"Getting Back to Normal”

A Sermon Based Upon Matthew 2: 13-23

By Rev. Dr. Charles J. Tomlin, DMin

Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership

Sunday after Christmas, December 29th, 2013

“Now after they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, "Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him." (Mat 2:13 NRS)

Christmas is over, or is it?  It’s time to get life back to normal, or can we?

As a child, I begged for mom to hurry and put the decorations up, but I never liked to take them down.  But mom was always in a hurry to take them down.   She said she wanted to get life back to normal.   I protested.   Later I learned that there were 12, not just one wonderful days of Christmas.   I reminded her of the meaning behind that holiday song, “12 Day’s of Christmas, but no matter how many times I sang about  the drummers drumming and the ladies dancing and the swans a-swimming...all the way down to a partridge in a pear tree,  I couldn’t get her to leave things up for 12 whole days.    And when she took it down, it already felt like Christmas was over, much too soon.  

Maybe you’re already ready to move on too.    Maybe you don’t want to confess it, but you’re ready to get life back to ‘normal’ too.     It might have been that way for Mary and Joseph, as well.   Here was an awkward pregnancy along with a "pre-due date" relocation because of taxation.   Then add to  this the unexpected hosting of a big holiday party, including Luke's shepherds and Matthew's Wise Men.    Maybe the holy family had seen enough of Christmas as well.  They might have been ready for things to return to normal--whatever that is.  But, alas, they would never see normal again.  This baby had brought to them and to us “a new normal”.

WHAT IS NORMAL?

But what is normal after the baby comes?    When you have a baby what was once ‘normal’ for a married couple never returns.   And since this baby is “God” come into the world, could Mary and Joseph’s world ever be ‘normal’ again?   Could or should our own world ever get back to ‘normal’?  If God’s love has been revealed in Christ, and if the light has shown into our darkness, and if true righteousness has been revealed, our self-proclaimed righteousness can never be what it once was, but can only be, as Paul says, “as filthy rags”.   What is normal?  Isn’t this the beginning of a new kind of normal?

Some say that it was right after the Oklahoma City bombing that the phrase "new normal" first entered our conversation.   As in, "Now that this has happened, normal won't be normal anymore."  This phrase is often used these days to describe the anxiety that lingers around the economic recession's uncertainty with its residue of fear.   And this frightening ‘new normal’ can get so personal too.  Think about the neighbor who was going to retire, but can't.   What about the friend who was let go when the company downsized.  Church budgets shrunk and staff has been laid-off and some high-profile steeples are declaring bankruptcy.  The family down the street lost their house. Come to think of it, all "new normals" first feel like grief. 

Even the Christmas story is seasoned with a ‘new normal’ that tastes a lot like grief over what was and what no longer is the case.   Maybe it’s important for us to name this strangeness after Christmas right up up-front!   You know, every culture, every age, and every people have to deal with what is, what was and what isn’t normal.   What is ‘normal’ is always changing.   Think about how it was when the first car was invented, and the horse and carriages had to go?   Think about how it was when people got kitchen appliances?  We’ve always had to deal with ‘new normals’.  Some of them have been welcomed, but others have not.  Think about the new normal when guns and modern warfare was invented?   Think about the new normal now that we have computers and internet.  There is good, and there is bad when major shifts take place. 

In the Biblical story of Christmas,  when Jesus was born, the holy family nor biblical faith could ever get back to the normal that once was.  Right after the “Glory to God in the highest” we dive to one of the lowest points in all of the Bible, as even the Holy Family were not given the luxury of sleeping in heavenly peace for very long.  The flutter of angels' wings in Joseph's dreams warned of an evil tyrant, named Herod, who was on the loose going door-to-door looking for babies to kill.  So flee!   On the one hand, there's the little Lord Jesus no crying he makes...but on the other hand, there is Rachel, close by, weeping for her children.    If joy has felt illusive for you this holiday season, you are in good company with Mary and Joseph and Jesus...and God.

This tragic story  of how the Holy Family's had to flee to Egypt because Herod was killing babies  is burned in the church's memory as "The Slaughter of the Holy Innocents."  You can’t find this event in history books, but it sounds just like the Herod we do know from history.   Besides this, if you were Herod and you controlled all the information that was written down, would you allow such a story to make the history books?  History books are written the way people want them to be written, and seldom are written the way things really happened.   How many of you remember reading about why Columbus really discovered America?  

