Christmas 2 Sermon 2020
Christmas 2 – Matthew 2
St. Andrew’s Lutheran Church, Laramie, WY
3 January A+D 2020
It’s not strange when a fiery trial comes to test you. It’s not strange. It’s normal for Christians in a sinful world. If you are suffering because of our sin, then remember that your Lord’s name is Jesus – the Lord saves, because He saves His people from their sins. Commend your suffering to God. Ask him for true repentance. Ask Him to make you sorry for your sin, so that you don’t grumble against God or those who have done you wrong. Ask Him for the comfort that the Holy Spirit gives in the Christchild, because He is born to comfort you.
If you are suffering because you are fighting against your sin, because God has shown you that life is not in sin, but in righteousness, then remember that you do not fight with your own good works. You don’t win the fight against sin because you are so strong. “Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants You have ordained strength” the Psalm says. And the old Sunday School song says it well, “Little ones to Him belong, / They are weak, but He is strong.” God strength is made perfect in weakness. If God forgives you your sins freely because His Son Jesus took them into Himself and died for them, then He will not abandon you to sins you are afraid of. It is not strange to feel anxiety and pain because you are resisting evil that your flesh wants. God is teaching you to love what is good because He loves you.
If you are suffering because the world opposes you trusting in Jesus, because the world thinks you are strange for wanting to be something that she is not, to be a child of God, then do not be ashamed. Do not think that the world has something that you need. You don’t need the world’s approval. You don’t need the approval of those who don’t know Jesus. You only need Jesus, and you have Him. “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of God.
If you are suffering because you have lost happy times, because your health is not good or because your job isn’t what you want it to be, or because you have lost loved ones, or because people who should show you kindness have been cruel to you, or because people with power over you are taking away from you what is good, then don’t grumble. It is God’s will to conform you to the image of His Son. It is God’s will to make you like His own dear Son, and we have this clearly portrayed for us in today’s Gospel lesson, where the little Child Jesus is kept safe in Egypt for a little while, while innocent babies are murdered. This is a great mystery, but it is in this mystery that we find a peace that surpasses all understanding. That the God of mercy and the Father of all comfort might give us this peace always, let us pray.
To me the preaching of the cross
Is wisdom everlasting;
They death alone redeems my loss,
On Thee my burden casting –
I in Thy name
A refuge claim
From sin and death and from all shame –
Blest be Thy name, O Jesus. Amen.
The Son of God came to this earth to join us in our weakness. He took on our mortal flesh and blood. The eternal God puts Himself in our place, under the Law that tells us to be good, but we aren’t. And He teaches us to find Him lowly, laid in a manger, wrapped in swaddling clothes, a baby nursing at His mother’s breast, though He feeds everyone by His own power. He changes our mind about Him, so that we don’t go looking for Him in our own thinking and speculation, but in His Holy Word, which places before our hearts a gentle and meek and loving Savior. He came to suffer for us and with us. See how the Bible teaches us to suffer with Him, so that we might also share in His glory.
Jesus is the true Israel. We call Him Israel par excellence, or the perfect Israel, because He becomes what Israel was supposed to be. As you may know, Israel is the name God gave Jacob after he wrestled with God and won. Israel means “God prevails.” This is a strange name to give Jacob who had just wrestled with God and won. Jacob had prevailed, not God. But God had prevailed. God struggled and wrestled with Jacob right before he had to meet his brother Esau, who very well might have been headed to kill him for stealing Isaac’s blessing from him. Jacob and a man, who was the Son of God before He became a man, wrestled all night long. The man, who was Jesus before He was born, said, “Let me go!” But Jacob said, “I will not let go unless You bless me!” And the blessing God gave was the name Israel. God prevails. God won by blessing Jacob. God wins when you won’t let go unless He blesses you. God wins when in suffering you cling to Him who alone can help you.
But another fascinating thing happens. Jacob, now Israel, asks the man he is wrestling with to tell him His name. And the man replies, “Why is that that you ask about My name?” And He blessed him there. The reason the man did not tell Jacob His name is because this same man, who was the Son of God in the form of a man, would one day take this same name Israel, and give this same name to all who suffer with Him.
