Patrick Comerford
Next Sunday, 29 December 2019, is the First Sunday of Christmas. We are in Year A in the readings in the Revised Common Lectionary, and during Year A we are working our way through Saint Matthew’s Gospel.
The Readings: Isaiah 63: 7-9; Psalm 148; Hebrews 2: 10-18; Matthew 2: 13-23.
There is a link to the readings HERE.
Introducing the readings:
The Sunday after Christmas can be something of an anti-climax in many churches, with low attendances, and many parishioners feeling they have already ‘done Christmas.’ Traditionally, this Sunday has also commemorates King David, Saint Joseph and Saint James the Brother of the Lord.
In the calendar of the Church of England, 29 December also commemorates Saint Thomas Becket, the martyred Archbishop of Canterbury. He is not named in the calendar of the Church of Ireland, although local lore in Wexford says Henry II spent Lent 1172 in penance at Selskar Abbey after the murder of Saint Thomas Becket.
This year (Year A), the Lectionary readings offer an opportunity to reflect on the role of Saint Joseph in the Incarnation, and also to reflect on the year that is passing and to look forward to the new year that is coming and the promises of saving grace.
Isaiah 63: 7-9:
This reading is written after the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem in 587 BC, when Jerusalem was left desolate (see Isaiah 64: 10) and the Temple has been destroyed by fire (64: 11), and indeed it may have been written after the return from exile and captivity.
In this passage, the Prophet Isaiah begins by recalling God’s gracious deeds in the past, when he kept his covenant with his people in ‘steadfast love.’ God then gave freely to them, trusted them and saved them from danger.
Isaiah recalls those ‘days of old’ when God’s presence protected the people, redeemed them and lifted them up.
Once again, we can expect God’s presence to protect and redeem us ‘in his love and in his pity.’
Psalm 148:
Psalm 148 is the appointed psalm for this Sunday in all three cycles of the lectionary readings. While the Old Testament, Epistle and Gospel readings change each year, the Psalm remains the same, remains constant.
Whatever our experiences of the old year have been, whatever our expectations of the new year may be, the praise God remains our shared, common, constant call.
In this Psalm, all creation praises God and gives thanks for God’s promises of saving grace.
Hebrews 2: 10-18:
God is creator of all things, and the writer of this letter reminds readers that all things exist for his purposes (verse 10). Through his saving plan, God brings his children to share eternal life.
And so Jesus calls us brothers and sisters, and the glorified Christ praises God in the midst of the ἐκκλησία (ekklesía), the great congregation or assembly of people called together in his name, the Church.
There are four images in this reading that show who Jesus is and what it means to follow him.
1, Christ is the ‘pioneer of salvation’ (verse 10): A pioneer set out the way forward for those who follow, sharing courage, innovation and adventure in search of a new place, a better life. Christ is the pioneer who opens the way to God the Father, the creator of all.
But a pioneer often suffers along the way, pushing through the uncharted landscape and overcoming difficult obstacles on the pathway. Christ is made perfect through sufferings. The word to make perfect in the Greek (τελειόω, teleióo) involves reaching a goal. Christ reaches his goal through his sufferings. His suffering is not the end but is part of the way to God, and this suffering is on our behalf. It conveys the love and grace that create a relationship with God, and assures those who follow him and who endure suffering, for it is in the Resurrection he has the last word.
2, Christ is our brother (verses 12-13): We are now part of the family of God, and Christ calls us his brothers and sisters.
3, Christ is the liberator (14-16): Many people find themselves in battles that are often played out in the local arenas, in their own lives, such as addictions, dysfunctional families, domestic abuse and violence, mounting debts, meaningless employment, poor housing, social marginalisation … So often, they are not free agents; instead, they are gripped by silent fear, and they cannot see how they can break free.
But Christ intrudes and brings deliverance through the love of God, shown in his own suffering and death. His crucifixion shows that God is not willing to let the world remain under the dominion of other powers. In the crucified and risen Christ, God confronts evil with love and deception with truth, to set people free.
4, Christ is the high priest (17-18): In his suffering and death, Christ is merciful and faithful, and his sacrificial love restores people to a true relationship with God.
