1st Sunday after Christmas December 29, 2019
Pastor Tim Patoka God Settles Our Savior Matthew 2:13-15, 19-23 1) Despite Sin’s Rejection 2) To Fulfill Prophecy
We find it interesting to look at the early lives of famous people to see how who they were before they got famous. Just about every big-name superhero has a particular scene or an entire movie that’s dedicated to their early lives. Even the lesser-known superheroes have some of these details. Historians love to do this too and have written entire books on the early lives of famous figures like Martin Luther, Abraham Lincoln, Florence Nightingale, and countless others. As a general rule, we enjoy taking these glimpses into the early lives of famous people as it’s not that often we hear about them in these ways. We have the same privilege this morning to look at an early time in Jesus’ earthly life in our verses from Matthew chapter 2. Joseph, Jesus’ earthly father, leads his family from place to place to call Bethlehem then Egypt and finally Nazareth home. Joseph didn’t do these travels simply because he got bored with the previous place. Rather it was all part of God’s plan to settle our Savior in his childhood home of Nazareth. As we’ll look at this multi-step journey, we’ll see how God shows his love for us by taking care of the Christ-child. He did this despite sin’s rejection of him so that he could fulfill every prophecy and so save us. 1) Despite Sin’s Rejection We pick it up with Jesus’ family sometime after his birth, anywhere from a few weeks to a year. The Wise Men have left the family to go back to their homes in the east without telling Herod where Jesus is in Bethlehem. Just when it seems that everything is getting back to normal for Joseph and his family, an angel of the Lord speaks to him in a dream that night saying, “Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, because Herod will search for the child in order to kill him” (Matthew 2:13). As we’ll hear about next week when we celebrate the festival of Epiphany, King Herod was threatened by the prospect of a king newly born in Bethlehem. And he would take any necessary measures to put down him. But before Herod could issue his execution order of all the baby boys in Bethlehem age 2 and younger, Joseph wakes his family up and hightails it Egypt that very night as the angel commanded. They’ll be safe in Egypt since it’s outside of Herod’s jurisdiction and they’ll stay there until the angel gives the go ahead to return to Israel. King Herod’s murderous reaction to news of the Christ-child is typical of sin’s rejection of God and his good news. Sin wants nothing to do with God and those who are controlled by its evil desires will go to great lengths to get rid of Christ entirely. It’s not just in our verses that sin shows itself in this way. But as we look back at our Christmas celebrations this past week, 1
1st Sunday after Christmas December 29, 2019 sin shows its rejection of the Christ-child yet again. How many businesses or families purposefully left out any reference of Christ’s birth in Bethlehem? Or, if they allowed some religious components, how many other religions did they tolerate before including the Christchild? Pastor Tim Patoka
We sinful creatures too struggle with this rejection. Now that our Christmas services are over and it’s only a matter of time until life gets back to normal, how long will it be until our old habits pick up of us not coming to God in his Word, whether in church or in our homes, as frequently as we should? For how many of our loved ones is Christianity more of seasonal attraction than anything else? Whether it’s the defiant unbeliever or the faithful believer, sin rejects our Savior and doesn’t want us to focus on Christ at Christmastime or at any time. Yet God will not let sin have its way and upset his plans. If Herod had his way, he would have ended Jesus’ life and forever destroyed our Christmas cheer in one fell swoop. Thankfully, God knew what Herod was intending to do and sent an angel to warn Joseph in a dream while there was still time. Thankfully, Joseph acted as a loving father for a child who was not his own and lead his family to safety in the land of Egypt that same night. He would also bring his family back to Israel once it was safe. And here again we see God acting to preserve the Christchild by having them settle up north in Nazareth where Herod’s son Archelaus wasn’t in charge. Try as much as sin would like, it would not defeat God or upset his plans of settling our Savior in his childhood home of Nazareth. 2) To Fulfill Prophecy These travels from Bethlehem to Egypt to Nazareth are not accidental. As Matthew spells out for us, they are all done to fulfill prophecy. Jesus’ time in Egypt was spoken about in our 1 st Lesson from Hosea chapter 11 where God said, “Out of Egypt I called my son” (Hosea 11:1). This wasn’t the first time that God had called his children out of Egypt. He did so 1,500 some years before during the time of Moses when he had the children of Israel exit Egypt after the 10 Plagues and splitting of the waters of the Red Sea. As God called the children of Israel out of Egypt before, so he did with Jesus. And by fulfilling this prophecy from Hosea, we see God equating all of Old Testament Israel into Jesus himself. Jesus would be what Old Testament Israel never was and would do what it never did. He become the epitome of Old Testament Israel and would later carry out some actions that clearly went back to Israel’s history. But there’s another prophecy that’s a lot harder to place. That’s the one about Jesus being called a Nazarene. You won’t find anything in the Old Testament that specifically talks about the city of Nazareth or its Nazarene inhabitants. But there are two possibilities about where this prophecy is coming from. The Hebrew word origin of Nazareth comes from one of its words for a plant’s shoot or branch, a word which is used in Isaiah chapter 11. Isaiah writes, “A shoot will spring up from the stump of Jesse” (Isaiah 11:1). The shoot that springs up from Jesse’s stump 2
