Christmas 1, December 28/29/30, 2013
Sermon by Pastor Paul G. Eckert
Text - Matthew 2:13-23

    The theme for this sermon is “JOURNEYING THROUGH LIFE
TO LIFE.”  How much traveling or journeying have you done?  I’ll
start out with some of my journeying so far.  It started in lower
Michigan where I grew up.  Then I journeyed to Wisconsin for my
college and seminary years.  The first congregations I served took me
north to Ontario in Canada and to upper Michigan.  Then in 1959 my
family and I headed south again to Wisconsin to serve in St. Jacobi
Congregation in Milwaukee and then in Greenfield.  I’m quite sure that
many of you here today have done more traveling than that.
    But whatever the number of locations or miles, we aren’t at the end
of our journeying, are we.  What will the end be?  It’s not where and
what we deserve, but what Jesus, whose birth we just celebrated, had
come to this earth to make possible for us.  We’ll speak of  that as
JOURNEYING THROUGH LIFE TO LIFE.
I    THE REALITY OF DANGER.  (13,16)
    1. Danger caused journeying here. (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.”
        a) The Magi or wise men, after seeing a special star, had traveled
            hundreds of miles from the east looking for the promised King. 
            After seeing the baby Jesus, instead of reporting His exact
            location to Herod, they fled the land to get away from Herod.
        b) But that didn’t stop Herod from looking for someone he
            saw as a threat some day to his position.  So an angel told
            Mary and Joseph to get out of the country and take the child
            Jesus and travel many miles to Egypt until the danger was past.   
    2. Danger was there also for others. (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. 
        a) Herod didn’t get an exact address from the Magi.  But
            knowing the city was Bethlehem, he ordered the killing of all
            baby boys in an age range he felt sure would include Jesus.
        b) The number may have been small, but the killing was murder.
    3. There still is danger all around us.
        a) We don’t have a Herod, but we do have a government that has
            made it legal to murder babies in the womb.
        b) And we have heard many voices in the past Christmas season
            that have tried to get the baby Christchild out of Christmas.   
    4. And danger will still continue in 2014.
        a) Yes, there will be danger from car accidents and things like
            that, just like in 2013.
        b) There are increasing dangers for Christians in Islamic lands
            and also in the U.S.; temptations  to fall from God and to
            stay away from His Word and not to share Jesus with others.
            c) If possible, like the Magi and Mary and Joseph, travel away
            from such danger.  And stay close to God and His Word,
            trusting Him for what He in His wisdom permits in our lives..
II    THE CERTAINTY OF GOD’S CARE.  (13-15a,19-22)
    1. Marvel that Jesus needed care.
        a) Our Jesus is God’s Son, the Word made flesh, the one of
            whom Scripture says, “Through him all things were made;
without him nothing was made that has been made.”
        b) Why did He through whom all things were made need care?
    2. Here we see why Jesus humbled Himself.
        a) Listen to these words from Philippians 2 about Jesus “-- who,
being in very  nature God, did not consider equality with God
something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the
very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.  And
being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and
became obedient to death - even death on a cross!”
        b) Could Jesus have walked away from Pontius Pilate, from    
            soldiers who crucified Him?  Yes, He had the power.  But in
            His love for us and the world He set that power aside.
    3. Here we can see God’s care.  (13-15a)
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.”  So he got up, took the child and
his mother during the night and left for Egypt, where he stayed
until the death of Herod.”
        a) God cared for the Magi, sending them home safely.
        b) He protected His Son here, because His saving plan for the
            world was not death by Herod, but a sacrifice on a cross. 
    4. Know that His care is also for us. (19-22)
After Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to
Joseph in Egypt 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.”  So he got up, took the child and his mother
and went to the land of Israel.  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, ---.    
        a) Mary and Joseph probably didn’t fully understand why with a
            very young child they had to do all this traveling.
        b) Have we in the past  fully understood why God permitted
            some things to happen to us?  Will we always know in the
            coming year of 2014 what God has in mind if something comes
            that we would choose not to have happen?
        c) While we often cannot understand, we can trust God’s guiding
            care, knowing as Scripture says:  “He who did not spare his
own Son, but gave him up for us all - how will he not also, along
with him, graciously give us all things?”
III  THE WONDERFULNESS OF FULFILLMENT.(15,17-18,22-23)
    1. God’s OT promises were fulfilled.  (15b,17-18,23)
        a) Our text refers to three: - (Jeremiah 31:15) Then what was
said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled: “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.”
-  (Hosea 11:1) And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said
through the prophet: “Out of Egypt I called my son.” 
        b) A third reference: - and he went and lived in a town called
Nazareth.  So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets:
“He will be called a Nazarene.”  This speaks of OT prophecies that
Jesus would be mocked and despised.   All of these were fulfilled.
    2. So also the promise of salvation was fulfilled.
        a) Think of these promises: a virgin birth in Bethlehem, being
            betrayed for 30 pieces of silver, being pierced and hanged on a
            tree, being forsaken by God in our place; then also being
            victorious and arising from the dead - b) All werefulfilled.
    3. Likewise the promise of life for us will be fulfilled.
        a) God has promised to be with us in this life.  But this life
             won’t always continue - who wants that in this vale of tears?
        b) What Jesus has promised is that we’ll be with Him in His glory
            without tears.  In other words, Heaven is our home, a promise
            that will be fulfilled as surely as the prophecies in our text were
            all fulfilled, as surely as Jesus after His crucifixion arose from
            the dead to be our Resurrection and our Life.
    4. Yes, our journey through life leads to true life.    
        a) How sad if all we knew was that we were heading into
            another year of time with a totally unknown future.   
        b) How sad if we knew that all we could anticipate was danger
            and problems and aging and dying and death and hell.
        c) Thank God that because of Christmas and everything it really
            means, because of the truth of God’s love and of His promises,
            we know more. 

    The Magi journeyed many miles from the east to Jerusalem and to
Bethlehem, and then back to the East.  Mary and Joseph journeyed
from Galilee to Bethlehem, and then with Jesus to Jerusalem, to Egypt,
and back to Jerusalem and to Nazareth in Galilee - a lot of journeying.
    We continue our journeying, knowing there will be dangers, but also
knowing that we have God’s guiding care, and that our Savior God
will fulfill His promises to us of glory to come.  In such confidence, as
we head into 2014, we’ll continue JOURNEYING THROUGH
 LIFE TO LIFE.