Matthew 2: 13-23:
Saint Matthew alone among the four Gospel writers in recounting the flight into Egypt (Matthew 2: 13-23). For Saint Luke, the Holy Family goes to the Temple in Jerusalem, and then directly home to Nazareth.
In next Sunday’s reading, we hear how Saint Joseph learns after the visit of the Magi that King Herod the Great is plotting to murder the infants in his kingdom.
Herod the Great fears the new-born ‘King of the Jews’ that the Magi speak about is going to be a threat to his throne, and so he sets out to kill all innocent children under the age of two (Matthew 2: 1-8).
The wise men from the East (verse 1) came to Herod the Great asking ‘Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews?’ (verse 2). Now They have visited the child with Mary (verse 11), paid him homage, and offered him gifts. They have now returned to their own country (verse 12).
In yet another dream, an angel warns Saint Joseph of the plot, and so he takes the Virgin Mary and the Christ Child with him, and the family flee to Egypt (verse 13).
Egypt was to the west or south-west of Bethlehem a logical place to seek refuge: it was outside Herod’s kingdom, but both Egypt and Palestine were part of the Roman Empire, linked by a coastal road known as ‘the way of the sea.’ After a time, the Holy Family returns from exile in Egypt and settles in Galilee.
In this account, Matthew 2: 15 cites Hosea (11: 1) as prophetically fulfilled in their return from Egypt: ‘… and out of Egypt I called my son.’
We have yet to read about the Circumcision and Naming of Christ (1 January 2020) and the Epiphany (6 January 2020), so this Gospel reading, with its story of Saint Joseph’s dream and the Flight into Egypt, may seem out of sequence next Sunday.
This story can be read as a comparison with either Moses leading the people out of exile in Egypt or with the forced exile for many generations in Babylon. In either case, Christ is seen, from the beginning of his life, as leading people out of exile and slavery.
The story is often read as the final episode in the Nativity narrative, and is associated with this season of Epiphany. Perhaps this reading, with its events and its geographical setting, may present many parishes with an interesting opportunity to consider the plight of refugees, particularly in North Africa, the Middle East and the Mediterranean.
Or, perhaps, given the major political events of recent weeks, the story would have provided an interesting opening to discuss the policies and whims of demanding rulers.
Herod has all the infants in the area around Bethlehem area killed because he fears that Jesus may succeed to his throne, rather than one of his own sons (verse 16).
The Gospel reading then recalls the Prophet Jeremiah (verse 18) and how Rachel weeps over the exile of her sons, and then (verse 20).
In Joseph’s next dream, the angel’s message recalls God’s words to Moses as he sends him to lead Israel out of bondage. In this way, Christ is presented as the new leader of God’s people.
Herod the Great’s son, Herod Antipas, ruled Galilee benignly, compared to how his brother Herod Archelaus ruled in Judea. Some commentators suggest Joseph may also have chosen to make his home in Nazareth (verse 23) because he could find work at Sepphoris, the city being rebuilt 6 km nearby.
The closing quotation is not found in the Old Testament. Perhaps Saint Matthew is misquoting Isaiah, who says ‘a branch [nezer] shall grow’ out of Jesse’s ‘roots’ (see Isaiah 11: 1) – David was Jesse’s son.
‘Rest on the Flight into Egypt’ (1879), by Luc-Olivier Merson A reflection on the Gospel reading:
The painting ‘Rest on the Flight into Egypt’ (1879) by Luc-Olivier Merson (1846–1920) is in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. It is in Oil on Canvas and measures 71.8 cm x 128.3 cm. It was bought in Paris by George Golding Kennedy (1841-1918) of Boston, who bequeathed it to museum in 1918.
The scene Merson depicts is haunting and full of fatigue. An exhausted Saint Joseph is asleep, perhaps suffering from mental and physical exhaustion in his flight from danger with his wife and her baby, stretched out on the desert sands as he tries to doze off.
The Virgin Mary is resting in the arms of the Sphinx, cradling the Christ Child, both unable to sleep because of their plight, because of what they have witnessed.
The Christ Child seems to light up the whole scene but is beginning his life in exile, in homelessness, a refugee, an immigrant, a stranger in a strange land.
The donkey – that little donkey who becomes a domestic pet in children’s carols – is worn out from the journey from Bethlehem, and scavenges in the dark in the desert soil, seeking what few blades of grass he can find to eat.
