of the Holy Family
Dec. 29, 2013
Matt 2: 13-15, 19-23
St. Vincent’s Hospital, Harrison
“The angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a
dream and said, ‘Rise, take the child and his mother, flee to Egypt, and stay
there until I tell you’” (Matt 2: 13).
The Flight into Egypt The Bible of Tbilisi |
Today we celebrate the feast of the Holy Family,
the family composed of Jesus, his mother Mary, and Mary’s husband Joseph.
The gospels are the story of Jesus of Nazareth—you
know that already, of course: the story
of his teaching and his work of redemption.
But they have their cast of supporting characters. In the 1st 2 chapters of St. Matthew’s
gospel, we meet an angel, a virgin mother, a wicked king (Herod), and 3 magi or
wise men (they weren’t kings). But the
chief supporting character is St. Joseph.
So today:
the child’s life is in danger.
King Herod is so afraid of any challenge to his power that between 7 and
4 B.C. he executed 3 of his own sons and his favorite wife out of fear that
they were plotting against him. When the
magi tell him that there’s a newborn king of Israel, he plots to destroy this
perceived threat to his power. The
verses we skip over in our gospel this morning, vv. 16-18, were part of our
gospel reading yesterday on the feast of the Holy Innocents; they describe the
massacre of the male infants of Bethlehem as Herod “searches for the child to
destroy him” (2:13).
St. Joseph, we know from what Matthew told us
earlier—as well as from St. Luke’s gospel —isn’t the child’s father. We call him Jesus’ foster father. He assumes the role of protector of Jesus and
of Jesus’ mother, and we see him carrying out that responsibility today. He serves as a model for all
fathers—biological fathers, adoptive fathers, foster fathers, even spiritual fathers. In fact, he’s a model for all mothers too.
He’s a model, 1st, because he seeks to do God’s
will in everything. In ch. 1 Matthew
describes him as “a just man” or “a righteous man” (depending on your translation). That means he tries in all things to obey the
Torah, the Law that God gave to Moses, which is a law that covers not only
morality but also worship and practical, everyday life.
He’s a model, 2d, because once he understands
what God wants, he obeys immediately. We
see that today in his obedience to the angel’s message in his dream: “Take the child and his mother and flee to
Egypt.” He gets up and departs that very
nite. We don’t know how soon Herod’s
soldiers arrived in Bethlehem to do their brutal murders, but Bethlehem is only
about 5 miles from Jerusalem. And the
road to Egypt is a long one, which the Holy Family would have been traveling on
foot, or by donkey at best. Haste is
important for saving the life of our Savior, and Joseph acts quickly. Earlier, the angel had told him to take Mary
as his wife despite her pregnancy, for the child was begotten by the Holy
Spirit (1:20), and “when Joseph awoke, he did as the angel of the Lord had
commanded him” (1:24). Later, the angel
tells him not to re-settle in Bethlehem, or anywhere in Judea, so he changes
his original plan and takes the family to Galilee, to the town of Nazareth
(2:22-23), which must have been disruptive, even disappointing—but necessary
for the child’s protection.
Nazareth |
He’s a model, 3d, because he acts without
discussion, argument, questions. In
fact, Joseph never says a word in the gospels.
He’s nicknamed “Joseph the Silent.”
This trait is related to his obedience.
Many times people will do the right thing only after they’ve tried
everything else 1st and found that their bad choices didn’t really help them,
or they’ve argued with their parents, their supervisors, or their counselors
(of whatever sort, including spiritual) and found their own arguments weak or
self-serving, and only then do they reluctantly go along with those advising or
commanding. Imagine your son or daughter
when told to clean a bedroom. Joseph
doesn’t try to tell God (or the angel), “Do I have to? But I told the guys I’d meet them,” much
less, “This is crazy! How am I supposed
to believe this?” Not a word; just
action. Perhaps silence was an important
part of his spirituality. Perhaps it was
silence that left him truly open to hearing what God was telling him: the silence of prayer, the silence of reflection. We all need more silence in our lives—less
electronic distraction, less gossipy conversation, more room for God’s angel to
speak to us.
Let us also note this about what St. Matthew
tells us today: as he does elsewhere in
his gospel, he brings out how this or that action “fulfills the prophets”
(2:15,23). Matthew is seeing this by
looking back at what happened and matching events against the Scriptures. We wouldn’t say that Joseph consulted the
Scriptures in advance. But we would say
there’s a correlation between his choices, his actions, and the divine plan
revealed in the Scriptures. The lesson
for us in the 21st century is to read, study, reflect on, pray over the
Scriptures—the revealed Word of God—and try to discern what choices and what
actions God would have us do, so that our lives may be in accord with his plan
for us, so that, years from now, we might be able to look back and see how we
fulfilled what he had mind. Joseph’s
obedience was the salvation of the infant Jesus. Our obedience to God’s Word is the key to our
salvation.
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