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Matthew 2:13-23
The Escape to Egypt
13 When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up,” he said, “take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.”
14 So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, 15 where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: “Out of Egypt I called my son.”
16 When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. 17 Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled:
18 “A voice is heard in Ramah,
weeping and great mourning,
Rachel weeping for her children
and refusing to be comforted,
because they are no more.”
The Return to Nazareth
19 After Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt 20 and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who were trying to take the child’s life are dead.”
21 So he got up, took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. 22 But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning in Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. Having been warned in a dream, he withdrew to the district of Galilee, 23 and he went and lived in a town called Nazareth. So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets: “He will be called a Nazarene.”
We don’t talk about this passage all the much, and the reason is obvious. The Magi are considered a part of the Christmas story, but during the Christmas season, people don’t want to think about a bloodthirsty dictator ordering the murder of innocent children. As you probably remember, King Herod had intended to get rid of the newborn “King of the Jews” when he heard about him. (And again, the reason is obvious.) But the Magi had gone home by another route without telling Herod where Jesus could be found. So in a rage, Herod ordered the execution of all the little boys in the vicinity of Bethlehem.
The most important thing about the coming of the Magi is probably that it marks the beginning of a process by which God called gentiles to his Son from beyond the boundaries of Israel. And the Magi weren’t just gentiles – they were also priests of a pagan religion. And according to the laws of Moses, that meant they were deeply sinful people. So with the birth of Jesus, God began to open the covenant to gentiles and to sinners alike.
But I think you could make a case that this wasn’t the first time God had reached out to draw in gentiles. God might actually have been doing that almost 600 years before – at the time of the Babylonian exile. The Jews traditionally interpreted the exile as God’s punishment for their sins. That might be true, but I can’t help wondering if it wasn’t also intended by God to be a massive program of outreach to the gentile world.
God had always intended that the covenant people would be “a blessing to all the families of the earth” (as he told Abraham when he announced the covenant). But the Hebrew people had shown no interest in being a blessing to other nations – they had insisted on keeping themselves separate from others. Then when the Babylonian exile dispersed the Jews all over the Middle East, God used the occasion to make himself known to lots of people in the gentile world. As the story of Pentecost tells us, by Jesus’ time, people came from all over the known world to worship God on important occasions.
But having said that, I suspect that another thing we’re meant to notice about the story of the Magi is that they needed the help of Hebrew scholars to find Jesus. He said he had come to fulfill the scriptures, and it was in those scriptures that the place of his birth was identified. So maybe the story of the Magi is intended to make the point that the Old Testament has teaching of value to followers of Jesus, as to the Jews..
All of which brings us to today’s reading, in which Herod, realizing that he had been outwitted by the Magi, unleashes his murderous violence.
You might remember that in past Reflections, we’ve said that New Testament scholars say the Gospel of Matthew was published to tell the story of Jesus to people who had been raised as Jews. So in compiling his gospel, Matthew took pains to report the parts of the life of Jesus that would connect it to the history of the Hebrew people. And one of the most important connections that Matthew saw was between the life of Jesus and the life of Moses.
If you recall, at the beginning of the book of Exodus, when the Hebrews were living in Egypt, Pharaoh came to regard them as such a threat that he ordered the midwives to kill every Hebrew baby boy at birth. In Matthew, another murderous dictator regards Jesus as such a threat that he tries kill every baby boy that could possibly grow up to be the king of the Jews. In both cases, of course, these dictators fail to thwart what God is doing.
And notice that when God sent an angelic messenger to Joseph, he directed him to take Mary and Jesus and flee to Egypt. So when Jesus is brought back to the promised land years later, he comes out of the same country Moses led the Hebrews out of in the Exodus.
Finally, notice that Matthew finds these events in the early life of Jesus to be foretold in the words of the Hebrew prophets. He quotes from Jeremiah in noting the suffering brought about by Herod. Matthew also finds a prophesy that the anointed one would be “called a Nazarene.”
As we said, Jesus understood his own earthly ministry, as well as his death and resurrection, to be a fulfillment of the whole history of God’s work among the covenant people – as that history was recounted by the scriptures. And Matthew, in telling the story of Jesus to the Jewish people, made a point to show his readers how many connections there were between the life and ministry of Jesus and the history and traditions of their people.
A message that can’t be ignored in this passage is that Jesus was – and still is – a threat to the powers of this world. And those powers, when they are threatened, tend to lash out in a spasm of murderous violence. (Maybe as in the Ukraine today.) But ultimately, that violence is destined to fail. The powers of the world did their worst to extinguish the light of Christ, but they were not able to overcome it.
Let’s pray. Lord, as we reflect on this tragic story from the early life of Jesus, help us to put our hope in you for protection from the forces of evil in the world, and to trust that the plans you have been working out from before the dawning of history will lead to your final victory – and that those of us who follow your Son will share in that victory. Amen.
Grace and Peace,
Henry
(The other readings for today are Psalms 146 and 147; I Kings 18:1-19; and Philippians 2:12-30. Our readings come from the NIV Bible, as posted on Biblica.com, the website of the International Bible Society.)
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