1st Sunday after Christmas December 29, 2019 is none other than Jesus Christ. Perhaps it is from this same sounding Hebrew word for shoot and Nazareth that Matthew gets this prophecy from. Pastor Tim Patoka
Another possibility is that Jesus coming from Nazareth means that his life on earth will cloaked in humility. Nazareth was a little-known town in a somewhat distant land and no one expected big things to come from there. To say that Jesus will be called a Nazarene is to summarize all the places in the Old Testament which clearly talk about Jesus coming from and living in humility. But regardless of the exact source for this prophecy, it’s necessary for Jesus to settle in Nazareth to fulfill prophecy. If it weren’t for these prophecies, it could seem like Jesus’ travels from Bethlehem to Egypt to Nazareth were more so a result of God reacting to unexpected things. It could seem like God didn’t see this coming. That King Herod would feel threatened enough by this newly born King and so issue a kill order in Bethlehem. That Joseph brought his family to Egypt because it was the logical place to offer him safety from Herod’s murderous wrath. That Joseph ended up settling his family in Nazareth because it was outside of Archelaus’ jurisdiction and overshadowed by other towns in the region of Galilee. Or perhaps it could seem that God wasn’t able to stop these unexpected things from happening. If you think about it, God could have prevented this journey from Bethlehem to Egypt then Nazareth if he simply had the Wise Men come straight to Bethlehem instead of stopping by King Herod’s first for directions. It could seem that God’s power is limited in that he only saves Jesus out of all the baby boys in Bethlehem. That the only thing way God could do with his power was to retreat and hide Jesus from those trying to kill him until he could grow up and fend for himself. We know that Jesus’ travels were not because of a lack in God’s knowledge or power. And that’s because of these prophecies that Matthew mentions. It was God’s intention to have Jesus travel from Bethlehem to Egypt then to Nazareth so that he would fulfill what was written about him. And these same prophecies help us further identify who exactly this Christ-child is. As Hosea said, Jesus is all that Old Testament Israel was supposed to be and do. He is to be the perfect sacrifice to end all sacrifices that so we are free from the ceremonial and civil laws of the Old Testament. As Isaiah said, Jesus is the shoot that springs up from the stump of Jesse. He comes from Jesse’s family line and holds the kingly scepter forever even though Jesse’s human descendants were cut down and removed from their thrones. As Nazareth was an unexpected place for the Christ-child to grow up, so Jesus would grow up and carry out his saving mission in humility. These travels from Bethlehem to Egypt then to Nazareth weren’t the only times we see Jesus fulfilling prophecy. Once he grew up and left Nazareth, he would continue to fulfill all sorts of prophecies in order to fulfill all that was written about him. As we continue in our 3
1st Sunday after Christmas December 29, 2019 church liturgical year, we’ll be hearing a lot from the Gospel of Matthew. And in his Gospel, we’ll see how he regularly refers to Old Testament Scriptures as he recounts Jesus’ life. Whether it was fulfilling the prophecy about coming from Egypt or being called a Nazarene or anything else, all those Old Testament prophecies come to a head when we see Jesus nailed to a cross and under an inscription that again calls him a Nazarene. It’s there that Jesus did what Old Testament Israel never did, offered what no shoot from Jesse’s stump ever gave, and reached the lowest point of his humility since leaving Nazareth. It’s there he gave up his life to pay the price for our sins so that he could finally be our Savior who promises us freedom from guilt and sins. And as the Old Testament prophesied elsewhere, Jesus rose from the dead, reclaimed full use of his divine powers as God, rules as our King forever and ever, and renews our deliverance from our sins by fulfilling his promise to forgive those who come to him in repentance. Jesus has and will continue to fulfill everything that is written about him. And for that, he is rightfully more famous and glorious than any other person in history. Pastor Tim Patoka
When we consider how famous Jesus is now, it can be hard to picture him in as verses describe him in Matthew chapter 2. Jesus and his family are traveling from Bethlehem to Egypt then to Nazareth as God settles our Savior in his childhood home of Nazareth. God succeeded despite sin’s rejection of the Christ-child. That’s because sin will never defeat our God or upset his plans. While Jesus’ journeys can seem reactionary, we know that this was all part of God’s plan to fulfill what was written in the Old Testament about our Savior. He is the epitome of Old Testament Israel and the shoot from Jesse’s stump who carried out his ministry in humility to fulfill every prophecy up to and after his death on the cross. It is for all this we give thanks to God for taking care of our Savior and, in so doing, assuring us of our salvation. Amen.
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