From a Sermon, Christmas II, Matthew 2:12-19
Jesus was a survivor.
The wise men had reached Herod. They are about to tell him that Jesus has been born, the Messiah, and this makes Herod, and all Jerusalem – hipster central, where all the good restaurants and cool kids reside – nervous. For Jesus is a country kid who might challenge the king. Herod asks the magi to find the child and tell him.
But after the magi visit, Joseph and Mary are warned. And when the magi skip town, he is enraged. And in the verses the lectionary skips over, Herod, infuriated, slaughters the children in and around Bethlehem.
It evokes another story: the child Moses escaping the law of the Pharaohs. But also the other stories of destruction and survival. Jesus would have remembered that story of survival. He would have remembered the prophet Jeremiah. And he would have remembered the scattering of the people of Israel after the Babylonian captivity. Continue reading “Jesus, Survivor”
The Divine Latitude 