Here we are amid our celebration of the 12 days of Christmas, but not all is peaches and cream. Today’s texts present the dark side of the Incarnation.
December 28, 2025 – EUMC & BCUMC – Christmas 1,
Year A
Today's Scriptures: Hebrews 2:10-18; Matthew 2:13-23
1. Introduction: Lingering in the Glow
On the first Sunday after Christmas, we find ourselves in a
peculiar space between celebration and memory. The decorations are still up,
the last of the cookies are being eaten, and the melodies of familiar carols
still echo in our minds. We want to linger in that warm glow—the candlelight
services, the children’s pageant with shepherds in bathrobes, the joy of “Silent
Night,” and the comforting hum of the season.
Many of us have deep-rooted memories of this time. Perhaps
you recall a childhood ritual of venturing into the woods with your father to
find and cut down the perfect tree. Today, the process may be simpler, but the
act of setting up and decorating the tree remains a cherished tradition. In our
house, one tree is never enough; we have the large, natural one in the living
room, a smaller artificial one in the corner, and even a tall, skinny tree
outside so that passersby know we are celebrating. That little outdoor tree
stays up year-round, its decorations changing with the seasons: flags for the
Fourth of July, plastic eggs for Easter, and festive decor for Halloween and
Thanksgiving.
As the season wanes, however, the thought of taking it all
down begins to loom. Looking around at the multiple trees and various
decorations, I recently said to our home device, “Alexa, take down the
Christmas decorations.” Her reply was both witty and telling: “I think that’s a
job best left for Santa’s helpers.” It seems that moving on from the season is
a task we must undertake ourselves. While we desire to stay in this comfortable
holiday glow, the scriptures for this day will not let us. The church, in its
wisdom, challenges us to move from the warmth of the manger to a different,
more difficult place.
2. The Unsentimental Scriptures
The lectionary places before us two texts that refuse to
sentimentalize the incarnation. They act as a necessary corrective to our
tendency to wrap the story in tinsel and sentiment. The Gospel of Matthew
provides a raw narrative of violence, grief, and a refugee family fleeing in
the night. The Epistle to the Hebrews, in turn, gives us the profound
theological explanation for why this suffering had to be.
Together, these passages declare the sermon’s central
thesis: Christmas cost a great deal. Glory was born in shadows. The Word made
flesh did not enter a sanitized, storybook world, but one groaning under the
weight of sin, suffering, and death. To truly understand the incarnation, we
must first turn to the stark and unsettling account from Matthew’s gospel.
3. A Tyrant’s Rage and a Fleeing Family
The story that follows the visit of the magi is not one
found on greeting cards or depicted in cheery Christmas pageants. It is a
direct contradiction to our modern, commercialized image of the holiday, yet it
is essential to understanding the reality of God with us.
After the magi departed, an angel of the Lord appeared to
Joseph in a dream with an urgent warning: “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.” Without hesitation, Joseph
obeyed. He rose immediately, and under the cover of darkness, took Mary and the
infant Jesus and fled, becoming refugees in a foreign land.
Their flight was a response to the paranoia of King Herod, a
man of legendary cruelty. Roman officials of the day had a saying: “It is
better to be Herod’s pig than to be his son.” The saying was a grim pun—one
that works better in Greek, where the words for “pig” and “son” sound
alike—that underscored a grim reality: Herod had killed his own wives and sons
when he felt his throne was threatened. As he lay dying, he gave a final,
monstrous order to have prominent citizens slaughtered upon his death, ensuring
that there would be mourning in the kingdom. Fortunately, that order was
rescinded after he died.
This was the tyrant whose rage was unleashed on the
innocent. When Herod realized the magi had tricked him, his fury was absolute.
He sent soldiers to Bethlehem with orders to kill all male children two years
of age and younger. The arrival of the Prince of Peace was thus marked by a
massacre, and the Son of God entered the world as a refugee, hunted before he
could even walk. Can you hear the mothers screaming? Can you see the Holy
Family fleeing into the night? Why is such profound suffering woven into the
fabric of the incarnation? For the answer, we must turn from narrative to
theology.
4. The Theology of a Costly Incarnation
The book of Hebrews provides the theological key to
understanding the suffering in Matthew’s narrative. It argues that Christ’s
suffering was not an accident or a divine plan gone wrong, but an essential and
“fitting” part of God’s plan for salvation. The author writes that it was
fitting for God to “make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through
sufferings.”
The word “perfect” here does not mean that Jesus was ever morally
flawed; rather, it means “complete.” His mission was brought to its intended
completion through his full participation in the reality of human suffering. To
accomplish his work, he had to become one of us in every respect.
This was the necessity of the incarnation. Hebrews argues
that because the children of God share “flesh and blood,” Jesus himself had to
share in the same things. He had to experience vulnerability and testing to
enter fully into the human condition, including its darkest corners. He did
this for a clear purpose: so that through his own death, he could destroy the
one who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who all
their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death.
This was no superficial act. God was not simply putting on a
body like we put on a costume or a coat for a winter day. It was a complete
entry into human existence, with all its attendant danger, displacement, and
grief. Through Jesus, God knows what it is like to be tempted, misunderstood,
abandoned by friends, and hunted. This complete entry into our experience is
what makes him not a distant God, but our brother.
5. Our Brother in Egypt
Hebrews makes the astonishing claim that Jesus is our “brother.”
The eternal Son of God, through whom all things were made, is not ashamed to
call us family. He did not maintain a divine distance, observing our suffering
from a safe place and offering helpful advice. He entered into our humanity
completely. He became one of us.
