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Sermon for Christmas 2
1 Peter 4:12-19 + Matthew 2:13-23
The delightful story of Christmas, followed by the awe-inspiring visit of the wise men, continues with a story of terror, fear, and uncertainty. On Wednesday we’ll backtrack to the story of the wise men’s visit to worship the newborn King. But today’s Gospel takes us to the terrifying events that followed their visit. In these events, we see the hand of God working out His plan of salvation, even behind the terrible slaughter of the little children of Bethlehem and the harrowing flight of the holy family to Egypt, and Matthew is careful to point out for us three fulfillments of prophecy in this story. Even amid the suffering endured by Jesus’ family and by the families of Bethlehem, prophecies were being fulfilled—three prophecies that should point all people to Jesus as the Christ, and as the Savior, not from earthly woes, but from the deadly consequences of sin.
If you’ve read Matthew’s Gospel, you’ve surely noticed how often he quotes from the Old Testament—about as often as the other three Gospel writers combined, always demonstrating to the Jewish audience to whom he’s primarily writing that Jesus in the promised Christ, the One to whom all the Scriptures pointed, and the true King of the Jews. Before our Gospel begins, he’s already mentioned two major Old Testament prophecies: about the virgin-birth of the Christ, and about His birthplace being the little town of Bethlehem. The next one has to do with Egypt. When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called My son, said the Lord through the prophet Hosea. But how does that prophecy point to Jesus? In fact, how is it a prophecy at all?
The prophet Hosea was writing about God’s history of dealing with Israel. This verse is talking about the nation of Israel in its infancy, when God adopted the nation as His son, so to speak, and then “called them out of Egypt” by rescuing them from slavery there, to bring them safely into the land of Canaan. A person could easily read that verse from Hosea and conclude that he was only talking about the nation of Israel and what happened to them in the past. But the Holy Spirit, speaking through Matthew, teaches us to view it not only as a word of history but as a word of prophecy, where Israel serves as a type or a pattern of the coming Christ. Just as God spoke to His “adopted son” Israel, calling them out of Egypt, so God speaks to His only-begotten Son Jesus as the representative of Israel and calls Him out of Egypt, back to the promised land, following the pattern of Old Testament Israel. Except that, while Israel proved to be an unfaithful son, always complaining against God his Father, always rebelling, always turning away to other gods, Jesus would prove to be the perfect Son, never complaining, never rebelling, never turning away from His beloved Father.
Now, how Jesus got down to Egypt in the first place is the terrible part of this story. When the wise men left the house where Joseph, Mary, and Jesus were, an angel warned the wise men not to tell Herod where the Child was. When they didn’t return to him, Herod issued the terrible order to kill all the baby boys of Bethlehem who were two years old and under, the act of a truly depraved, paranoid tyrant. But that, too, was the fulfillment of a prophecy from the book of Jeremiah: In Ramah a sound was heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children. And she refused to be comforted, because they are no more.
Many surely read those words as referring to the desolation that the Babylonians would bring on the land of Judea, to Ramah, that is, Bethlehem, where Jacob’s wife Rachel died giving birth to Benjamin some 2,000 years before Jesus was born, because the Babylonians would take all the Jews captive to Babylonia, including the inhabitants of Bethlehem, leaving the land empty of “Rachel’s children.” But Matthew, by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, indicates that God, through Jeremiah, was also referring to another future event, to the destruction of the children of Bethlehem that King Herod would carry out in his jealous rage.
Matthew doesn’t focus on the horror of that event. He assumes the reader is able to imagine it, as the soldiers went from home to home putting the little children to death. Understand, it wasn’t God who instigated King Herod to carry out this wicked thing. In His foreknowledge He certainly knew about it ahead of time. But it was the devil who was responsible for it, and Herod’s own wickedness. The story highlights for us just how much the devil hates human beings, just how much he loves violence, and just how determined he was to wipe out the newborn Son of God, who was born to destroy the works of the devil.