By the time the 12 days of Christmas have passed, most of us will be tired of the seven swans a-swimming, the six geese a-laying … and only too happy to get back to work, and to begin looking at the summer holiday brochures.
However, this is not what it is like for the Holy Family in the days after their first Christmas. That first Christmas was not one filled with tedium and boredom. Their first Christmas was the very opposite to our comfortable holiday season in Northern Europe.
This painting by Luc-Olivier Merson reminds us of the stark reality of the hardship and deprivation suffered by a family on the run. Who among us would swap the tedium and boredom of the coming week for that time Mary and Joseph had with the Christ Child?
Harried by Herod’s army, they barely escaped a maniacal plot for mass murder, and ended up in exile where their ancestors had once been slaves, seeking succour and refuge with the Jewish diaspora by the Nile and the Pyramids.
The Flight into Egypt was no bargain package holiday. Rather, it was an ordeal that inspired artists throughout the centuries. It has been painted by Fra Angelico, Giotto, Carpaccio, Durer, Claude Lorrain, Tintoretto, Barbieri, Tiepolo … the great Dutch and Italian masters, indeed most of the great Western artists.
Saint Matthew’s unique account of this event in this morning’s Gospel reading had many resonances for his first readers: it is a powerful restructuring of the story of Joseph forced into exile in Egypt because of the evil plots hatched against him. And the exodus from Egypt in later, safer, days, would point anew towards redemption from slavery and sin and offer the hope of imminent salvation.
Later legends surrounding the Flight into Egypt include the family hiding in a cave and being protected by a spider’s web, the beasts of the desert bowing in homage to the Christ Child, an encounter with two thieves who would be crucified beside Christ on the Cross on Calvary, and palm trees bending in reverence as Mary and Joseph passed by with the Child Jesus.
Legend says that when they found shelter on the banks of Nile the Holy Family lived in an area known as Babylon in Egypt, where there was a long, continuous Jewish presence. Although those stories of flight and exile are unique to Saint Matthew’s Gospel in the New Testament, they also appear in the Quran, and are part of the way Muslims come to own the story of Jesus within their own religious traditions.
On various visits to Egypt, I was aware that the stories of the flight into Egypt, the refuge, the welcome and the asylum offered to the Holy Family there, are stories shared and definitive for all Egyptians, including Muslims, the large Christian community, and the dwindling but ancient Jewish community.
Many shrines and churches are claimed as places where the family rested or dwelt, none more so than Abu Sergha or the Church of Saint Sergius and Saint Bacchus, one of the oldest Coptic Churches in Egypt, and the place where many Patriarchs of Alexandria or Coptic Popes were elected.
Every Egyptian today – Jew, Christian and Muslim – identifies with both the Holy Family and those who offered them asylum. But who would we here in Ireland identify with if you and I were hearing this story of mass murder and enforced exile for the first time?
Would I have been among the innkeepers who first refused them a welcome at my inn or hostel in Bethlehem?
Would I have been willing to work with the political apparatus around the Herod of my day, holding onto power and privilege, inspiring fear rather than respect and loyalty, no matter who had to be trampled on, no matter who suffered, no matter how the innocent would be counted among the victims?
Would I have had the courage of the wandering Magi, not only to seek truth, even if it is outside my own area of learning and knowledge, but also willing to take the risks involved in refusing to respect the immoral demands of those holding the reins of power when they are lawful but patently immoral?
When was I last like Joseph, realising that God’s promptings are not idle dreams but that they demand discipleship and action, even if this puts my personal security at risk?
When did I listen to the voice of today’s Rachels, the weeping mothers and widows, whether at a local level it was listening to the grief of someone who has lost a dear family member at Christmas time, or at a global level it was listening to those who are weeping in grief in Syria and the refugee camps in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Greece, or facing hostility from local communities asked to host direct provision centres in Ireland?
The story of Herod’s jealous plot, and of a family fleeing in search of refuge continue to have radical relevance today.
We cannot be open to the plight of the fleeing Holy Family unless we are open to the plight and needs of the families who have come to live among us in Ireland in recent years – whatever their political, social or ethnic backgrounds may be.
We cannot understand the plight of families who saw the hope of future generations sacrificed in the interest of political greed unless we too are willing to stand against political and personal greed today.
