Dear Friends in Christ-
The Gospel lesson of Matthew 2:13-23 takes place after the visit of the magi. Not long after the wise ones have left, Joseph has another dream, in which the angel tells him he needs to get up and take Mary and Jesus and escape to Egypt, for Herod was looking for the child to destroy him. Joseph, Mary, and Jesus fled to Egypt until Herod’s death. The writer of Matthew used passages from the Hebrew scriptures to prove Jesus was the prophesied Messiah. One such passage was Hosea 11:1, in which the prophet was referring to Israel’s past relationship with God, in that God led the people (personified as God’s child) out of their oppression in Egypt. Another was Jeremiah 31:15, in which Jeremiah uses Rachel, one of the matriarchs of Israel, to show that even their ancestors weep for what the people have been through as they were taken into exile. However, the following verse is God’s response to the people, that there is hope to be found. While it appears that the writer of Matthew took the verse out of context to show the devastation of Herod’s actions to the children of Judea, Matthew uses Jeremiah in a similar way to Jeremiah’s use of Rachel. Matthew is continuing a literary tradition, linking the past with the present in a new context. Nonetheless, we must not conclude that the new context is widely accepted by the community as a whole, nor negates the previous contexts. Once Herod was dead, Joseph again dreamed of an angel telling him to return, but this time, Joseph was afraid to return to Judea with another member of Herod’s family on the throne. Instead, he moves the family north to Nazareth, connecting Matthew’s Gospel accounts with other accounts that Jesus was from Nazareth. Once again, the writer of Matthew uses Hebrew scriptures, but either misunderstands the term Nazorean—a child set aside for God, like Samson and Samuel in the Hebrew Scriptures—or it was a deliberate play on words. In Matthew’s account, this ends the stories of Jesus’s childhood. Matthew 2:13-23, New International Version The Escape to Egypt 13 When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up,” he said, “take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.” 14 So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, 15 where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: “Out of Egypt I called my son.”[a] 16 When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. 17 Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled: 18 “A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.”[b] The Return to Nazareth 19 After Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt 20 and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who were trying to take the child’s life are dead.” 21 So he got up, took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. 22 But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning in Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. Having been warned in a dream, he withdrew to the district of Galilee, 23 and he went and lived in a town called Nazareth. So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets, that he would be called a Nazarene. Tomorrow we will back up a bit and talk about the Wise Ones and the significance of their gifts. Join us! What questions will you bring to worship tomorrow? In His Service, P Jim ♥️⚓️ ♡Special thanks to Rev. Mindi, workingpreacher, Hope for the Broken Hearted and/or Star Bright Angels for their contribution to this effort of Daily Prayer and Study. All scripture is taken from the Revised Common Lectionary and, unless otherwise indicated, from the New International Version of the Bible. The intent of this effort is to inform our faith and grow closer to God, while preparing for next Sunday's Worship. ~James 4:8 <x>< Comments are closed.
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September 2023
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