Text: Matthew 2:13-23: The Holy Family’s Flight to and Return from Egypt
Since today is the 12th day of Christmas, I have one last chance to say, “Merry Christmas” from the pulpit! Other than the two weeks surrounding Easter, there is no other time of the Church year as liturgically packed as Christmastide. We had two sets of Communion readings on Christmas Day, immediately followed by three additional feasts with their own special readings: St. Stephen’s Day, Holy Innocents’ Day, and St. John’s Day. Then we had the first Sunday of Christmas followed by the Feast of the Circumcision of the Lord on New Year’s Day. Today is the second Sunday of Christmas (which only happens every few years), and tomorrow is the Feast of the Epiphany. The Christmas story from the Gospels is spread throughout these feast days. For example, the Gospel reading for the Feast of the Circumcision picked up right where the story left off from Gospel we read on Christmas Eve. Next week’s Gospel for the Sunday after Epiphany picks up where we left off on the Circumcision.
All of that was from Luke’s Gospel. The Christmas story from Matthew is a bit more mixed up in our reading order. Last week’s Sunday Gospel gave the beginning of the Christmas story from St. Matthew. Tomorrow’s Gospel for the Epiphany continues the story from when the Magi show up. The Gospel on the Feast of the Holy Innocents picked up from the end of the Epiphany Gospel. And today’s Gospel picks up where we left off on Holy Innocents’ Day.
If we were to assign numbers to each of these four readings from St. Matthew’s version of the Christmas Story, we’d say that this year’s liturgical order ends up being 3, 1, 4, 2. Though this can be a bit confusing, remember that we also started Matthew’s Gospel a few days ago in our Morning Prayer weekday readings, and we can get the proper chronology that way. Indeed, that’s one of the benefits of the Daily Office readings: they take us through the Bible in general canonical order each year, the very thing that our Archbishop commended in his New Year’s Day message to the Province.
So, today’s conclusion of the Christmas Story from Matthew’s Gospel brings the Holy Family back from Egypt where they fled to escape Herod’s slaughter of the Bethlehemite children that we remember on the Feast of the Holy Innocents. Looking back on both readings from Matthew 2, there are three things we learn about the Lord Jesus as he fulfills Old Testament typology and prophecy.
First, we see that St. Matthew is telling us that our Lord is a fulfillment of the type established by Moses. That is, as the Messiah, Jesus is the new and better Moses. We talked a bit about this on Advent 4 when we discussed the prophecy from Deuteronomy that God would send a Prophet Like Moses. That is, God promised the Israelites that he would send a prophet who would perfectly explain God’s Word and God’s Law to his people. Jesus as the Messiah is that promised Prophet. We see this in the very events that happen in our Gospel. Just like Pharaoh killed all the Israelite babies, so Herod killed the babies and toddlers in Bethlehem. God saved Moses from Pharaoh’s slaughter through the ironic and miraculous means of sending him to be raised by Pharaoh’s daughter. Similarly, God saves Jesus from Herod’s slaughter of the innocents by sending him to Israel’s old enemy Egypt, another example of miraculous irony.
While St. Matthew doesn’t shine a prophetic spotlight on this, it is certain that he wanted us to see the parallel. Like Moses, the Lord Jesus will lead his people out of slavery, though this time it’s the greater slavery to sin and death rather than mere physical slavery to Egypt. Like Moses, the Lord Jesus will teach his people God’s word, though this time we will be taught the spirit of the Law, and not merely the letter. Indeed, through the Lord Jesus, God writes his Law upon our hearts, not merely on tablets of stone. This changes us as New Covenant saints in a way that the Old Testament saints could not be changed: from the inside out. Moses wished that all of God’s people could have God’s Spirit poured out on them. In Jesus this is exactly what happens.
