Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Luc Thuku, OHC
Christmas 2 B - Sunday, January 3, 2021
The first reading we heard today from the prophecy of Jeremiah is urging us to sing aloud with gladness, to raise a shout, to proclaim and give praise and say “save oh Lord your people, the remants of Israel”. If we can remember well, Jeremiah chapters 30-34 is called the book of encouragement or the book of consolation. When the book was being written, northern Israel or Jacob was in exile in Assyria. They had been out of the land for over a century and a half, and it seemed that they were no longer God’s people. Actually by this point in history they could hardly be distinguished as a people at all. They were scattered and spread abroad and indistinguishable from the rest of the world.
God however, in the section we read this morning, is promising through Jeremiah that a time is coming when all Israel, not just Judah, but all Israel would be God’s people; His special people. A people devoted and loyal to Him. The gathering will be accompanied by weeping and repenting and this repentance will result in rest for them, walking by rivers of waters in a straight way where they will not stumble. This message may sound like it is speaking of the Israel of Old, which is by the way still not fully re-united as a nation under the true God, but it applies to us too, the new ‘Israel’ by adoption. We are living in exile in the world today enslaved by capitalism, crazy political ideologies, racism, hate and unbelief. We live at a time when Christian witness is in dire need but also very difficult to practice. The words of Jeremiah are therefore a consolation and an encouragement to us to sing the praise of God as we remember the incarnation, the second and important step in our liberation.
My tribe, the Kikuyu people, have a saying that “Guciara ti bata ta kurera”. Losely translated it says that giving birth is not as important as rearing the child. It could, and does also mean giving birth is the easier part...nurturing is the more difficult part. This applies not only to procreation but to any endeavor that one involves self into including matters of faith. One would think that Jesus as God being born in human form would make things easy especially to the parents. However, no one learns the difficulty of bearing God sooner, than Joseph and Mary. In the Gospel passage we read today from Matthew 2:13-15, 19-23. They are soon, through Joseph, warned by an angel, in a dream, to get up and be on their way to Egypt to escape Herod who was after the new born child. In that small portion that we read this morning, Joseph dreams 3 different times and acts as per instructions all 3 times!
I am always impressed by the way Joseph is presented as a discerning man. He has the ability to discern that the content of his dreams is from God and to act upon it immediately. This however doesn't just happen from nowhere.... Joseph shared the anticipatory faith of his ancestors. He knew by faith the God of Israel and as a just man, he would have meditated on the law of his Lord, on the Torah, and on the history of Israel constantly. He knew how God had acted in the lives of the first crowd of witnesses, the likes of Abel, Enock, Noah, Abraham and Sarah, Moses and David and down to the last of the prophets who had all received divine approval because of their faith in the promises of God. Although Joseph died without seeing the final fulfillment of the mission of Jesus, he like the crowd of witnesses of the Old Testament believed, lived and suffered for the promised Christ. Joseph’s earthly wonderings wholly consecrated to the incarnate Messiah reveal faith as the foundation of his life. Joseph’s was an active faith and not passive resignation! Joseph could accept without full explanation, the many trials in the life of the holy family. Infused with the Spirit’s fortitude, he could leave off all his plans to serve as the caretaker of the Son of God. This comes from the realism of faith or if you like Christian Realism. Because Joseph knew the real truth of God, he had a realistic and true perspective on his own situation.
How many of us receive mesages from God but do not act on them for lack of faith, for lack of the Spirit of discermnment or for fear of being laughed at, or being thought to have gone crazy! We fail to accomplish our mission, the very mission for which we have set ourselves apart as Christians and as Religious to seek and do, because we want to be compliant with the world. In the judgemental world we live in, we can be easily shamed to think that when we live our convinctions we are not Christian enough or acceptable or even compliant enough.
Although Christianity is a communal religion, God calls, redeems, sets us apart, sends, uses, saves and will acomplish salvation to you and me as an Individual. Joseph demonstrates this clearly. The first time God spoke to him in a dream was about Mary’s pregnancy, he never went to consult. He just obeyed his discerned intrepretation of the dream and acted upon it. This second round after he is asked to move to Egypt, the most difficult of situations, leading his family into and out of exile in Egypt, Joseph knew to trust God. He right away acted without consultations or even seeking opinions. He just took the baby and his mother that very night and off he went. Even along the winding desert paths, the sight of Mary holding the Son of God gave him assurance in the reality of the long awaited Christ and this gave purpose to his steps and endurance in adversity. I am not trying to minimize the importance of consultation nor its place in the process of discernment and Spirituality, but the final world should come from one’s experience of God, especially where doing otherwise would be going against one’s conscience.
Can you imagine if Joseph had wasted time consulting or in indecision and Herod had caught up with them?....Yes! now can you imagine the consequences that befall the world every time you and I fail to respond to God’s directives that are whispered into the ear of our hearts, waiting for clarity or to be sure! So why seek refuge in Egypt of all places! We know Egypt was viewed as an evil place, a Godless place by the Hebrews after the incidents of the enslavement of the descendants of Jacob and the passover event. Why would God then direct Joseph to go there? Could it be to fulfil the prophecy that “out of Egypt I have called my son?” May be! Could it be that it would be hard for Herod to think that it is hard for a new born king of the Jews to be in Egypt? That is a possibility! However I believe the significance of it is to show that the kingship of the new born king is universal. Egypt too needed a Savior, Egypt too needed santification, and Egypt had a role to play for a second time in the history of salvation, by protecting the Savior of the world just as they protected God’s people from being wiped out by famine when Joseph the dreamer went there followed by his father Jacob and brothers. God’s ways are not our ways and with God all, including those whom we view as enemies or oppressers, are invited to salvation and also have a part to play in facilititating or hastening its coming!
The scriptures tell us that Jesus is the same yesterday, today and always. He is therefore still being born in the world two thousand and twenty years down the line. The Herods of this world are still hunting him down to kill him because they are afraid of the truth, of change and of criticism! Jesus is still being exiled as a refugee. The sad thing is that unlike Egypt of Old, the “Egypts” of today represented by the wealthy, mostly Christian, Western nations are turning him back at their borders to be killed and maimed. They have chosen to abdicate their role of protector and brothers’ keeper despite claiming they are led by Christian ethos. They have failed to discern what the will of God is and when it is put clearly before them, they choose not to act on it.
As Christians, we are called to be other Christs like Jesus whose birth we celebrate as well as Christ carriers like Joseph his most discerning father and gurdian. It is no easy task but the one who calls us reminds us through Paul this morning in the letter to the Ephesians, that we were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world to be Holy and blameless before him in love. We were destined for adoption as his children through Jesus according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace that is freely bestowed on us in the beloved and as the beloved!
Let us pray with Paul that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of glory, may renew in us the spirit of wisdon and revelation as we come to know him so that with the eyes of our hearts enlightened, we may know the hope to which he has called us, what the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints are, and what is the immesurable greatness of his power for us who believe! It is only then that we can be able to look back with Christian realism and see the Emmanuel, God with us, especially as we contemplate the year just ended two days ago that was marked by adversity for all, whether more or less grave. We like all the holy people before Christ are wayfarers even as we embark on a new calendar year. But now the promise has been fulfilled. The Christ has come and with the discernment and courage like that of Joseph, we can look at Jesus who is the pioneer and perfector of our faith for he alone is our hope!
Amen.
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