The Holy Family’s flight to Egypt is itself rich with
theological irony. In the Old Testament, Egypt was the land of Israel’s
slavery, the place of bondage from which God had to deliver his people. Yet in
the New Testament, this same land becomes a place of refuge for the Messiah. In
seeking safety there, Jesus enters “our Egypt”—the places of bondage,
oppression, and fear that we experience in our own lives. He goes there as a
vulnerable infant, utterly dependent and at risk.
This is what it means for Christ to be our brother. He knows
from the inside what it is like to be hunted, to be a refugee, to live under
the threat of violence, and to be far from home. He is with families who wonder
each day whether bombs will be dropped on their homes or soldiers will kill
them. He is with refugees who have run from something terrible, looking for
something good. That is where Jesus is.
Because he has entered these places, no human experience of
suffering is outside the reach of God’s redeeming grace. There is nowhere you
can go, no darkness you can fall into, no fear that can grip you, where Christ
has not already been. He is the brother who goes before us into Egypt and
stands with us there. But this raises a difficult question: if God is present,
why does evil so often seem to prevail?
6. God’s Quiet Work Amidst the Chaos
Matthew’s narrative of chaos and slaughter forces us to
confront one of theology’s hardest questions: Where is God in this kind of
suffering? Why does he not simply stop it?
Matthew provides what may seem to be a strange answer. He
shows us that God works quietly amid the violence. His intervention comes not
with thunder, lightning, or legions of avenging angels, but with dreams,
whispered guidance to Joseph in the night, and the quiet fulfillment of holy
scripture. Joseph is told, “Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee.”
And he obeys. He does not see the whole plan, but he trusts in God’s leading.
This is how God often works in a world where evil still
rages. He does not always prevent tragedy—the children of Bethlehem still died,
a grief Matthew does not minimize—but he provides a way through it for
those who will listen. He weaves even the violence of tyrants into his larger
story of redemption. Three times in this passage, Matthew notes that these
events fulfilled what was spoken by the prophets: “Out of Egypt I have called
my son,” the weeping in Ramah, and “He will be called a Nazarene.” The violence
of Herod cannot derail God’s purposes.
Hebrews helps us understand why we can trust this quiet
work. Christ has already broken the power of the one who has the power of
death. The devil’s dominion, which expresses itself in tyranny and violence,
has been destroyed. It is not yet completely eradicated—we still see its
terrible effects. But it has been destroyed definitively. The outcome is
certain. Because Christ has shared our flesh and entered our suffering, we can
trust God’s quiet leading, even when evil seems to triumph.
7. Four Truths for a Costly Discipleship
On this First Sunday after Christmas, surrounded by the
trappings of celebration but confronted by these hard texts, we are called to
respond. The story of glory born in shadows offers four transformative truths
for our discipleship.
1. Reject
Sentimental Christianity. The faith we have been given is not about
warm feelings, seasonal cheer, or the easy comfort of kitty videos on YouTube.
We cannot reduce our faith to the sentimental predictability of the Hallmark
Channel or Lifetime movies. Our worship and discipleship must be rooted in this
costly incarnation—in a God who entered a violent, broken world and did not
flinch from its worst realities.
2. Embrace
Sanctifying Grace in Suffering. Holiness is not a removal from the
world’s pain, but faithfulness within it. Jesus was made perfect—brought to
completion—through his sufferings. The Apostle Paul reminds us in his letter to
the Romans that we share in Christ’s glory provided we also share in his
sufferings. The path to glory goes through suffering, and the work of
sanctification happens not despite our difficulties, but through them.
3. See
the Vulnerable with New Eyes. When we encounter refugees, meet those
fleeing violence, or stand with those who weep for their children, we are
standing with the Holy Family. Christ entered our Egypt; how can we ignore
those who flee to their Egypt today? These are people who cross borders to
escape persecution or hardship; people seeking a better, safer life for their
families. Sanctifying grace is not just internal piety; it expresses itself in
compassionate action toward those whom the world has made vulnerable, just as
the early Methodists visited prisons, fed the hungry, and advocated for the
oppressed. John Wesley encouraged Sunday schools not as we know them, but for
children who had to work six days a week in factories and fields, providing a time
and place to learn reading, writing, and math.
4. Face
Our Own Testing with Hope. Because Jesus was tested, Hebrews tells us
he is able to help those who are being tested. Whatever you face—grief, fear,
displacement, uncertainty—Christ knows it from the inside. And because he has
destroyed the power of death, the worst that can happen cannot separate you
from the love of God. Herod’s sword could not stop God’s purposes, and we are
freed from the slavery of fear. We can persevere and keep faith, even in the
dark.
8. Conclusion: Glory Born in Shadows
The first Sunday after Christmas asks us to hold two truths
together. Christmas is glory—the Word made flesh, God with us, the beginning of
our salvation. But it is a glory born in shadows. It cost something. It
required God to descend into our darkness, to share our vulnerability, and to
become our brother in every respect.
We do not get to choose only the pretty parts of the story.
We don’t get manger scenes without refugee journeys. We don’t get angels
without massacre. We don’t get joy without grief. The whole story is ours—the
light and the darkness, the hope and the heartbreak.
But here is the good news that Matthew and Hebrews proclaim
together: because Christ entered the darkness, the darkness does not have the
final word. Because he shared our flesh and blood, no suffering is beyond
redemption. Because he was made perfect through sufferings, we can trust that
God is at work even in our testing. And because he has destroyed the one who
has the power of death, we are free from the fear that once enslaved us.
The decorations will soon come down and the carols will
fade, but the truth of Christmas remains. God has come near. He calls us not to
comfortable religion, but to costly discipleship; not to sentimental faith, but
to a sanctifying grace that transforms us into people who love as he loved,
suffer as he suffered, and trust as he trusted.
Thanks be to God, who did not spare even his own Son, but
gave him up for us all. It is in the descent that Christ made on our behalf
that we are risen into his glory.
+ In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy
Spirit. Amen.
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