In All Our Particulars

Sermon, January 8, 2012

Second Sunday After Christmas

Rev. Dr. Craig S. Strobel

Matthew 2:13-18

 Now after the magi 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.’ Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, 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.’

 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. Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah: 
‘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.’

There is a poignancy to the drama that unfolds in this story relating the birth of Jesus:

·      The new family and the rush of events around them

·      The unscheduled birth in Bethlehem.

·      the visit of the magi

·      the dreams and threat to the baby

·      rushing off into exile

·      the living in fear

It surely is a strange scripture reading to place right after Christmas, with all its tinsel and glitter, its stories of sweet babies and sheep and cows in a manger. But it is a part of the Christmas story, and perhaps the most important part. You see, Matthew doesn’t want us to forget what the first Christmas was really like, in spite of our pretty Christmas cards and sweet carols. Jesus wasn’t born into a dream world, Matthew is saying. Jesus was born into the real world. The real world of Caesars and Herods, where newborn children pose threats to the rich and powerful. Where families already on the edge of society are forced to flee for their lives.
Robinson Jeffers poem:

Only an hour, only an hour from wars and confusion turn away
to the islands of old time when the world was simple and gay,
Or so we say.

And light lay the snow on the green holly
While oxen knelt at midnight,
Or so we say.

Caesar and Herod shared the world,
Snow over Bethlehem lay,
Iron the empire, brutal the time, dark was that first Christmas day.

(quoted in H. Laron Hall, "A Tale of Two Kings", in No Darkness at All, p. 50)

But Matthew is not writing about bad news. Matthew is writing good news, which is what a Gospel is. The good news is that it is right into the middle of all the bad news of our world that God chooses to come. And God cares about all the particulars of our world. The Gospel-Good News is all about God dwelling in the particulars of our world.
In all our particulars:

·      Not generalities. Not a general birth divorced from human history. Not general and vague good news. Very particular.

·      A particular people.

·      A particular government enforcing particular policies

·      A particular tyrant

·      A particular place: Bethlehem

·      A particular family: Mary, Joseph and Jesus

·      Particular fears and tragedies: massacre, threats to the baby’s life, hasty flight from death, life of exile as a political refugee

·      Return to a particular village: Nazareth

Many of you were here for the Christmas Eve service. Christmas eve services are always a wonder to me. The church often full of magic in the candlelight and full of people - often people we haven’t seen for awhile, often family returned for the holidays, and often people who visit twice a year. From where I sit I see other things as well. I see a person who struggles with alcohol. I see a family who has lost a father and husband. I see women whose husbands have died. I see people who have been on the wrong side of the law, and are trying to find their way back. I see people who may be celebrating their last Christmas. All of these people, in all their humanness, with all their particular problems and situations come and join their voices, "Joy to the world! The Lord is come!" they proclaim. The Good News is that it is just to us in all our particulars that God comes.
God is in all our particulars:
a. God not a concept, not a vague philosophical exercise.
b. God took on a particular human flesh and experienced particular human joys and terrors. Not enough to speak of fear, it has to be the fear of a new father and mother for their infant child facing the rage of a paranoid and ruthless tyrant. Not enough to speak of uncertainty, it has to be a family traveling the rough road between Bethlehem and Egypt, to live in an unknown place and among foreign people. Not enough to speak of healing, it has to be these ten lepers or this man’s daughter, or this particular disciple’s mother-in-law. Not enough to speak of love, it has to be this man’s tears by the tomb of his friend, or this man sharing his last meal with his friends. Yes, God does dwell in all of us, but the incarnation of God in the particular person Jesus of Nazareth proclaims that God cares for the particulars.
It doesn’t matter whether you view this story as historical fact, a creative retelling of events, or the mytho-theological creation of the early church. What matters is how you are captured body and soul by the story. What matters is you in all your particularity, you with your own infirmities and ailments of the body and soul, with your own fears about your future, or your own tears shed for your children, or your own medical treatments, or your own marital or relationship problems - you in all your particularity - this is what God cares about - this is what God comes to soothe, to salve, to shelter, to shatter, to set right, to rescue. All the particulars of your own flesh and all the particulars of your own situation - this is what matters. That is what the story is all about.