However, what happened way back then, doesn’t matter, as much as  what is happening now.   This story is not a history lesson, but it is a moral and religious truth about how ‘big’ a deal Jesus is and how the world, just like Herod, still wants nothing to do with God, with redemption, or with changing ourselves.   Matthew seems to go out of his way to highlight this.   He wants us to see how Jesus is just like Moses, who was almost killed by a malicious ruler.  Like Moses, for the holy family Egypt becomes a place of exile and safety.  Like Moses, the "delivered one" becomes the deliverer; and it all shows us how God's power to save is greater than evil's power to destroy.   The holy family then, just like any family who wants to be holy today, will find themselves having to deal with new normal that bring exile, give us uncertainty and bring us struggle, as we too live in world that tries to destroy our faith and hope, if it gets a chance.  But if God has anything to do with it, it will not get that chance.

GOD GOES WITH US “THROUGH” NOT AROUND

Evil and Destruction will not get the chance to destroy God’s family (then or now), because no matter how great evil is or becomes in this world, and no matter what strange ‘new normal’ we must face, even if we have to live in a new, different, distance place, …no matter where we have to go or what we have to go through, we are never off God’s map.   In other words, there is no place we can be or go in life that God hasn’t gone before.  Even in the land of the loss, even in far-away lands of exile, even in the "new normal" that is not the normal we want or need, this ‘new’ it is not new to God.  God has been there before and God is there before we ever get there.   

Fascinating, isn't it, that right off the bat, God's own Son becomes a transient, homeless, migrant, alien.  Within a few pages the baby will be all grown-up and we'll hear him say, "Foxes have holes, birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head."   Once a refugee, still a refugee.  Jesus is God with us, but he never at ‘home’ with us.  Jesus came to take us home, to prepare a place for us, but he never came into this world to stay, nor does he want us to get too comfortable where we live.  Jesus came to be a pioneer and pilgrim to help us more toward our new home, toward a new normal, and a better kingdom than the kingdoms this world has to offer us.   Part of how Matthew shows us the big plans God has for us in in one of Matthew's favorite words: “fulfill”.   "And they remained in Egypt in order to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord, “Out of Egypt I have called my son (2.15)...."  "Then it was fulfilled what Jeremiah said...." (2.17)  "And they settled in Nazareth so that what had been spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled” (2.23).  As Matthew tells Jesus' story, he sews it into God's Big Story--a story that has been a long time in the making and is taking us all toward a new ‘normal’ that God has planned for us all.

Maybe the people who first read Matthew’s words, found something comforting in this kind of preaching and talk, that says, wherever we go, whatever happens, we are never off God's map.  God is nearby to fill full our often empty lives and God is working his will in us, no matter where or what we have to go through.   But this does not always sound like “good news” does it?   Who wants to have to dwell in Egypt?   Who wants to live in a world that faces constant change and challenge?   Most often we are like the disciples; we want to sail with Jesus in ‘calm waters’, but we don’t want to have to deal with storms.   We love to read about Jesus feeding the 5,000, but we forget they were being fed as hungry people in a wilderness.   Who wants to fish all night without catching anything, having to wait on God to bring in the really big catch?    But this is often how it is, isn’t it?   God’s people are not led through easy waters, but troubled ones.  God’s people are not handed true faith without having to travel through a spiritual wilderness.  And we must know what is like to be empty before we can really appreciate what it means to be filled with good things.

It is not easy to deal with the ‘new normals’ of life, especially when it involves being somewhere we don’t want to be, but here is exactly where we must be; not because God is trying to hurt us, but because God wants to save us.    What Mary, Joseph, and even Jesus had to learn in life; is what we all must learn in life; not that life is easy, or life always takes us where we want to go, no, and a thousand times no.  Life is always on the move and we will always go through places we don’t want to be.   But what we learn in this places is exactly the truth that God’s people always know, and we too need to know; that wherever we go, whatever we go through, God is there and God is faithful and never leaves us without a ‘way of escape’, a path of resistance, or a power to walk through, even the darkest place or valley.

