God with us in a dark and chaotic world

Matthew 2. 13-23

We live in a dark and chaotic world. In these days post-Christmas, we have seen the darkness and chaos that has hit Pakistan after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. Many people have been killed. A country seems un-governable and there are threats of revenge and recrimination all round. It is hard to understand as an outsider what is going on. What motivates the passions and violence? It all seems so destructive and indiscriminate, and somehow we know that what is happening in Pakistan will reverberate all around our world in the years to come, with the danger of increasing levels of fundamentalism and terrorism. The restraints of human dignity and integrity will no longer be there as the cause, the ideology, the fatalism of what seems to be "God's will" takes precedence. The name of God or Allah or Yahweh will be taken in vain as the cause of terrible human suffering and misery. It suddenly feels a long way from Christmas, from the nativity scene in that stable with the glory of God being proclaimed and revealed in the birth of a child.

Here surely the story of the incarnation of God with us is the highest possible affirmation of the value and dignity of human life. In this Christ-child God shares our humanity. The divine enters the human and the human is embraced by the divine. In this dark and chaotic world where terrible events and atrocities happen, God is with us witnessing to the potential of deeper values of sacrificial love and acceptance rather than selfish destructive greed and power.

Matthew, certainly in his account of the birth of Jesus, reveals a great deal of knowledge of this dark and chaotic world. There is the light of Jesus' birth and the visit of the wise men, but these events are surrounded by a threatening and violent world. Last week we heard in Matthew's account of the Annunciation, how Joseph's obedience to God overcame the customs and culture of his society and prevented the public disgrace of Mary and the abandonment of Jesus. Joseph was helped to see God's purposes that in caring for Mary and in being a parent to Jesus, the way of self-giving love could be fulfilled. And now after the birth of Jesus and the visit of the wise men that dark and chaotic world invades again.

The flight to Egypt, the slaughter of the innocents, the return to Israel and to Nazareth is told briefly and poignantly by Matthew. Do not doubt that Matthew was clearly aware that the light that shone at Jesus' birth flickered uncertainly. It was nearly blown out by human frailty and weakness and it was really threatened by Herod's concern for power and honour. The light of Christ was so nearly extinguished before it had opportunity to radiate its warmth to a cold and inhospitable world.

But Matthew reassures us that though everything may seem out of control, God is not thwarted. The angel speaking to the wise men, and to Joseph twice, reassures us that God is still at work seeking to bring good out of evil. And of course all these events are not random. For Matthew they are in accordance with the Scriptures. It is perhaps sometimes difficult for us to appreciate how important this is for Matthew. When Matthew has the angel say to Joseph "For those who were seeking the child's life are dead", he is quoting words from the Book of Exodus when Moses in Midian is told to go and return to Egypt for those who were seeking your life are dead. And the next verse says "So Moses took his wife and sons, put them on a donkey and returned them to the land of Egypt." Right from the beginning of Matthew's gospel, Jesus is the new Moses.

He is the one in later life who gives the great Sermon on the Mount as Moses delivered the commandment of God on Mount Sinai. So baby Jesus with Joseph's help follows in the foot steps of Moses and goes down to Egypt and will, when it is safe, return to Israel.

It is fascinating to reflect how Matthew uses these scriptural passages. When we think of the Holy Family's flight into Egypt we would picture Joseph loading a donkey with Mary carrying Jesus, sat serenely on it. And that is certainly how Rembrandt saw it in his famous etching of this story. And if Matthew was consistently following the parallel verses in Exodus about Moses, he would put Mary and Jesus on a donkey, but he doesn't, there is no mention in Matthew's narrative of a donkey.

It is a dark and dangerous world and there is no comfort for refugees. Mary may have only just given birth and Jesus may be only days old, but it is a long hard slog on foot into Egypt and an even longer walk back to the relative safety of Nazareth. And there is great danger and unpredictability about both journeys.

That world is as dark and dangerous and chaotic as ours. And the one thing we know as Jesus is hidden from our sight for the years of his childhood and adolescence, is that when he emerges into his ministry, he will take God with him into the deepest darkness of the human condition.

"We live in a dark and chaotic world" and "God is with us" are not two irreconcilable statements. They belong together. For God with us gives us hope, hope for ourselves and hope for our world, hope that good can overcome evil in this desperate world of ours.

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