We cannot praise the disobedience of the Magi unless we are willing to say regularly that morality in politics must overrule the personal interests, gain and profit of those who hold office.
We cannot rejoice in the welcome the Egyptians gave to Mary, Joseph and the Baby Jesus, unless we are also willing to rejoice in every initiative, every stage in the process of dialogue that brings Jews, Christians and Muslims together in our own country.
We cannot pity the plight of that family in exile unless we can acknowledge the needs of the new families living among us today.
Christmas is the story of the true insider who becomes a real outsider in order that we who in our reality are outsiders may truly become insiders.
A year before his death, the great missionary bishop in Zanzibar, Bishop Frank Weston, declared in 1923: ‘You have begun with the Christ of Bethlehem, you have gone on to know something of the Christ of Calvary – but … it is folly – it is madness – to suppose that you can worship Jesus in the Sacraments and Jesus on the Throne of glory, when you are sweating him in the souls and bodies of his children. It cannot be done.’
To paraphrase Bishop Weston, if we cannot realise the presence of Christ among us in the refugee, the asylum seeker, the immigrant and the person of another faith, that Christ who identifies with those who suffer and are persecuted as brothers and sisters, [Hebrews 2: 10-18], how can we be aware of his presence among us in Word or Sacrament?
Matthew 2: 13–23 (NRSVA):
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.’ 14 Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, 15 and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfil what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, ‘Out of Egypt I have called my son.’
16 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. 17 Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah:
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.’
19 When Herod died, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, 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.’ 21 Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel. 22 But when he heard that Archelaus was ruling over 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. 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 Nazorean.’
Liturgical Resources:
Liturgical Colour: White or Gold
The Collect of the Day:
Almighty God,
who wonderfully created us in your own image
and yet more wonderfully restored us
through your Son Jesus Christ:
Grant that, as he came to share in our humanity,
so we may share the life of his divinity;
who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Collect of the Word:
God of community,
whose call is more insistent
than ties of family or blood;
may we so respect and love
those whose lives are linked with ours
that we fail in loyalty to you,
but make choices according to your will;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
The Post-Communion Prayer:
Heavenly Father,
you have refreshed us with this heavenly sacrament.
As your Son came to live among us,
grant us grace to live our lives,
united in love and obedience,
as those who long to live with him in heaven;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Seasonal Variations (Christmas):
The Penitential Kyries:
Lord God, mighty God,
you are the creator of the world.
Lord, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.
Lord Jesus, Son of God and Son of Mary,
you are the Prince of Peace.
Christ, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Holy Spirit,
by your power the Word was made flesh
and came to dwell among us.
Lord, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.
Introduction to the Peace:
Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given,
and his name shall be called the Prince of Peace. (Isaiah 9: 6)
Preface:
You have given Jesus Christ your only Son
to be born of the Virgin Mary,
and through him you have given us power
to become the children of God:
Blessing:
Christ, who by his incarnation gathered into one
all things earthly and heavenly,
fill you with his joy and peace:
Suggested Hymns:
Isaiah 63: 7-9:
No suggested hymns
Psalm 148:
682, All created things, bless the Lord
24, All creatures of our God and King
683, All people that on earth do dwell
711 All you heavens, bless the Lord (Surrexit Christus)
350, For the beauty of the earth
705, New songs of celebration render
708, O praise ye the Lord! Praise him in the height
366, Praise, my soul, the King of heaven
709, Praise the Lord! You heavens, adore him
Hebrews 2: 10-18:
501, Christ is the world’s true light
259, Christ triumphant, ever reigning
94, In the name of Jesus
584, Jesus calls us! O’er the tumult
652, Lead us, heavenly Father, lead us
392, Now is eternal life
108, Praise to the Holiest in the height
Matthew 2: 13-23:
460 For all your saints in glory, for all your saints at rest (verses 1, 2v, and 3)
184, Unto us is born a Son
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
Material from the Book of Common Prayer is copyright © 2004, Representative Body of the Church of Ireland.
The hymn suggestions are provided in Sing to the Word (2000), edited by Bishop Edward Darling. The hymn numbers refer to the Church of Ireland’s Church Hymnal (5th edition, Oxford: OUP, 2000).
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