Sermon Tone Analysis

Pre-Servie Psalm: Psalm 94:16ff

note: If the Lord had not been my help in verse 17

Scripture Reading: Jeremiah 31:15-17

Sermon

GMC!

I was glad when they said to me let us go and worship in the house of the Lord!

Well if you have your Bibles I would ask that you would turn with me this morning to Matthew Chapter 2. We will be looking at verses 13-23 this morning.

We will actually be looking at three short narratives that Matthew gives us that together paint one picture.

It is in some ways like a phenomenon we have in modern writing.

A collection of Short stories that all tell one big story.

and that is what we will be looking at today, the big picture in the “flight to Egypt” “Herod killing the children” what is often referred to as the slaughter of the innocents and finally the return of Jesus and his family to Isreal, specifically to Nazareth.

But before we dive into these, lets begin with a word of Prayer.

PRAY

As I said we will be looking at three narratives, and a Apologize that this week I do not a have cute/fun story like we often start with.

so instead we will just look at each of these narratives in turn, and see what each of them teaches us about out savior and about our God.

And we start with what is called the “flight to Egypt.

Found in verse 13-15

In this short narrative I would push us to see that ultimately these are about Jesus.

and you might be thinking of course, every passage is about Jesus.

To which I would say, yes, you are right, but yet I still feel the need to push.

because even if we say that we know that, sometimes in a passage like this we can start to loose sight of that fact.

So to emphasize, why I would say that THIS passage is about Jesus: Why should we not emphasize some of the other things that happen here, the dreams, don't’ get caught up looking at Joseph and his faithfulness, though he is faithful, this is a narrative designed to cause us to look to the child, the son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

What proof do I offer?

verse 13. “rise take the child and his mother” this is backwards from how we would normally say it which would be “mother and child”.

the deference is usually given to the mother with a position of honor and thus said first.

therefore it is no accident that , because this CHILD is Jesus, he is given the position of honor and spoken of first.

verse 14 same thing.

finally and I would argue most importantly, Matthew 2:15

here the first place the child, Jesus, our lord, is referred to as the son of God. and so the goal of Matthew is to cause us to look to our savior to look to the child and here in the flight to Egypt what we should see is OUR SYMPATHETIC SAVIOR

In the flight to Egypt see your SYMPATHETIC Savior

Now there is a lot of prophecy going on here, and we will get to that NEXT week.

but there are some important things that are going o here that we need to see and need to understand when we hear about our savior going to Egypt.

Really there are two main thoughts that kind of flow together that flow together to show Jesus being a sympathetic savior.

One: Jesus being forced because of persecution and hatred down to Egypt becomes a sort of picture for us of life, of savior who understands.

Even as an infant Jesus faced trial and troubles.

He is therefore no stranger to heartache, to calamity, to pain and even dare I say to suffering.

For what Jesus faces here is greater than any trial that we have faced.

None of us have faced anything quite like this: that the most powerful man in tier corner of the world is out to destroy (that's the language of the angel to Joseph) that Herod seeks to destroy this child.

he is hated, despised before he is even old enough to do anything, he is outcast, rejected.

and so he must pick up everything, Matthew 2:14

There are two thought in regards to why they would leave at night, and neither is comforting.

on one hand they might have left by night because Joseph had this dream, woke up, and they left that very night.

there was no time to plan, to make sure that you had everything together, you get up and leave.

Thus Joseph felt the desperation in the voice and message of the angel and he knew therefore that they could not tarry or wait.

that's one option.

and that's bad, and the second option is no better.

The second option is this: because they knew how violently and how passionately Herod would seek to destroy them, Joseph Mary and Jesus were forced to leave under the cover of darkness so that no one could know that they were leaving.

the picture her is of fear and trepidation that causes you to leave under the cover of darkness.

Either way the picture painted is one of fear, of trouble is of a BAD situation.

And what we get to realize is that the passage RIGHT before this was of the wise men.