This is both a privilege and a warning to us as Christians: since we have been given both the Spirit of God and God’s written Word through the ministry of the Word-Made-Flesh, it is a very grievous thing to resist the Spirit’s voice through the Word and the Sacrament. Indeed, hardening our hearts against the Spirit’s voice is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. When we persist in doing so, we end up with the same hard heart as Pharaoh or Herod, subject to the same condemnation as rebels that they were subject to. So, listen to God’s Word. Read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest it so that you will know God’s voice. Don’t be seduced by the World, the Flesh, and the Devil, who want to destroy your faith and destroy your soul. One of the biggest issues of the day where this seduction takes place is with respect to sexual sin. The world will tell you that the Bible’s sexual ethics are a violation of freedom and justice. But this is just the same lie the Serpent told Eve: “Did God really say?” Don’t fall for it; resist the devil and listen to the Spirit of God, regardless of the World’s pressures.
Second, as we look at the flight to Egypt in the Gospel on Holy Innocents’ Day, we are told that the Holy Family’s flight to Egypt fulfilled the prophecy of Hosea 11 that says, “Out of Egypt I have called my son.” This may sound a bit odd when you read the passage in Hosea; after all, it doesn’t seem so much like a prophecy as a description of the Exodus that happened centuries earlier! So, what is going on here? What is Matthew trying to tell us? Well, he’s saying that Jesus, as the promised Messiah, is Israel. As Israel’s true and eternal King, the Lord Jesus embodies and fulfills everything that Israel was to be.
Israel had been called to be a nation of priests and kings; indeed, Israel was to be a light to the nations. That is, Israel was to represent the nations before the Lord, Israel was to lead the nations to the Lord, and Israel was to bring God’s word and presence to the nations. But Israel failed in this mission. Instead of being God’s emissary to the rest of the world, Israel ended up being influenced by the world. Israel fell into idolatry and sin, eventually reaping God’s judgement in the exile. Israel was scattered among the nations, with only a remnant left.
Among that remnant are the Lord’s ancestors according to the flesh. Among that remnant is David’s line. Because the remnant is preserved, God keeps his promises, including the promise to send the true covenant head of Israel in the Person of the Messiah. And so, the Lord Jesus ends up fulfilling the call to be the perfect priest and king. He fulfills the call to be a light to the nations. He fulfills the call to be God’s true Son.
When we are united to Christ by faith and baptism, we are also adopted as God’s sons. That is, what Christ has, he gives to us. St. Paul says that we are co-heirs with Christ. That means that God also called us out of Egypt. We have been called out of slavery to sin and death. We have been called out of the nations to be God’s people. We have been called to be God’s sons among the nations.
This means that it is not “replacement theology” or some form of antisemitism to see ourselves in Israel’s story. The Hebrew Bible, our Old Testament, is indeed ours as Christians because we are those who belong to Israel’s King. We are those who have been united to Israel’s King. We have been adopted into his family and have been grafted into the Commonwealth of Israel, as St. Paul tells us. So, when you’re reading the Old Testament, don’t think of it as someone else’s family story. It’s your family story as well. Moses is our teacher, the Prophets speak to us, the Law was given to our fathers, the Psalter is our hymn book, etc. While there is new significance and application of these writings in a New Covenant context, there is only one people of God, one way to God, one faith, one Lord, one baptism. As you read the Old Testament over the next year and throughout your life, remember that calling to be God’s sons, God’s people. Remember that you are also called Israel because you have been united to Israel’s promised King.
Within the context of Hosea 11, we see an even deeper element of this calling: God’s saving, abiding, and preserving love. Consider what God says in Hosea 11 regarding his love for his son Israel:
When Israel was a child then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt. … I drew them out with cords of a man, with bands of love, and I was to them as they that take off the yoke on their jaws and I laid meat unto them… How shall I give thee up, Ephraim? How shall I deliver thee Israel? … I will not execute the fierceness of mine anger, I will not return to destroy Ephraim: for I am God, and not a man; the Holy One in the midst of thee.