The old prophet Isaiah sang of God’s faithfulness, when he sang: "It was no messenger or angel but his presence that saved them; in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old."  (Isaiah 63:9)   Even the testy times of life can be handled faithfully because of Christ handled them, not just for himself, but as an example for us.  The writer of Hebrews says, "Because he [Jesus] himself was tested by what he suffered, he is able to help those who are being tested."  (Hebrews 20:18).  One of my favorite sayings outside of Scripture was a saying of Winston Churchill, which was spoken in a speech during the dark days of WWII.   I came across this saying in an art shop in a little artsy village just across the bay from San Francisco called Sausalito.  I couldn’t afford any of the artwork in the shop, but I wanted something to remember.  I saw this little refrigerator magnet that the artist had hand painted.  It had Churchill’s saying on it, which meant a lot to us because of what we were going through at that time.  It said, quoting Churchill: “When You’re going through Hell, keep going!”  We can “keep going” because Christ kept going.  We can “keep going” because God is with us.  We can “keep going” because we are going “through” and where we are going is better than where are anywhere along the way.   We can keep going, because although that family had to flee, they did not die, but “Herod died” and ‘those who were seeking the child are dead” (2.19-20).  Evil may make its attack in this world, but it cannot and will not finally win. 

GOD GIVES US PEACE IN AN “ABNORMAL” WORLD

A few weeks ago, as we were entering the holiday season,  my eyes caught an email from Crosswalk.com, a Baptist news service.   The title of the article was a question that someone had sent a pastor.   The question was quite shocking and sad:  “What Should I Do During the Holidays If I Hate My Family”.    The pastor who took the question was Roger Barrier, and here is how the letter read: 

Dear Pastor Roger,  Thanksgiving and Christmas are tough times for me. I really don’t want to spend any time with my family.  It’s like when we get together the pain and hurts all come back.  I can bury the pain and rejection for most of the year but family get-togethers brings it all back.  

I guess that the hardest part is that I get more hurt every time we get together.  Mom yells; dad says for the hundredth time how I’ll never amount to anything, and my brother and sister still gang up on me and criticize me and make fun of me.  My husband asked me when was the last time that I left my family and felt better than when I came. I can’t remember one time.  I always leave with more hurt than when I came.  

The truth is that I have “amounted” to something. I have a great job and a wonderful husband. I love his in-laws and they love and support me. When it is time to leave I always feel better than when I came.

I am looking for suggestions. I am tired of being “beat up” every time we get together with my family.

Sincerely, Pamela

Unfortunately, for many people, the images of having a ‘perfect family’ Christmas bring more harm than help.   Sometimes people get into ‘new normals’ that are very ‘abnormal’ or dysfunctional and they keep bringing pain, anxiety, and hurt, especially at Christmas.   It makes people want to skip Christmas altogether, or they want to hurry back home and get life back to some sense of ‘normal’.     In a situation like this, how do you think the pastor answered “Pamela”?   He said, the way I see you have three options: Dear Pamela,

First, think of some positive ways to make it better.  Second, don’t go; and third, “grin and bear it.”

Then he told Pamela this story from a counselor David Ferguson:  A pastor and his wife were having marriage difficulties. The church was fine, family OK, but their relationship was struggling.  The counselor had them fill out a questionnaire before the sessions began.  One of the questions was, “How did your father praise you?” The wife left it blank.   The counselor surmised:   “It looks like you may have missed praise and appreciation from dad. Is that right?”  She said, “Yeah, that’s right, and it hurts a lot-because he’s the most important man in my life.”   At that point, how do you think the husband was feeling? They’d been married 20 years!  There was a lot of hurt, pain, and rejection!   All kinds of dysfunctions were playing out at home---both homes.   No one would want to make their home in so much pain and hurt nor even want to visit. 

With Christmas time was near, as the pastor and his wife were about to make a trip from Texas to Michigan to be with her mom and dad for the holidays.  At the conclusion of the session Dave asked the husband to stay behind for a moment and after his wife left.   Dave gave that husband a homework assignment. 

They spent three or four days with her mother and father. Dad was no more affirming, affectionate, or approving than he ever had been. He was distant, withdrawn, critical and negative.   The pastor and his wife were about to get in the car and head home. They were standing in the kitchen, husband, wife, and her mother and father. It was time for this husband to do his homework. He looked at his mother and father-in-law and said, “I don’t know if I ever told you this or not, but you have a very special daughter. I am proud that she is my wife. She is great with the children, loves and prays for the church family, and supports me in everything that I do.”

