|
Summary:
Summary: When we learn to listen to God
and not pay attention to Satan our lives can be filled with a
never ending joy.
Now What
Another year is quickly drawing to
a close. The holiday season is just about over. The rush of
preparation has culminated in a few hours of quality time spent with
friends and family, but now that’s done. The gifts have been opened,
the food has been devoured. Now what?
The hectic pace of the holiday season can leave us
longing for a break. It can also leave us with a sense of
melancholy, a sense of sadness. The tinsel and the glitter, the
lights and the decorations, the smells and the sounds of Christmas –
everything is replaced now, with the mundane sameness of life. Many
people struggle with the post-holiday-blahs. Now what?
I wonder if Mary and Joseph felt some of those same
things. The excitement of the Son of God being born that night, the
visit of the shepherds, some time after that - the visit of the Magi
from the east, bringing gifts. But now what? Those things are done -
in the past, distant memories for Mary and Joseph. Now they set
about the task of raising a family, making a living – the excitement
of the moment is gone. Did they struggle with the post-holiday
blahs?
God didn’t let them, did he? He didn’t allow the holy
family to live a peaceful and quiet life in Bethlehem for very long.
Things couldn’t be peaceful and quiet, because the baby they were
raising was the very Son of God, the Savior of the world. Satan
would try to assassinate the Savior. Mary and Joseph would have to
be placed into God’s witness protection program for a little while.
Eventually, they would move back to their small hometown up north
after things settled down. There was no time for Mary and Joseph to
get comfortable in Bethlehem.
For you and I as Christians living in the 21st century,
the events we are looking at today have a great deal of
significance. As we sit here, at the end of the year, as all the
holiday-type things come to a close, and we ask ourselves, now what?
God answers that question this morning, through his Word. There is
much ahead, much to think about, much to look forward to, and he
shows us what those things are today as we focus on these early days
in the life of our Savior.
Holiday Travel
It was the middle of the night, and
Joseph was sleeping, when an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a
dream. “Get up, 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.” The wise men from the east had just visited
Jesus. They had told King Herod that they were on their way to visit
the one who was born King of the Jews, and this bothered Herod. He
was the King of the Jews, or so he thought. He wondered if this
newborn child would be a threat to his throne. The wise men didn’t
return like he thought they would, and this upset him. Any threat to
his position of power must be eliminated. And so very soon, maybe
even the next day, Herod would send his soldiers into Bethlehem to
massacre all boys under the age of two. “Get up, Joseph,” the angel
said. “Get out of here as fast as you possibly can.” Satan was
behind this whole thing – this was his first attempt to assassinate
the Messiah. And so Joseph got up in the middle of the night, and he
and Jesus and Mary made their way to Egypt, where they stayed until
the death of Herod.
God 2 – Satan 0
Do you see the two things that
happen here? Satan loses, and a prophecy is fulfilled. And so was
fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: “Out of Egypt
I called my son.” When the prophet Hosea wrote that, he was
referring to the nation of Israel, God’s Son, being called out of
the slavery of Egypt into the promise land. But here, the Holy
Spirit teaches us in Matthew that this also applies to Jesus – just
as God called the nation of Israel out of Egypt, so also God called
his son Jesus out of Egypt.
Now what? Joseph, Jesus, and Mary are living with a
group of Jews in Egypt, but not for very long. Herod dies, and an
angel of the Lord appears in a dream to Joseph again, and tells him
that it’s safe for him to go back to the land of Israel. So Joseph
and Jesus and Mary return to Israel, but something iss wrong –
Herod’s son, Archelaus was in charge now, and he was just as bad as
his father. Now what? Once again, Joseph was warned in a dream to
leave the area. He moves north, to the town of Nazareth in Galilee,
and that’s where he stayed.
