border where they seek asylum as refugees in Egypt.  Herod himself pushes the issue, because he is ruled by fear and ego and insecurity, and so it is no longer safe for the Christ-child to stay in the comfort and familiarity of Bethlehem.  

Just so we are clear on this, then, that means the true king--the Messiah of God, long awaited by prophets and visionaries--spend his formative early childhood as a resident alien himself in a foreign country where he did not hold citizenship, while the pretender-king Herod destroyed families and killed babies in order to maintain his grip on his power.  The two ways of life could not be further apart, even from this early scene in Jesus' life.  And to be honest, we cannot choose both.  If you want to keep yourself comfortable and hold onto the reins of power and privilege at all costs, you cannot go the way of Jesus--he leaves all of that behind in order to become a refugee in Egypt.  And on the other hand, if you want to go where Jesus goes, you cannot walk the way of Herod, which is willing to kill and destroy and step on people in order to hold onto his hegemony.  You have to pick one, but you don't get to pursue the agenda of Herod and still say to folks that you are following in the footsteps of Jesus.  At least, you can't and still look people in the eye.

Now, I will grant you that it sure looks like Herod has the winning strategy, at least at this point in the story.  It sure looks like Herod is "getting results" in his paranoid campaign to kill all the infants in Bethlehem, because he gets to stay on his throne in his palace, while Jesus has to run across the border fleeing for his life with no official papers to grant him a valid legal reason to be in Egypt.  It sure looks like Herod is the winner, and Jesus is the loser here.  But of course, that just reveals how completely we have been suckered in to accepting the world's assessment of what real power or greatness look like.  The world sees Herod on his throne, with lots of buildings engraved with his name on them, and legions of minions willing to do his crooked bidding, and the world says that's what success and power look like.  But Jesus, simply in his very existence, calls that assessment into question.  

Jesus reveals to us that real power isn't about who you can kill, or who you can bully.  Jesus reveals that genuine "greatness" does not at all necessarily mean having your name etched in the marble façade of a building, or that you make people fear you.  Jesus reveals a greatness that is so secure, it isn't ashamed to go into a foreign land across a border to seek refuge. Jesus shows us that God is not ashamed of being a refugee--indeed, that God, the One who makes our sanctuaries holy, was willing to endure the humiliating process of seeking sanctuary himself in another land when the Holy family fled to Egypt. That looks like utter nonsense to the Herods of the world, who can only see as far as their popularity and their power, but whose vision too myopic to see a different kind of glory that is wider and deeper.

But at this point we are going to have to choose which path we are going to follow.  With the flight into Egypt, the road forks, and we will either have to choose to go with Jesus into seeking refuge among foreigners, as a foreigner... or we will have to accept the ways of Herod.  But we cannot pick both.

In this day, there are a million temptations to accept the way of Herod as our own. It always looks "effective" to be the bully, to step on people to get our way, to protect our own interests first even at the expense of others, and to ignore the way those choices harm others.  And it always seems dangerous and risky to walk the way of Jesus--it leads into foreign lands like Egypt, to vulnerability as a way of life, and to surrendering our interests for the sake of helping others.  But of course, as tempting as it is to keep on Herod's way, remember what happens at the end of that road: Herod dies, and that is the end of his legacy.  For all of his attempts to hold onto his comfortable position for as long as possible, he is dead and gone, and he is utterly forgettable now to history.    But the way of Jesus, while it leads to the cross and the tomb, is not ended with death--it keeps on going through to resurrection from the dead. And because of that, Jesus is unforgettable now.

What will you and I choose this day?  The old, ingrained reflexes of anger, fear, anxiety, and self-interest that we have learned from Herod?  Or the new way of vulnerable and hopeful suffering love that even the infant Jesus embodies?

Or to put it differently, will we choose death as a a dead-end, or will we dare to go with Jesus on the way of resurrection?

May God grant us the grace in this day to choose wisely.

Lord Jesus, give us the courage to follow you, even if it means becoming strangers in strange lands like your days seeking refuge in Egypt.