Posts Tagged ‘Matthew 2:13-15’

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Matthew 2:13-15, 19-23

Well good morning and Happy New Year! Thank you for braving the cold and joining us. I know for me, at some point a little after New Year’s, I start to say to myself…I think I’m ready for spring. Even this New England boy has his limits.

Our Gospel this morning featured the Holy Family’s great flight into Egypt. Now I must confess that this is a story I don’t think about too often. During Christmastide, I prefer to think about warm, cozy manger scenes. Yet there is something gripping about this great flight into Egypt. The image of a newborn babe and parents with their firstborn child fleeing for their lives is hard to look away from. There’s just something about a new family being in danger that makes us pay attention.

Part of what makes us pay attention to the flight into Egypt is how stressful it is. It’s a stressful story fueled by an atmosphere of violence. The threat of King Herod murdering baby Jesus is dominating. Now it may be hard for us to imagine the mindset of someone in power not only feeling threatened by a baby, but also willing to kill that baby, but that was the world that Jesus was born into, a world swirling with stress, power, and violence. Read More