As soon as they got in the car his wife scooted over next to him and burst into tears of joy. All of the affirmation, praise, and appreciation that she’d longed for decades for her dad to express were being ministered deeply to her by her husband.  A powerful healing took place. She left her family feeling better that day than when she first came.   What happened?  The husband gave her the gift of a new home; even in the midst of all the negativity, criticism, and pessimism.  The husband protected his wife and gave her a new place to live and a place to escape.  (http://www.crosswalk.com/church/pastors-or-leadership/ask-roger/what-should-i-do-during-the-holidays-if-i-hate-my-family.html).

We all know that this is a very bizarre Christmas story--with tyrants, heavy taxes, bloody swords and innocent children suffering and dying, and even with holy people who are homeless refugees.   It is a terrible story to tell this time of year, but there is a sense that sometimes it can be ‘normal’.  It can be the way things are; and it can be how bad things can get; but it will never be how things always have to be.   Humans can make terrible choices, and do stupid things, but this world is still God’s world.   That’s part of what Matthew wants his readers to know, and we are his readers too.

But now, you and I sit here, at the new beginning of a new year, which is just a few moments away.   The old year, with its bittersweet memories, are almost behind us; and in our heads and with our hearts, we still hold on to this Christmas story, with very mixed feelings about where the world has been and where this world may be going.   What will happen in 2014?   Who will survive?  Who will die?  What changes will take place?  What challenges will come?   How will we hear the voices of angels advising us to take flight, escape, find exile away from the frightful realities that will unfold?   You, nor I know exactly what will happen tomorrow, or what the future holds, but we know ‘who’ holds that future and we know the one who is the same today, tomorrow and forever. 

So, like Mary and Joseph, we keep holding on to God’s son, we listen to God’s messengers in the night, be they men or angels, and we keep trying to do the right thing, keep going the right way, and try to find a way to navigate the many changes and the constant ‘new normals’ that will come our way in the days ahead.   But what is most remarkable about living a life of faith is that through prayer and through our own faithful living in God’s words and toward God’s will,  like that first ‘holy family’ finally made it safely home,  we will too.    Somehow, these very odd images on the backside of Christmas, remind us that God will be there for us as he fulfills his promise of faith, hope and love.  It may not always be easy, and even when we walking with God, there will be more obstacles to face, but we will make it home, even though right now, home might feel like it is a million miles away.    

I love how this story ends.   After Herod dies, the angel returns to Joseph, commanding him to “get up, take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel for those who were seeking the child’s life are dead.”  At first it looks like life is going to return to normal, but then just as Joseph arrives in Israel he learns that Herod’s son, Archelaus is ruling in his father’s place.   Their lives are still in danger.   They can’t go home again.  Now this ‘new normal’ will force them to live in Galilee, not Judea.   Like Moses they had were exiled in Egypt, but now like Abraham, and all people of faith, they have no “abiding city”, but must keep wandering, keep waiting and keep holding on to faith as they look for that ‘city whose builder and maker is God’  (Hebrews 11.   

Until that day comes, they must make their home in another place named Nazareth.   Surprisingly, even this little ‘out of the way’ nowhere place falls into God’s plans too, as the prophets said, “So it might be fulfilled, He will be called a Nazorean.” (2.23).   This reminds me of something Francis Schaefer, the great evangelical thinker said back in the 1970’s,  “In God’s hands, there are no little places and there are no little people.”  In other words, there is no place nor is there anyone who is out of God’s reach and care.  

So finally, what do we say about the ‘new normal’ we might have to face?  It is quite simple, almost embarrassing for me to make my final point so simple, but here it is:  By putting our grief, our fears and worries into God’s great hands, we can trust that no matter what we will face in the year ahead, God will ‘never leave or forsake us’ and his presence with us can make our greatest disappointments appointments to draw closer to him who alone can bring us safely home.    Thus, whatever next year's "new normal" will turn out to be--the good news is it is there is nothing new to God.  The God who ‘makes all things new’ gives us a gift at Christmas that is not only a ‘keeper’ but it keeps us.  It keeps us believing, hoping, caring, and loving until we all are finally get home.   Amen.

And now let us pray together.  All-loving God, for your grace that hath brought us safe thus far, and for your grace that will lead us on, we say, "Thank You."  In Christ's Name, Amen.