Not that Herod thought of it as working with the devil; he had his own motives for wanting to wipe out the One whom the wise men had called the “King of the Jews.” Herod thought this Child had been born as a threat to his earthly kingship, and the kingship of his family. But as Jesus later confessed, “My kingdom is not of this world.” It wasn’t God’s purpose to get rid of Herod, nor was it God’s purpose for His people to get rid of Herod, or to depose any of the kings or topple any of the governments of this earth, or to prevent all the wickedness and violence that men do, or the suffering that men suffer—not until He comes again in glory, when He will make all things right. No, God had sent His Son into the world to redeem the world from sin, that sinners might be reconciled with God, forgiven their sins, and saved from spending eternity in hell with the devil and his demons. But Herod didn’t know that, and didn’t care. He had no interest in the things of God, only in protecting his earthly throne, which meant wiping out anyone whom he saw as a threat.
So those little children of Bethlehem were wiped out from this earthly life. And if a good, long, cozy, comfortable life here on earth were the goal of our existence, then those children really missed out. But if making it safely through this life into the next life with God is the goal, then those children reached their goal more quickly than their parents did. Because those Israelite children were included by God among His covenant people, even as baptized babies today are included by God among His covenant people, whom He will not abandon; they’ve already died with Christ through Baptism, and their life, like the life of all believers, is hidden with God in Christ.
Meanwhile, God shielded His Son from Herod’s plot, and from the devil, because it wasn’t yet time for Jesus to suffer and die—though that day would surely come. For the moment, God sent an angel to warn Joseph to flee quickly to Egypt, where God watched over Jesus, and Mary, and Joseph until Herod was dead. And, incidentally, God saw to it that Herod died a wretched death, by all historical accounts. Herod had his day, and then his time was up. And then it was time for yet another prophecy to be fulfilled.
Joseph was instructed by the angel to return not to Bethlehem, or to Jerusalem, but to Nazareth, which, as Luke tells us, is where he and Mary were originally from. If they thought for a time that God wanted them to raise Jesus closer to Jerusalem, where the King of the Jews would naturally live, they learned that God had a different plan. They were to take Jesus to Nazareth and raise Him there. We can imagine several reasons for that, but Matthew reveals an important one: that what was spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, “He will be called a Nazarene.”
Notice here, Matthew doesn’t cite a certain prophet, but “the prophets.” There are a few explanations out there for this, but I think the most likely is that it’s a reference to the book of Judges, and we aren’t given the name of the prophet who wrote that book. There, the angel of the Lord foretold the birth of a special child whose name would be Samson. “He will be a Nazirite to God from the womb until the day of his death,” the angel said to Samson’s mother—Nazirite, from a Hebrew word that means, “consecrated” and that sounds like Nazarene. And it’s true, Samson was a type or pattern, in some ways, of the coming Christ, just as Israel was. Like Samson, Jesus would be consecrated to the Lord from the womb until the day of His death, His whole life dedicated to fulfilling God’s plan of salvation, becoming obedient unto death, even the death of a cross. As Samson was a judge of Israel, so Jesus will be the Judge of all. As the Spirit of God came upon Samson to give him incredible physical strength, so the Spirit would come upon Jesus to perform mighty miracles. As Samson singlehandedly delivered the Israelites from the Philistines, who were their enemies at that time, so Jesus would singlehandedly deliver us from the devil, who is the ancient enemy of all mankind.
Prophecy after prophecy was fulfilled in the life of Jesus, starting from His infancy, even amid the suffering caused by those who hated Him. Nothing the devil could do, nothing anyone could do, could alter the course of God’s plan for Jesus. In fact, all their attempts to get rid of Him only furthered God’s plans. The same is true for all of His children. The devil targets you in ways you can’t even see, and the world will find a way to make you suffer for leading a righteous life, and for confessing the name of Christ without fear and without compromise. Don’t worry about it. Don’t shrink back from it. Because nothing the devil can do, nothing anyone can do, can alter the course of God’s good plan for you. If that plan involves deliverance here on earth, God be praised. If it involves suffering here, or even death, so be it. The Christian life is not about seeking earthly comfort or earthly justice. It’s about clinging in faith to the Lord Jesus, and leading a life here that brings glory to Him, so that we can safely escape this world and enter with Him into the glory of His heavenly kingdom. Therefore, Peter writes in the Epistle, let those who suffer according to the will of God commit their souls to him in doing good, as to a faithful Creator. Because He is faithful. And just as all His prophecies about Jesus were fulfilled, so will be fulfilled all His prophecies about eternal joy and deliverance for His people after the suffering of this life is through. Amen.
