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New Home in Christmas

Matthew 2:13-23

December 30, 2007

Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.

It’s only been a mere five days since Christmas so what are we going to do with a story like this? We are still Christmas-drunk! We are stuffed with honey-baked ham and See’s candies. The relatives aren’t leaving until Tuesday. The kids are home from school for another week. You have six gifts to return to five different stores. The house is a wreck, the world is a mess, and we’re supposed to be still singing holiday songs!

Maybe this story is exactly what we need this week. Maybe what we really need is to simply hear what happened.

Jesus wasn’t born because your house is Christmas-picture perfect. He was born because your house is a wreck and the world is a mess. He was born, and right away, a lot of little children in Bethlehem died. Because let’s get something straight: liberation costs something. Grace isn’t cheap.

No Home

Matthew tells us that when Herod heard of the birth of the Christ Child, “he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him…” (Mt. 2:3) Jerusalem was frightened not of the Christ Child but of Herod. History tells us that this king killed one of his wives, a brother-in-law, and three sons because he thought they had designs on his throne. Herod was always reacting from fear, and in this case, feeling threatened that another king might be born to challenge him.

After the wise men left Mary, Joseph and Jesus, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph to flee to Egypt because Herod was about to search for the baby. Jesus had no home at Christmas. When Herod learned that he had been tricked by the wise men, he got angry and shockingly violent. He ordered the massacre of all the children two-years or under to make sure he didn’t miss killing Jesus. Some scholars believe the slaughter was probably between 20 to 50 young male children. There was nothing that comes close to anything that we can imagine of the warmth and sentimentality of “being home for Christmas” for these families who lost their babies.

When Herod finally died, an angel of the Lord once again appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt that it was safe now to return to the land of Israel—to go home. But when they returned, they learned that Herod’s son was now in charge over Judea and being afraid and getting another warning in a dream, they went to Galilee where they made their new home in Nazareth.

There are some stories in the Bible we don’t like to tell, but we have to tell. This text from Matthew is about terror—a story of genocide. We tell them to keep from forgetting because as human beings, we have this tendency for selective amnesia. It’s the reason why there is a Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. or the United Flight 93 Memorial in Union City or when I visited the Peace Park in Hiroshima, Japan: to remember. No one particularly enjoy a visit to these memorials. “Enjoy” is the wrong word entirely, but no one forgets it, either. No one can leave it unchanged, without a resolve to be a witness. The only purchase I made for myself on this recent trip to Japan was a glass sculpture of a paper crane so that I would never forget the tragedy that happened in Hiroshima when the atomic bombs were dropped. It now sits on our kitchen counter serving as a daily reminder that we must be resolved to find an answer to peace.

Refugees

When Jesus and his parents fled to Egypt, they became refugees. There is something like 50 million refugees around the world; of that, 10 million are from Sudan. Iraqis fleeing from war. Kurds crossing over to Turkey. Afghans migrating to Pakistan. Palestinians going to Lebanon. Karens from Burma crossing the border to Thailand and now coming in the thousands to the U.S. Mexicans and Central Americans crossing the border at night to California. And it wasn’t that long ago when our forefathers and mothers came by boats as immigrants to gold mountain and sandalwood hills. Millions are jobless, homeless, and hopeless.

It’s no surprise that one of the key topics in the 2008 presidential elections will be on immigration and what to do about it. Will we continue to be a home for the millions who are seeking safe haven from terrible rulers like Herod?

Like Moses, Jesus became a refugee in Egypt and spent a good number of years in the in-between spaces of society. It must have made him sensitive to what being an outsider means. It must have made him understand what it’s like to never quite fit in. It must have made him aware of what a gift of life was, and how that gift could never be taken for granted. Other families in Bethlehem had paid dearly when he was born. Whether Jesus liked it or not, he was linked to them. He survived and they didn’t.

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Jesus was born into a violent world. But if he were born today, would he be any safer? In the United States alone, 18 million children are without adequate medical and dental care. Every minute, a child is molested or abused in our country. In the larger picture, every ten seconds, somewhere in the world a child dies of hunger. If Jesus were born today, he would face similar problems of survival.

Dark Side of Christmas

A doctor, lawyer and an engineer were discussing which of their professions came first. The doctor was confident medicine was the first profession. “When God removed Adam’s rib he performed surgery, that proves medicine was the first profession.” The engineer quickly pointed out that when the earth was dark and void, God created light, the stars, the sun and the moon. That was engineering. The lawyer, then, had his say. “Where do you think the darkness and chaos came from?”

Even in our celebration of Christmas, we are confronted with the reality of evil, the dark side of life. As the lawyer pointed out, evil is a reality. It infringes on our Christmas holidays and casts a cloud on our New Year festivities. While we might want to only watch football this time of the year, life’s difficulties do not take a vacation.

In the news this week, we saw the former prime minister of Pakistan Benasir Bhutto assassinated; on Friday, a car bomb went off in one of Baghdad’s busiest intersections killing 8 and injuring 64; and since the beginning of the war in Iraq in 2003, 3,901 American soldiers have died.

It’s the kind of life we live these days, in the midst of terrorists who, just as King Herod, have no regard for human life, and attack indiscriminately against innocent men, women, and children.

