12/28/2025
Homily for the First Sunday after Christmas
Matthew 2:13-23
2:13 Now after they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to 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."
2:14 Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt
2:15 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."
2:16 When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the magi, 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 magi.
2:17 Then what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled:
2:18 "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."
2:19 When Herod died, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said,
2:20 "Get up, take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who were seeking the child's life are dead."
2:21 Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel.
2:22 But when he heard that Archelaus was ruling Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. And after being warned in a dream, he went away to the district of Galilee.
2:23 There he made his home in a town called Nazareth, so that what had been spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, "He will be called a Nazarene."
Here ends our Gospel reading.
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable to you, O God, our rock and our redeemer.
I’ve said this before but I’m saying it again, and trust, it won’t be the last time. But, growing up, my mother always said of me, “if there’s an easy way to do something and a hard way, you will always choose the hard way.”
Back when I was just dusting off the choir music binders for this year’s Lessons & Carols, I saw Matthew staring at me in the dark. I think everyone knows that we started our Lessons & Carols rehearsals without a pianist. And given the likelihood I would never find one, I studied the music we have in our repertoire and contemplated how, with changes, I could make it all work. The opening carol we have sung for a number of years now – Angels from the Realms of Glory - would have to be out as it is written for a pianist with four hands. Definitely piano dependent. How to replace it? During Lessons & Carols rehearsals the previous two years, one of our altos, suggested we sing a new piece, Lully Lulla Lullay. We have a different version of that piece in our repertoire, and though we haven’t done it for a number of years, I remembered well the lyrics:
Herod the king
In his raging
Charged he hath this day
His men of night
In his own sight
All young children to slay
I’ve also been aware for a few years now that I, with my carol choice, had been softening, if not altogether avoiding, the hard stuff in the Matthew text presented for Lesson 8. Instead of responding to the text with a song like Lully Lulla, I responded with In the Bleak Midwinter, leaning into the wise men theme instead of Herod. But I have grown increasingly aware that we need the Herod part of this Christmas story, because the Christmas story isn’t all “comfort and joy.”
After hearing a recording of Lully Lulla and reviewing the printed music, I decided it was in, and In the Bleak Midwinter was out as the corresponding carol to Lesson 8. Except, I also saw that In the Bleak Midwinter would be an ideal way to begin the entire Lessons service, replacing Angels from the Realms of Glory as Bleak Midwinter is sung a ca****la, without piano. Problems solved.
Sort of.
The atrocities at the hand of Herod are not spoken about in the text of Lesson 8, but they are brought to light in the responsive carol. My hope every year is that the folks in attendance will hear complete relevance to today’s world in each of the ancient texts. The inclusion of a violent leader killing children out of fear is prescient. That’s the world we live in. Sadly. Sadder still is that humans haven’t changed all that much over the last two thousand years.
So, instead of confronting the Herod text, the Massacre of the Innocents, the killing of all the children in Bethlehem two years of age and younger, I could have had us gather this morning to sing Christmas carols and extend the warm fuzzy feeling just a bit longer. But yes, Mother, I decided to choose the hard way. Yet again.
Advent is over and we are now in the Christian season of Christmastide. About the only place where this season takes stage is in the church. Probably for most, Christmas ended sometime late in the day on December the 25th. But in the church, Christmas continues until January 6th. So, while Advent is over and past, we are still in Christmas. And though Advent is past, its work for us, on us, remains. Hope, peace, joy and love. Keep awake (as if we are already awake). Prepare the way of the Lord, repent, clear the chaff. Are you the one, or are we to await another? The blind receive sight, the lame walk, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. You are to name him Jesus, and they will call him Emmanuel – God with us. Throughout the coming church year, I could, I may, reference one or all of the benchmarks I just named. They will call him Emmanuel being the overarching frame, the preceding claims and bits of instruction are important to keep nearby.
I wonder if Joseph’s mother ever said to him, “if there’s an easy way to do something and a hard way, you will always choose the hard way.” In Matthew’s recounting of the birth of Jesus and how it all came to pass, Joseph has already encountered hard stuff and has chosen the hard way through it. The young woman he was engaged to was found to be pregnant and not at his doing. He could have taken the easy road here and quietly divorced her. Good for him, not for Mary, and we’ll never know how things would have turned out for Jesus. And being a man who remembers his dreams and pays attention to them, and lets them guide and instruct him, he has gathered his family and escaped to Egypt, of all places, to keep them safe and to preserve his child’s life. Meanwhile, Herod decrees that all children two years of age and under in Bethlehem are to be murdered.
Herod the king
In his raging
Charged he hath this day
His men of night
In his own sight
All young children to slay
I don’t know about you, but I have long been bothered by what is being given to us here, and that Matthew does not answer but instead lets us sit to percolate in it, if we give it space to do so.
Where is God in all of this? And be careful how you answer, and remember, Matthew does not answer this in words.
What kind of God allows hundreds of babies to be slain while preserving the life of one? Recently, I’ve repeated Richard Rohr’s claim “How you see God is how you see everything” and our beloved parishioner's response “How you see everything is how you see God.”
What kind of God allows hundreds of babies to be slain while preserving the life of one? This question is known as the theodicy question or the theodicy problem. A theodicy is an attempt to suggest reasons for which God would cause or allow the suffering, premature death, loss, and harm we experience and observe, including genocides, illnesses, persistent pain, grief, natural disasters, and assaults. And from this theodicy problem has come some truly terrible theology. Be careful how you answer.
Matthew does not answer this right out, so why must we? And if he’s not going to answer, why does he bring us to this horrible, difficult place?
Matthew does not say God caused this.
Matthew does not say God needed this.
Matthew does not say God chose which children would live and which would die.
What Matthew does show us is this:
God is with the child who must flee.
God is with the parents who leave in the night.
God is with the babies violently slain.
God is with the grieving parents who refuse to be comforted.
God is with the community that has been left reeling in trauma.
Emmanuel does not mean God spares us from history.
Emmanuel means God enters it.
If we imagine God as a chooser of winners and losers, we will see the world that way.
If we imagine God as present-with rather than controlling-over, we will see the world differently.
When you look at the world, what do you see?
Be careful how you answer.
And, I believe, over the next 11 months as we journey with Jesus through Matthew, our answers may change. (That may be called repentance.)
And because I just have to walk down the hardest path, I’m going to ask this: When we claim Emmanuel – God with us – who is the Us?