The wise men from afar bring to King Jesus, opulent and wonderful gifts so that they could worship, they could bow down before him.

and immediately, as soon as they depart an angel of the Lord appears.

and SO for Mary and Joseph, and therefore also for the child.

you go from this great high of “man these wise men form afar have come” immediately to this low: Herod is seeking to destroy this child you must leave!

And so here we have a picture, a picture that our savior must go through and endure just like we must go through and endure.

Though Jesus is king, clearly established up to this point in Matthew.

Established in his geology, clearly established in the visit of the wise men, though Jesus is KING he does not reside in some palatial palace, instead he is close and near.

Theologically speaking we could look to Paul where he said Philippians 2:6

he humbled himself.

and so here our Humble king is dealing with real tangible powerful and even painful issues.

Forced to abandon home, forced to abandon comfort and forced to flee to, of all places, Egypt!

Egypt, where God’s people once labored as slaves under the rule of Pharaoh until God saw fit to hear their cries, see their tears and he sent MOSES to deliver them.

Egypt the quintessential old testament long bad guy villain, person/country to flee from, to not trifle with, here our savior is in such desperate need that Egypt is looking like a good (and really the only) option.

And so as we face trials, as w face difficulties, what Matthew is telling us in this short story is that we have a savior that is sympathetic.

Who, because he faced trial though he was perfect his life was far from that, he is not separated from the trials and struggles that we go through.

and so he is, our perfect, sympathetic savior.

the first way we see this is as he faces trials he endures difficulties so he can relate, but there is also something else going on here.

the second main thought here is this: even as I described this situation, it is almost impossible to describe the pain of fleeing TO Egypt without seeing the pain of the time that God’s people spent IN Egypt.

And so what is being introduced here is a theme that Matthew will develop, will deal with for the rest of the book: and that is Jesus as what we would call the “new moses”.

Moses was one of God’s people, called by God to deliver his people.

and Moses loved his people, he cared for his people.

And so even as we are introduced to Jesus here, what Matthew is getting us to see is that as the “new moses” he will also save and deliver his people.

there is a lot of things we can say about the new moses theme, more than will fit in any one sermon.

If it interests you I would encourage you to look at Quarles book back there on the book table that is not a table but instead a shelf.

But he deals extensively with this theme, and that book is back there as a tool for you to use.

But I would like to say this today: that Jesu, being the new moses, becomes for us an important thought.

Because as we begin to look at the life of Moses he interceded on behalf of his people.

Right? there was a time when God said: I'm done, I'm going to destroy them all and start over and moses pleaded with God and God, hearing the prayer and cry of moses, relented.

Moses was the one who would go and talk to God and then bring the message back to his people.

And so Jesus serves that role, but he does so perfectly.

Not only do we say that Jesus is the New moses, but he is also the better moses.

Because Jesus, being God and man, is able to perfectly intercede for us.

Because though moses, though he wasn’t allowed to look directly upon God’s Glory.

WE know he was not allowed to look directly upon God in his glory, for no one may see God and live, so instead he was allowed to see just the tail and of the train of the robe of God’s glory and he was forever changed.

Moses, was still a sinful man, and so there were issues with Moses’ intercession.

whereas Jesus being perfect, being the image of the invisible God, he is our PERFECT intercessor.

so we come to him, he relates to us as man but he is God.

here is therefore our perfect sympathetic savior.

As we turn to our next narrative we are going to skip.

and WHY we are doing that will become apparent, but lets skip briefly to the return to Nazareth.

Matthew 2:19-23

So why would we skip?

well these two narratives, the flight to Egypt and the return to Nazareth form (here’s your fancy 10 cent word to take home and impress people with at dinner) they form an inclusio.

These area two similar, very similar stories that tie together with something in the middle.

So they say one thing that flavors and impacts the middle.

So why would we say this is an inclusio?

well, I am so glad you asked. 1) they both open with Joseph having the angle of the Lord come to him and speak to him in a dream.

verse 13 and verse 19. 2) both of these after Joseph hears the words of the angel Joseph does the exact same thing.

and Matthew 2:21

this is an exact word for word correspondence Matthew is telling us that these tie together but 3) and most obvious, just thematically, think about it.