Home at Christmas

The evil in the world is the reason for Christmas. The Christmas story tells of God’s light entering a dark world.

Jews and Christmas view the Messiah differently. Jews believe that where the Messiah is, there is no misery. Christians, according to the gospels, believe that where there is misery, one will find the Messiah.

One of the first question that is asked whenever tragedy strikes is: “Where is God?” We heard it following 9/11. We hear it in the loss of a loved one. I said it when I visited the Peace Park in Hiroshima in October.

At the 40th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, the director of the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. addressed the question. A child of survivors of Auschwitz, Menachem Rosensaft asked, “Where can we find God in this kind of world? God is not in the evil machine that ran that camp. God was with the prisoners. God was in their compassion for one another, in the joke they told, or the song that they sang to relieve the misery of a fellow human being.” In the midst of our misery, God is present.

We are home at Christmas is when we believe that God is present even in the face of evil.

One of the most dramatic stories of pastoral care involved William Sloan Coffin, then pastor of Riverside Church in New York City. When a man in his church lost a loved one, the funeral service was held on a cold, miserable day. After everyone else left the gravesite, the man stayed there, in the rain and cold, for several hours, dealing with his grief. When he finally turned to return to his car, directly behind him stood Pastor Coffin. Coffin had stood with him the entire time to offer comfort. In the midst of our misery, we find the comforting presence of God.

We are home at Christmas is when we believe that God is present even in the face of death.

When it was safer again to return to Israel, the holy family had a rebirth of hope and homecoming. It was time to leave their exile in Egypt in the past and to begin a new chapter in their life. As we celebrate the New Year, may it be possible for you to leave the old year behind, with its problems as well as its successes, and begin a new chapter in your lives. On this final Lord’s Day of 2007, why not mark the end of the year as like Jesus’ return from Egypt, as a chance to leave the old year behind, to give it up to God, to express gratitude for its new experiences, and to look forward in hope of all the promises awaiting you in 2008?

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We are home at Christmas is when we believe that God is present even in the uncertainties that we will undoubtedly face in 2008.

New Home in Christmas

For the past two Sundays, I have been preaching about “home.” Maybe it’s somewhat true that I’m a little homesick when I’m not in Boston with my family. And if I have as the result of my personal needs, imposed on you this persistent theme of being “home for Christmas,” I must apologize.

But when I consider the powerful meaning of what Christmas means to us and how like the holy family had to flee from their home because of terrorism and madness and how we are still dealing with horrible evil in our recent history as well as at this very moment, I, like you, struggle with the meaning of finally being home with God.

Although I still have this longing and nostalgia for “home in Boston,” I know I can’t go home to Boston anymore. I may go there to visit and to even reminisce about what it was like and can still say that I’m originally from Boston; and the Patriots are 16-0! But I know I can’t go back there anymore. As a refugee, I have made my home with you in San Francisco. There’s something true when they say that you can never go home again. Like Jesus, he couldn’t go home to Judah and made his new home in Nazareth.

When we truly understand the meaning of Christmas, we realize that we are changed forever—we can’t go home to the same place again.

This little baby brought about a new kingdom, a new rule, a different sort of sovereignty. After welcoming him into our world, there’s a sense in which none of us can ever go back to our normal homes again. He makes us all “refugees” from our old, accustomed ways of doing things.

Some of us here may still want to hold on to those accustomed ruts, those familiar places and dream only about the past. Then you met Jesus. The babe at Bethlehem was born into your life, your world. And everything got disrupted. You were forced to move out of your familiar home and became a refugee for him.

A pastor tells a story about a phone call he received from a person he knew only casually. The person is a distinguished retired businessman in his community. The pastor had met him at a school board some years ago and remembered him as the one who argued against special efforts to work racial diversity in the city schools. The pastor remembered him as rather insensitive and tough-nosed.

But here he was calling the pastor, seeking his help in organizing the town’s pastors for a neighborhood center that he had adopted. The center works with drug addicted, jobless, and hopeless youth.

Perhaps the surprise showed in the pastor’s voice. Perhaps the man remembered their last time together so many years ago. Perhaps he picked up the pastor’s shock that someone like him—conservative, hard-nosed, tough-business person—should be so deeply concerned to help these unfortunate youth. But then the man voluntarily shared that he had, “a remarkable experience a couple of years ago.”

“What remarkable experience?” the pastor inquired.

“I met Christ. He made me take a hard, honest look at my life and I didn’t like what I saw. I had to make a change. I’m not the same person I was just a few years ago. I’m not living in the same place in the world. Through the love of Jesus, I’ve made a move.”

This man found a new home in Christmas. Since Jesus was born among us, we can’t go back to our old homes anymore because there’s a new home for us in Christmas. This new home in Christmas must welcome all the refugees and immigrants in the world. This new home in Christmas must save all of the children in the world. This new home in Christmas has caused a remarkable change in us so whenever there’s misery, we know that God is present and he will always be.

Let us pray.

Gracious God, in the midst of such tragedy and evil, you have given us our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Remind us and reassure us that even against terror of unimaginable scope, you are present with us; revealing to us the power of love established in Christmas. Grant us the faithfulness to become changed—making us new persons in Christ and in so doing, we would be in our new home in Christmas. Amen.

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