First Sunday after Christmas
“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.’”
Overview
Oh, faithful few, who come to church the Sunday after Christmas when so many are on holiday, staying with friends, visiting family. And what reward do you get? The massacre of the innocents.
It’s a bit of a downer after all the Christmas cheer. This is the part of the story we so often skip over: “the voice of Rachel wailing and weeping for her children” recounted in Matthew 2:13-23 and yet, this is why we need Christmas after all.
Innocents are still being massacred. We need the child born in Bethlehem, the one who will, as Isaiah 63:7-9 promises, redeem us in his love and pity. The child of Bethlehem who shows us that all God’s children are precious and call us to follow Joseph’s example in offering protection and refuge.
FIRST READING
Isaiah 63:7-9
Praise and prayer
I will tell of the kindnesses of the Lord,
the deeds for which he is to be praised,
according to all the Lord has done for us –
yes, the many good things
he has done for Israel,
according to his compassion and many kindnesses.
He said, ‘Surely they are my people,
children who will be true to me’;
and so he became their Saviour.
In all their distress he too was distressed,
and the angel of his presence saved them.
In his love and mercy he redeemed them;
he lifted them up and carried them
all the days of old.
GOSPEL
Matthew 2:13-23
The escape to Egypt
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.’
So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, 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.’
When Herod realised 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. Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled:
‘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
After Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt 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.’
So he got up, took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. 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, and he went and lived in a town called Nazareth. So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets, that he would be called a Nazarene.
