Come Home, Come Home
Joining Jesus on His Mission - According to Matthew • Sermon • Submitted
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And I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And you shall know the Lord.
In today’s Gospel text, Joseph, the “son of David,” becomes a type of Christ for Mary. In His obedience to the angelic direction, he fulfills for her what God does for Israel in the 2nd Chapter of Hosea:
And I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And you shall know the Lord.
Blessed Lord, You have caused all Holy Scriptures to be written for our learning. Grant that we may so hear them, read, mark, learn, and take them to heart that, by the patience and comfort of Your holy Word, we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life. … through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
Most people, myself included, have heard our Gospel text simply as an element in the Nativity narrative for most of our lives, Amen? Starting with , Matthew tells the story of Jesus’ birth, starting with how Joseph is introduced into the story and to the situation. It then moves forward to the birth of the Christ Child, the visit of the Magi, where they learn from Herod’s religious advisors that the Messiah should be born in Bethlehem according to the writing of the 7th Century BC Prophet Micah. They then leave Herod’s court in Jerusalem and go to Bethlehem where they find the Holy Family in a house, leave them gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. After being warned in a dream, the Magi choose to return home without informing Herod that they have found the One whom they sought. What we miss is that Matthew writes this Gospel, not to tell us the story of Jesus Christ. Superstar, but Jesus Christ, the True Israel and fulfillment of God’s Promise.
Today’s reading picks up from there, with Joseph continuing to fulfill his vocation of protection and provision for his wife Mary, and the Child whom God has given to him.
Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Rise, 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.” And he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, “Out of Egypt I called my son.”
Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Rise, 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.”
To Egypt - the land of escape and enslavement, refuge and redemption, safety and sin. In the history of Israel, Egypt was the place where they would go to find shelter, but then it would become a place from which God would have to rescue them. As such, it becomes a type of the world, the place that the Bible says concerning the Church, that she is “in the world , but not of the world.” When Jesus Christ directs us to join Him in His Mission to restore the world to its proper relationship to Him, He sends us into the same world that, apart from Him, we see as the means through which we are ensnared to sin.
To Egypt - the land of escape and enslavement, refuge and redemption, safety and sin. In the history of Israel, Egypt was the place where they would go to find shelter, but then it would become a place from which God would have to rescue them. As such, it becomes a type of the world, the place that the Bible says concerning the Church, that she is “in the world , but not of the world.” When Jesus Christ directs us to join Him in His Mission to restore the world to its proper relationship to Him, He sends us into the same world that, apart from Him, we see as the means through which we are ensnared to sin.
But when Herod died, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, saying, “Rise, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who sought the child’s life are dead.” And he rose and took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there, and being warned in a dream he withdrew to the district of Galilee. And he went and lived in a city called Nazareth, so that what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled, that he would be called a Nazarene.
And he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, “Out of Egypt I called my son.”
In Holy Baptism we are united to Christ in His death; as Luther wrote, “It is nothing other than putting to death the old Adam and affecting the new man’s resurrection after that [].”
Paul Timothy McCain, ed., Concordia: The Lutheran Confessions (St. Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House, 2005), 429–430.
We are transferred from the Kingdom of darkness
Paul Timothy McCain, ed., Concordia: The Lutheran Confessions (St. Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House, 2005), 429–430.
So powerful is God’s work in Baptrism, that Christ would say without hesitation, “The one who believes and is baptized will be saved (). So complete is the transformation that God works in us that Paul would write to the Colossian Christians:
He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
Through baptism, we are brought into the inheritance of the Saints, the land of Promise, the Israel of God. and so, when Herod is destroyed, that representative of the AntiChrist, Israel returns to receive His inheritance.
For as Herod stood in the place and sat in the seat that belongs to David, so Antichrist seeks to sit in Christ’s seat. Whether he shows his fangs, as in the person of Hitler or other political leaders who claim to have God’s authority over you, or he sheaths them as does the man who claims the title of the “Vicar of Christ” and declares that his word is perfect whenever he speaks “ex cathedra,” from the throne, Herod is always seeking to destroy the True Son, the Israel of God.
We hear his hissing, lying tongue today when he seeks to ensnare the saints into being so focused and consumed with the cares of this life that we forget that we are the Body of Christ, that our lives are hidden with Christ in God. Instead of walking in the Spirit, we flounder about in the flesh. Instead of embracing the Cross that Christ has given to us, we try to select one that feels comfortable to us, or worse, try to avoid it altogether, saying that God has not called us to follow Him, to walk with Him. We say that Jesus must bear the cross alone, and not allow it to come near me. We try to save our lives by hiding the Light of Christ under a bushel. We try to stay in Egypt beyond what the Lord has commanded, and remain when He has called us to come to Israel.
Joseph went where God called him, and fulfilled his vocation, taking Mary to be his wife protecting her and the Child who was his Savior, providing the space that enabled the Word of the Lord to be fulfilled, Jesus to grow up and enter into His glorious Work of sanctifying us by His holy, bitter, innocent sufferings and death. In so doing, “what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled, that he would be called a Nazarene.”
The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .
The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .
Jesus had to return to the land of Israel and Joseph had to make it so. God has to bring us out of the flesh, and Jesus, sending us the Holy Spirit, must make it so, even as He now ever lives to make intersession for us, seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty.
As Joseph and Mary looked at the tiny Baby, they may have wondered how He would “save His people from their sins, but they knew that God cannot lie, and what He says , He will do. AS we look at the Church, while the world looks at her and says, “there is no help for her in God,” we know that God is faithful.
(ESV) — 13 He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?
The pure Gospel still saves souls, for God is still watching over His word to perform it, and the gates of hell are still not going to prevail against His church. It doesn’t matter whether we face ISIS in Africa, atheists in America, or the Old Adam in our hearts, Greater is He who is in us, than He who is in the world. No matter how the devil seeks to steal, kill, and and destroy, I know that my redeemer lives, and in my flesh, I shall see God! For He is risen, and has all power in His hand!
So let the peace of God, that passes all understanding, guard your heart and mind through Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.