Hope Even in Darkness
Sermon preached by Dn. Jeff Smith on Sunday, December 29, 2024
Good morning. I would like to continue the theme begun by JD last week and continued by Fr. Antony on Christmas. That theme at its most basic is: “good things can come out of bad.” JD shared with us how spring was born out of winter and the shenanigans of the White Witch in C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia. Fr. Antony spoke about the yeast of the gospel pervading and lifting up all things, even the commercialism of the Christmas Season. Today, Jesus and his family are presented as refugees, fleeing for their lives from the danger of Herod to the safety of Egypt, as something new is always born out of darkness.
We read, “When the wise men departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, Rise, take the child and his mother and flee to Egypt and remain there, for Herod is about to search for the child to destroy him. So, Joseph rose, and he took the child and his mother by night, and they departed to Egypt and remained there until the death of Herod.”
Herod is such a familiar figure, a big man in his own eyes, who will do anything to protect his sense of power, even if it means killing 14,000 innocent children near Bethlehem. So much needless death because of the ego of one man. But has anything really changed over the centuries? It happens again and again. How is all that death redeemed? Today, we see Israel killing more than 30,000 women and children to protect themselves. We see the Assad regime willing to torture and kill for decades and destroy Syria. And of course, Russia is happy to destroy Ukrainian freedom and prosperity to preserve their visions of empire. It all reminds me of the thousands that Herod killed after the birth of Christ.
Nothing ever really changes. What happened then is happening now as we descend into darkness. But let’s look more carefully at the context. “This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: “out of Egypt, I have called my son.” And this was fulfilled, what was spoken by 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 were no more.”
The greater context here is a cosmological drama that is occurring before our eyes. This drama is occurring within us and around us. In a sense, death in Ramah, as horrible as it is, is a side story because the main story is the close escape of Jesus, that he was able to escape under the cover of darkness and go and live the first 10 years of his life in Egypt. The Jesus we know would have remembered Egypt, and if you go to Egypt today, you will find many, many inscriptions that say Jesus and his family were here as they track the Holy Family's whereabouts and journeys up and down the Nile River Valley.
So, what is the real drama that's taking place? We must direct our attention to the beginning of time, when God chose for his son to come into the world to become incarnate, to come into a world of violence to bring peace out of suffering. This is not easy because in order to build a new world, Jesus himself had to suffer and die. But out of his death comes new life and we are the result of that. We are the life of Christ born anew out of suffering. And we have hope even in darkness, even when times are like they are today. Today's gospel is a gospel of hope in the darkness, leaven for new bread, wine for new wineskins. Just like after Herod sought out the death of the Messiah, trying to destroy him to protect himself, the angel says, “now take your child for those who sought his life are dead.” Even the powerful die eventually. “And so, Joseph rose and took the child and his mother and went to the house of Israel. But when they heard that Archelaus still reigned, they were afraid to go there and went instead to Galilee and went to dwell in Nazareth so that what was spoken might be fulfilled: He shall be called a Nazarene.” All of these events are the result of prophecy fulfilled, and ultimately, we are that fulfilled prophecy. The deaths of the innocents are redeemed by Jesus’ death and resurrection on the cross. When Jesus dies, he is with those children and their mothers, and they are raised with him. And he is with us even now, during the tribulations in Gaza and Ukraine, and during the trials to come.
Thanks be to God.