Matthew 2 13-15, 19-23 2004
First Sunday after Christmas
Matthew 2:13-15, 19-23
December 26, 2004
“Escape from Egypt”
after Brackman
Introduction: In the movie The Matrix, machines have taken over the world and use people like batteries. The people “live” in a seemingly normal world—a computer-generated illusion called the Matrix. In reality, they’re in a sort of sleep; they are slaves hooked up to a machine that harvests their bioenergy. The main character, Neo, is awakened by men who are fighting the machine rulers. He’s called out of his slavery to the Matrix so that he can save the real world. He and his companions then voluntarily go back into the Matrix in order to defeat it. Neo has to go into this land of slavery in order to save it. The Matrix, naturally, tries to kill him. It even appears that it succeeds. But in a remarkable scene Neo is “resurrected” and wins this battle.
The Matrix is just a movie, but it contains an echo of the Gospel that is loose in the world. The Word of God gives us the real truth. Jesus voluntarily came into this world of slavery in order to save it. The world, of course, wants to kill him, and the first threat on his young life is from Herod. In order to protect his Son from death at the hands of Herod, the Father sends Jesus into Egypt, a land that meant slavery to the Israelites. God then calls Jesus out of Egypt in order ultimately to save the entire world from slavery to sin.
We were all once in Egypt too. We were born into a fallen world and were slaves to sin. God has also called us out of this world, this land of slavery, this Egypt, that we might be slaves to him and serve him in everlasting righteousness, blessedness, and peace. Thus as we hear this morning of the heavenly Father calling his little Son, Jesus, out of Egypt,
God also calls you out of Egypt.
I. First the Lord called the Israelites out of Egypt. When the Israelites first went into Egypt they weren’t slaves. Joseph prepared Egypt for the famine, and the pharaoh invited the Israelites to come and live there. God protected his chosen people from starvation by sending them into Egypt. Years passed after the death of that pharaoh, and the Israelites were made slaves. Out of this slavery God called Israel.
As he often does, Matthew cites the Old Testament to show that Jesus is its fulfillment. Jesus’ flight to Egypt is clearly a fulfillment of Israel’s prophetic journey almost 19 hundred years earlier. Egypt for Jesus can be seen in two ways. God the Father sent his Son into Egypt, a land of slavery for the Israelites, in order to protect him from death at the hands of another king who would kill the innocent babies in Bethlehem. Jesus’ true Egypt wasn’t a geographic country though. For Jesus the Egypt that He came to was this fallen world. He was born into “Egypt”—“born under the law.” He was born into our land of slavery.
This is our Egypt. When Adam and Eve were first in the Garden of Eden they were completely free. They lived in a land of complete freedom in the garden. The devil made them think that they were slaves. When they fell into sin, they became slaves. Just as the Israelites went into Egypt free and became slaves, Adam and Eve were created free and became slaves.
We’re born into this land of slavery to sin. Our Egypt is this fallen earth. We constantly live like slaves here—doing the bidding of our sinful nature. For impenitent sinners, their final Egypt is eternal slavery in hell.
II. Like Israel, like Jesus God’s only Son, we are called out of our Egypt. God called the Israelites out of their land of slavery and into the Promised Land. The enemy who was keeping them slaves he drowned in the waters of the Red Sea. They were slaves in Egypt, but God set them free and made them rulers in the new land he gave them. Jesus didn’t stay in Egypt either. The Father called this Son out of Egypt too. But while Israel came out of Egypt as free people, Jesus returned to Israel’s Promised Land only to fulfill his work as a slave. As He did He faced great danger. There was the immediate threat of Herod’s successor, Archelaus, but, much worse, there would be the final consequences of the slavery under the Law, which he accepted. Jesus willingly became a slave to sin.
a. That would mean paying the ultimate price for all sin. The deadly enemy thought he had defeated Jesus when he suffered and died on the cross. What the devil didn’t see was that Jesus’ death was really the Red Sea crashing in to drown him.
Your Father has called you out of Egypt. With the suffering, death, and resurrection of his Son, you were set free. When the waters of Holy Baptism washed over your head, it was like the Red Sea drowning Pharaoh and his army. What was really drowned was your old sinful slave nature. Through the water of baptism God lifted you out and brought you into his freedom.
What about the sins we still commit every day? We now fight against the sin that tries to enslave us. There is temptation and sometimes we fall. This is why we come here every week. The same Jesus who freed us from sin by dying on the cross tells us that we are still free. Our heavenly Father tells us, “I have called you to be my child. Have no fear. You are free.” With this freedom of sins forgiven we have hope. One day God will call us out of this Egypt too. We will leave this fallen world and we will enter the promised land of heavenly rest.