Now, among those verses of encouragement are a lot of verses about God’s judgment and Israel’s rebellious ingratitude. St. Paul tells us that these things were written for our learning. That is, when we see Israel’s negative example, we ought to learn from it and instead follow our Lord’s example of obedience and holiness. But behind all this is the Lord’s love for us and for Israel. He saved us. He protected us. He nourished us. He preserves us. And as I said earlier, he does better for us than Israel in the Old Testament in that he has given us his Spirit, changing us from the inside out. And thus, spurning God’s love is a greater sin for us than it was for Israel of old. Blessedly, knowing God’s love and goodness to us, we can repent when we go astray. We can rest in our union with Christ and know that his blood has redeemed us. We have been washed clean by our Lord Jesus and given his righteousness.
Finally, as we look at the Holy Family’s flight to and return from Egypt, consider our final verse from today’s Gospel: “and he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene.” Like with our other two points, this is more about typology than direct prophecy. After all, you won’t find a single verse that prophecies that the Messiah will be called a Nazarene. Rather, this is an allusion to two Old Testament concepts that have a similar sound to the word “Nazarene” in both Greek and Hebrew.
As we discussed in our for-the-Epistle text from Jeremiah 23, back on the Sunday Next Before Advent, we see several passages in the Old Testament that speak of the promised Messiah as “the Branch.” One of the words for “branch” sounds a lot like the word “Nazarene.” In the Old Testament this tells us that the Messiah will bring new life, like a sprout from a dead tree stump, to David’s line and God’s people. When we thought the promises of God had failed, God sent our Lord Jesus to redeem and save us. God sent our Lord Jesus to not only revive his people, but to expand his people to include folks from all nations.
And thus, the Lord Jesus becomes the Branch, and he makes us branches of his vine. From the Nazarene Branch comes all the little branches of the Church, branches that have changed the whole world in Christ’s name and for God’s glory. The Law has indeed gone out of Zion, the Word of the Lord has gone out of Jerusalem and into the whole world.
The other word play on the word “Nazarene,” particularly favored by the Church Fathers, is the Old Testament concept of the Nazarite. If you remember from Numbers 6, there were a group of people who took special vows of holiness before God. These folks, called Nazarites, could be thought of as similar to monks in the Old Testament. Their lives were to be marked by special ritual purity. Samson was an example of a life-long Nazarite. John the Baptist lived like a Nazarite. St. Paul takes a temporary Nazarite vow in Acts to show his loyalty and obedience to the Law of Moses.
The Church Fathers speak of how the Lord Jesus shows the holiness behind the Nazarite vows. Our Lord Jesus perfectly kept the Law, as we celebrated on the Feast of the Circumcision. Indeed, St. John Chrysostom points out that just as the Nazarites would sacrifice their hair (that is, part of their bodies) at the beginning and end of their vows, so Jesus sacrificed his whole body on the cross as an offering to God for our sins.
Furthermore, Christ shares his holiness with us. He makes us holy because he is holy. Like the Nazarites, we become set apart for God. As such, we are called to live holy lives, just as Jesus did. We are called to be pure in heart, like the Nazarites were called to be ritually pure. Indeed, it is Christ himself who purifies us with his purity. In the Law of Moses, ritual impurity was what spread; those who were ritually clean could not spread the cleanness. Uncleanness, however, spread very easily. But our Lord Jesus cleanses us with his purity, just as he cleansed the lepers throughout the Gospels.
And thus we wrap up our celebration of the Feast of the Incarnation. Tomorrow begins Epiphanytide. Speaking of the Incarnation, St. Athanasius famously said, “God became man so that man could become God.” The Incarnation of God the Son was to bring us into fellowship with God. He gives us of himself, and brings us into the life of the Holy Trinity. All three of these seemingly obscure Old Testament allusions in Matthew 2 point to this. Jesus fulfilled what it means to be the new Moses, the true Israel, the promised Branch, and the holy Nazarite so that we could have the Law in our hearts, citizenship in Israel’s commonwealth, life as branches of the true vine, and true holiness before God. Let us live and walk after this calling. Let us be even as our Lord Jesus was.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