Do you see the two things that happen here? Once again,
Satan loses - the Messiah is safe, and a prophecy is fulfilled. And
so was fulfilled what was said through the prophets: “He will be
called a Nazarene.” The prophets of the Old Testament never wrote
this prophecy down, but it was understood that the Messiah would be
called a Nazarene, a despised person from a small town in the middle
of nowhere.
Satan on Offense
The Devil went to work right after
Jesus was born. But his plans didn’t work. Instead, he loses, and
prophecies are fulfilled. The Devil is still at work today, and
right after Christmas, it seems that he works extra hard, especially
on Christians. He wants you to not only put your decorations away,
but to put your joy away, and your faith away. “You can stop being
religious now,” the Devil says. “You can stop being joyful now.
Christmas is over.” It’s time to get back to the regular things of
life.” The Devil attacks us with these thoughts, and unfortunately,
we sometimes listen. We become melancholy – the birth of Jesus
Christ fades into the past. Our desire to worship goes down with the
lights. Our joy disappears with the wrapping paper.
Maybe our joy and desire disappear because we have
bought into the world’s thinking more than we realize. Perhaps we
believe the equation: happiness = material things, more than we
think. If lasting happiness could be found in having material
things, and in being able to indulge ourselves in whatever we
wanted, then most of us in America should be delirious with joy, and
happy beyond description, all the time. We should be producing books
and poems that describe our state of unparalleled bliss. Our
literature and art should rival that of the ancient Greeks and
Romans and Renaissance craftsmen.
Instead, we find high rates of suicide, depression,
child abuse, and other personal and social problems beyond
description, especially during the holidays. We find people, and
sometimes ourselves, struggling to stay joyful, because deep down
inside we have been let down by the lies of the world - that
happiness is found having all we want and being able to get more.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. The Word of God for
today teaches us two things – Satan loses, and prophecies are
fulfilled – and this goes on even after Christmas is over.
Throughout Jesus’ life, Satan lost, and prophecies were fulfilled.
Think about what happened about 30 years after these events -
really, the opposite of our story for today. Instead of Jesus
fleeing from harm, Jesus would walk right into harm’s way. Instead
of fleeing from Herod and the Roman government, Jesus would allow
himself to be executed by the Roman government. Instead of God the
Father protecting Jesus, God the Father would punish Jesus - the
opposite of our story for today. But even there, Satan loses, and
prophecies are fulfilled. The prophecies that foretold that the
Messiah would someday suffer and die to take away the sins of the
world. All of our sins - even those moments when we buy into the
lies of the Devil – all of our sins have been washed away by Jesus
on the cross. Satan loses, and prophecies are fulfilled. That’s why
Jesus was born. And that’s what brings us joy, and keeps our joy
alive, even after Christmas is over. These two small victories of
Jesus, recorded in our verses for today, are just a taste of the big
victory that Jesus would someday win for us at the cross, and at the
empty tomb.
Trust and Obey
And so now what? How do I respond
to the grace of God? How do I say thank you? How do I glorify the
God who has done all this for me? I can live my life like Joseph
lived. What was the pattern of Joseph’s life? He listened, and he
obeyed. The angel told him to go to Egypt, so he went to Egypt. Go
to Israel, so he went to Israel. Watch out for Herod number two, so
he moved to Nazareth. Joseph listened, and obeyed. He wasn’t a
self-made man, Mr. Independence, I’ll-do-my-own-thing-kind-of-guy.
He listened, and he obeyed. That’s how he responded to the grace of
God. That’s how he glorified the God who had sent the Savior into
his very own family.
You and I can do the same thing. Today, God reveals
himself to us not in dreams, but through his written Word. We can
listen, and obey. We can be modern-day Joseph’s – people who do not
rely on themselves, but listen closely to the Word of God, and obey.
Throughout our lives, Satan will continue to lose, and God will
continue to keep all the promises he has made to us – that pattern
will never change. May God bless you with a joy and love for him
that lasts long after the Christmas season is over. Let us pray. |
