Psa 150:6 Let every thing that hath breath praise the LORD. Praise ye the LORD.
We celebrate the birth of Jesus on December 25 but are promptly yanked back to earth the day after by the remembrance of the stoning to death of St Stephen. And we are reminded that one of his chief prosecutors was a young man named Saul. Two days later on the 28th we commemorate the slaughter of the Holy Innocents.
In the Nicene Creed each Sunday we repeat:
"And Became Truly Human"
Isa 63:9 In all their affliction He was afflicted, and the angel of His presence saved them; in His love and in His pity He redeemed them; and He bore them, and carried them all the days of old.
So it is that the first Sunday after Christmas we are reminded just what it means to be truly human, to suffer all the temptations and perils that come with being human.
Heb 2:17 This means that he had to become like his people in every way, in order to be their faithful and merciful High Priest in his service to God, so that the people's sins would be forgiven.
One of the dangers he was subjected to was the wrath of Herod.
Joseph, the husband of Mary was not the first person who bore that name to dream dreams. It was Joseph son of Jacob and Rachel whose self-important repeating of his dreams caused his brothers to sell him into slavery in Egypt where his penchant for the interpretation of dreams led him to a position of authority and enabled him to come to his family's aide when famine and starvation threatened them. And we know where that led.
So in Matthew we come to another Joseph ben Jacob who also did a lot of dreaming. You may remember that it was in a dream that Joseph was counseled not to divorce his betrothed Mary when she became pregnant. It was again in a dream that Joseph is warned to escape to Egypt to avoid the wrath of Herod and yet another that directed him back to Nazareth. This Joseph it would seem managed to slip in and out of Egypt without attracting undo attention.
One lesson we may derive from this story is the importance of being attentive to God's Will for our lives and to be listening for those messages however it may be that they get delivered; whether it be in dreams, through prayer, or the prompting of others.
The other parallel here is that between Pharoah's slaughter of the Israelite children that Moses survived and the child Jesus surviving Herod's similar infanticide.
Psa 148:5 Let them praise the name of the LORD, for he himself gave the command that they be created.
So it is that the God whose Speech, (Word), caused creation to be called into being was active in preserving the life of his Son Jesus and he did it by means of a humble carpenter who was attentive to the Word of God and took that child to a land fraught with danger for God's people in the past.
The message of Christmas then is that God cares enough about us to be present in our lives. At his birth he became an active participant in our life on earth. Today through his body the church he continues to support and sustain us. He cannot prevent us from being subjected to the dangers of life in this world any more than he was as we read in Hebrews, today's Epistle. But if we will but listen he makes us members of the Kingdom of God and will guide and protect us helping us cope with them.
The Psalmist reminds us that all things should praise the God of their Salvation. Praising the God of their Creation does his creation good.
We celebrate the birth of Jesus on December 25 but are promptly yanked back to earth the day after by the remembrance of the stoning to death of St Stephen. And we are reminded that one of his chief prosecutors was a young man named Saul. Two days later on the 28th we commemorate the slaughter of the Holy Innocents.
In the Nicene Creed each Sunday we repeat:
"And Became Truly Human"
Isa 63:9 In all their affliction He was afflicted, and the angel of His presence saved them; in His love and in His pity He redeemed them; and He bore them, and carried them all the days of old.
So it is that the first Sunday after Christmas we are reminded just what it means to be truly human, to suffer all the temptations and perils that come with being human.
Heb 2:17 This means that he had to become like his people in every way, in order to be their faithful and merciful High Priest in his service to God, so that the people's sins would be forgiven.
One of the dangers he was subjected to was the wrath of Herod.
Joseph, the husband of Mary was not the first person who bore that name to dream dreams. It was Joseph son of Jacob and Rachel whose self-important repeating of his dreams caused his brothers to sell him into slavery in Egypt where his penchant for the interpretation of dreams led him to a position of authority and enabled him to come to his family's aide when famine and starvation threatened them. And we know where that led.
So in Matthew we come to another Joseph ben Jacob who also did a lot of dreaming. You may remember that it was in a dream that Joseph was counseled not to divorce his betrothed Mary when she became pregnant. It was again in a dream that Joseph is warned to escape to Egypt to avoid the wrath of Herod and yet another that directed him back to Nazareth. This Joseph it would seem managed to slip in and out of Egypt without attracting undo attention.
One lesson we may derive from this story is the importance of being attentive to God's Will for our lives and to be listening for those messages however it may be that they get delivered; whether it be in dreams, through prayer, or the prompting of others.
The other parallel here is that between Pharoah's slaughter of the Israelite children that Moses survived and the child Jesus surviving Herod's similar infanticide.
Psa 148:5 Let them praise the name of the LORD, for he himself gave the command that they be created.
So it is that the God whose Speech, (Word), caused creation to be called into being was active in preserving the life of his Son Jesus and he did it by means of a humble carpenter who was attentive to the Word of God and took that child to a land fraught with danger for God's people in the past.
The message of Christmas then is that God cares enough about us to be present in our lives. At his birth he became an active participant in our life on earth. Today through his body the church he continues to support and sustain us. He cannot prevent us from being subjected to the dangers of life in this world any more than he was as we read in Hebrews, today's Epistle. But if we will but listen he makes us members of the Kingdom of God and will guide and protect us helping us cope with them.
The Psalmist reminds us that all things should praise the God of their Salvation. Praising the God of their Creation does his creation good.
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