This story is helpful for understanding what Matthew means when he quotes the prophet Hosea (11:1), when he says, “Out of Egypt I called My Son.” The whole verse goes like this,
When Israel was a child, I loved him,
And out of Egypt I called My Son.
We have a picture of Israel in Jacob and in his children that Jesus finally fulfills, and then paints in our lives. It is a picture of suffering and death and redemption.
You heard in the Old Testament lesson how Jacob, Israel, was going to Egypt to see his son Joseph, who had become a great ruler there to save his family from starvation in famine. And God appeared to Jacob in a dream and told him that he would be with him in Egypt and would bring him back from Egypt. But the Scriptures tell us that Jacob died before he went back to the Promised Land to be buried. Only a dead Israel returned to the land God promised to him and his descendants.
Then Israel became the name of Israel’s descendants, a great and mighty people. But a Pharaoh rose who did not know Joseph, and he persecuted Israel, and made them slaves. They had to be in bondage, doing the will of an evil king. The king was afraid for his power, and so when he saw Israel growing and becoming strong, he ordered that all the male babies be drowned in the Nile. But one woman saved her baby, Moses. And she put him in a waterproof basket and let him float on the Nile. There he was found by Pharaoh’s daughter, who adopted him as her own child. So Moses was saved by Egypt, and he grew up to defend Israel, and finally God used him to redeem, to rescue Israel from bondage to Pharaoh in Egypt. And through the hand of Moses God called Israel out of Egypt. God loved Israel as his own son, and led them out of Egypt. Out of Egypt I called My son.
Now look at Jesus. He is born to save His people from their sins. The bondage was not physical labor, but spiritual servitude. Jesus says, “Whoever sins is a slave of sin.” (John 8) The bondage Jesus came to deliver us from was the horrible slavery to doing what is evil, to the death that sin causes, to the devil who teaches us not to trust in God, but to desire what is evil. There is no worse bondage than this.
But just as Pharaoh was afraid because of Israel, so King Herod was afraid because of Israel. The wise men came and told him they were looking for the one who was born King of the Jews. So Herod found out when the child was born, and when the wise men didn’t tell him where this king was, he sent soldiers to kill all the babies a year old (the Hebrews counted a baby a year-old already) and under, all around Bethlehem. But like Moses, Jesus was saved this fate.
So many suffered while Moses was saved so that he could save his people. So many innocents died while Jesus was saved so that he could save his people. So it goes with Israel. We suffer for the Savior who suffers for us.
God prevails in faith, when we trust in Him as Jacob did. And God prevails because He is the true Israel. The Son of God, born of the blessed Virgin is the Israel whom God loved when He was a child, and whom He called out of Egypt.
Moses led the people into the wilderness and gave the Law, the Ten Commandments. But did Israel obey the Ten Commandments? No. They wanted to return to bondage in Egypt if only they could satisfy their appetites. Moses rescued them from bodily slavery, but he could not rescue them from the slavery to sin. Israel went on to worship the Baals and sacrifice their own children in the Promised Land. Pharaoh had stolen their children to kill them in the Nile, but they willingly offered their own children to gods that were not gods.
So it is today. So many are concerned about the possible 350,000 deaths from Covid, but nobody reports on the over 1 million babies killed in America alone in the last year through abortion. You can’t go to Church in many places, but you can go to the temple of the Baals and sacrifice your child there. Herod runs for political office and wins. Pharaoh isn’t that bad for throwing babies into the Nile, as long as he gives us enough to eat. So goes the world always. Things haven’t changed. It’s the same world, and we have the same flesh. We have the same bondage. We need God to call the true Israel out of bondage, out of Egypt.
Isaiah called Jesus Israel before Hosea did. He calls the man who wrestled with Jacob the true Israel. Listen from chapter 49,
And He said to me,
“You are My servant, O Israel,
In whom I will be glorified.”
The Bible scholars try to say this is the nation of Israel, as do many dispensationalists. But that can’t be, because in the verses right after this, Isaiah goes on,
And now the Lord says,
Who formed Me from the womb to be His Servant,
To bring Jacob back to Him,
So that Israel is gathered to Him
(For I shall be glorious in the eyes of the Lord,
And My God shall be My strength),
Indeed He says,
‘It is too small a thing that You should be My Servant
To raise up the tribes of Jacob,
And to restore the preserved ones of Israel;
I will also give You as a light to the Gentiles,
That You should be My salvation to the ends of the earth.’ ”
Do you see? Jesus is the true promised Israel. Israel will bring Jacob back to God and Israel will be gathered to the one who was just called Israel. And then he is promised to the Gentiles, to us non-Jews, when God says that he will be a light to the Gentiles. This is what old Simeon called Jesus in the Temple – a light to lighten the Gentiles! Jesus is Israel par excellence. He is the Israel we need to be called out of Egypt. He is the Israel who delivers Israel and all nations from the bondage of sin. He is the Israel who knows the suffering of Israel, and He goes after the cause of all the suffering. He attacks sin and death and evil and the entire world with His own life and suffering and death. And He does it for poor suffering sinners.
The first Israel, Jacob, was called out of Egypt dead. The second Israel, the nation, was called out of Egypt and wanted to go back. The first Israels suffered, but their suffering wasn’t enough. We needed God to call Israel out of Egypt again. We needed to be released from death and bondage to sin. We need God to prevail over our sin and in our suffering with His suffering and death for our sins.
Jesus takes our place, but others must take His place before Him, so that we learn not to trust in anyone but the Savior of whom Hosea (11:1) and Matthew (2:15) speak,
When Israel was a Child, I loved Him,
And out of Egypt I called My Son.
Now learn what this means, because many innocent babies died around Bethlehem in the place of the One who came to die for them. Learn what it means for God to call His Son out of Egypt, because over 43 million babies were murdered this year alone by Herods throughout the world. Learn what it means for an angel to appear to Joseph in a dream and protect this one little Child over all the others, because sinful men will give everything away, freedom, family, wealth, honor, love, and joy just to protect a few more minutes for themselves on this earth.
Don’t learn the truth you need from scientists because the Bible (1 Tim 6:20-21) says, “[Avoid] avoiding the profane and idle babblings and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge (science) - by professing it some have strayed concerning the faith.” Don’t learn the comfort you need from the historians because the great Jewish historian Josephus loves to describe Herod’s shameful and painful death, but doesn’t consider the murder of dozens of innocent children around Bethlehem worth mentioning in his Histories, just as people are more concerned with a tallied 350,000 dead in America from Covid this year rather than the over 43 million unborn babies murdered by Pharaoh and Herod this year on this earth. Don’t learn from the psychologists who mine the minds of men, because “The heart – the mind! - is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked! Who can know it?” (Jer. 17:9) Don’t learn from your own thinking, because the Lord says (Prov. 3:5), “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding.” Don’t learn the truth from the government because the Holy Ghost says (Ps. 146:3-4),
Do not put your trust in princes,
Nor in a son of man, in whom there is no help.
His spirit departs, he returns to his earth;
In that very day his plans perish.
No, if we must learn to know why Jesus fled from Israel and into Egypt, then we must learn why God had to call Israel, His Son, out of Egypt. This is no small part of the plan of salvation. It is the fulfillment of the promise to Adam and Eve, to Noah, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and Joseph, to Judah and to David, and to Mary, the blessed Virgin, and to Joseph, who took her as a wife but did not know her until she had brought forth her first born Son, wrapped Him in swaddling clothes, and laid Him in a manger. It is the fulfillment of God’s promise to those who are suffering, to those who can’t find anything on this earth that can alleviate this suffering because this earth only offers hopes from this earth. But we have a hope come down from heaven and wrapped in our flesh and with swaddling clothes and laid in a manger.
Egypt is bondage. It is our condition. Jesus goes to the place that held His ancestors in bondage. He goes to where the babies were drowned in the Nile while the babies are killed around where He was born. He goes to where Israel suffered. His first years are in exile. God joins us where we are. He seems far away from our suffering. Like Moses He is preserved while others suffer and die. Why?
Because He is Israel, the true Israel. He is the God who prevails over your worst fears, over your secret sins, over the suffering and death and misery of the world. And He does so by taking Israel’s place and the world’s place. He hears Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted because they are no more. He knows her crying, and He weeps with her. He knows your suffering and He weeps with you. How could God be aloof from your suffering when He became a man permanently for all eternity first of all to suffer in His flesh and blood everything that man has every suffered?
Because it was not a mere man that Jacob wrestled with, and it is not a mere man who flees to Egypt. God calls His only begotten Son out of Egypt. He calls the true Israel who wrestles with God and wins. How does He win? He clings to God in the midst of all His suffering, while God lays on Him all of your sins and the guilt of the whole world, while God clothes Him with your shame as He clothed Him with your flesh and blood, while God lays on Him the punishment we have earned, the death that will come upon us as it came upon the innocent babies around Bethlehem – all the while that Jesus suffers, He clings to God. He will not let go until God blesses Him. He will not let go until God prevails over our slavery and sin and death and sadness and fear. He trusts in Him the entire time. He obeys Him to the point of death, even death of the cross. He wins God for us in His suffering for us.
Therefore if you are suffering because your sins, cling to Him who suffered for your sins and removed them from you as far as the east is from the west. And if you are suffering because you are fighting against your sins, then cling to Him who alone overcame them. And if you are suffering because the world is so sad and you have lost much that is good, then cling to Him who overcame the world by taking the world’s sin into His own body on the tree until it was no more, until His blood had washed it all away, and His sufferings had ended the Law’s accusation against you, and His death had paid the wages of all sin, and there is now no longer any bondage, any slavery. He dies righteous, with all sin atoned for, and He rises righteous to call you out of Egypt, to put His name on you, and say, “If you have not prevailed; if you have failed and fallen into sin, into fear of this world, into anything that makes you doubt me, yet God prevails, I prevail, I win the battle for you, O Israel. Trust in me.
Out of Egypt I call my son. Out of the bondage of sin, from a world where life is destroyed so easily and where fear confines us so readily – out of Egypt I call you, because I call you My child. I put My name on you. You will no longer be called sinner, but saint. You will no longer be called Jacob, but Israel. Trust in Me. If My suffering for you delivered you from the bondage of sin and death, then your suffering with Me can only be for your good. Do not despair.
Judgment begins with the house of God. Don’t think it is strange when God tests you, when He points out sins in your life that your flesh loved, but they were driving you away from God and hurting your neighbor. Don’t think it is strange that God shows you this. He shows you bondage only to call you out of it. We have the true Israel with us. God is with men in His temple. He is now our flesh and blood. He is with us not to deliver us to bondage, but to save us from slavery.
You are saved from sin, from that horrible bondage that cares only for a short life on earth and nothing for little babies – you are saved from relying on yourself, and you are saved as a little baby, just as God became one. Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings God ordained strength. From the cry of a baby for food, for mercy, comes the strength you need to suffer and prevail. Because it is in your weakness that God wins. It is through the faith of a child who cries out, Hosanna! Save now! that God prevails over you, and convinces you to believe that you are not alone, you are not rejected by God, you are not in bondage anymore. You are free, because God has called you out of Egypt with His Son, and He has given you the name Israel. God prevails. Yes, He does. Yes, He has.
Then let us take up our cross and follow Him. “Shun not suffering, shame or loss, / Learn from Christ to bear the cross.” It can only be for your good. The blood of the first martyrs was not shed in vain. All of your tears He preserves in His bottle. All of your sufferings He calls His own, because they all lead you to Him. They all lead you to hear, “Come out of Egypt, my son, my daughter, my child. You are no longer a slave. You have prevailed because God prevails. Christ prevails, and He always will. Amen.