January 1, 2023

First Sunday of Christmas/Name of Jesus

Epiphany, Winnipeg

Luke 2:15-21; Matthew 2:13-23; Numbers 6:22-27

To get right to the point, I don’t want this season to end.

This coming Thursday is the feast of the Epiphany, and the next six Sundays are called the Sundays after Epiphany. Another name the church has had for that season is ordinary time. It’s not Advent or Christmas or Lent or Easter. Nothing special. It’s ordinary time.

And I don’t want ordinary. I want music and lights and parties and food and holidays and sentiment and Christmas markets and even that stop-motion Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer special; everything that somehow grabs the mood that makes Advent and Christmas my favourite time of year. I don’t want ordinary.

Does that sound familiar at all? It’s not just about seasons of the church year, but it’s about life in general. At those high points of good health or work going well or being with friends or a great relationship or all of life’s pieces settled into place in a good way, even if only for a few moments, we want it to last.

So here’s what I notice in this story we’ve already heard, about shepherds and a manger and a baby and some parents. When the whole big Christmas scene is over, the shepherds return. Back to work, maybe back to see how many sheep just wandered away while they, the shepherds, chased visions and visitations and promises and dreams. After all that, they just return, but with that song in their hearts and ears and on their lips: Gloria, gloria…

It’s kind of like that for Mary and Joseph too, you know. The next thing we hear after the shepherds return home is that it’s eight days later, and this Jewish mom and dad are doing what every good Jewish mom and dad did with their Jewish boys: took them to be circumcised on the eighth day. They’re just doing what’s normal for people with a newborn boy child, and his name is Jesus, which is a version of Joshua, which probably means something like “he saves.”

After all the angels and the fuss and the visitors and all, Jesus’ parents just get on with life. Whatever great moments and high points there were are left behind. And now they just move on to ordinary time. But they’ve got a new song in their hearts and on their lips, and something fresh to think about and to feel ….Gloria, gloria, in excelsis Deo… And while they learn the strange new life of being parents they have the company of this one whose name means something like “one who saves.” This little baby, whose name reminds his parents, reminds us, that God will save.

The big moment passes, and now it’s just normal life.

This festival called The Name of Jesus finds us all just going with the shepherds back to whatever it is we do, and it finds us with Mary and Joseph getting on with life doing whatever we do in the changing times or in times that feel like they’re just keeping on staying the same.

But we do all of the everyday now with a new song in our hearts and on our lips and ringing in our ears – Gloria, gloria, in excelsis Deo – and with this name of Jesus that we keep on learning; this name that reminds us that God will save, that God gives life, that God is healing what is broken; that God is even with us, and especially with us, in ordinary time.

It’s also the First Sunday of Christmas today, and there are different readings assigned for that day. Here’s the gospel for the First Sunday of Christmas. It’s Matthew 2:13-23. The wise men have come and gone. They were supposed to find out where Jesus was and then come back and tell King Herod, but they were warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, so they go home by another way. They tricked the king, and the king was mad. And afraid. Which so often turns to mad. Then Matthew tells the story like this:

“Now after the magi 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.’ Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, and remained there until the death of Herod….

“When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the wise men….

“When Herod died, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, ‘Get up, take the child and his mother, and go back to the land of Israel, for those who were seeking the child’s life are dead.’ Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel. But when he heard Herod’s son was ruling in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. And after being warned in a dream, he went away to the district of Galilee. Instead, he made his home there in a town called Nazareth….”

That’s a different kind of ordinary life. For Mary and Joseph and Jesus it’s not that they can’t hold on to the perfect moment forever; it’s just that there is no perfect moment and they have to get going right now. Joseph keeps having these dreams where he’s told that Jesus’ life is in danger and they have to go now; then there’s a dream that it’s safe to go back home so they go; then there’s another dream that it’s not safe at home so they have to somewhere else.

For Mary and Joseph and Jesus everyday life is no longer just going and doing what is expected or normal. “Everyday life” is doing what’s normal for people who are in danger and who are protecting their child from danger. Just like how many millions of people today need to be moving around and moving to stay safe and to protect themselves and the ones they love.

But now they do that with the name of Jesus travelling with them, the name of Jesus that means “God will save.” The name of Jesus that means God will heal what is broken, the name of Jesus that means those who are in danger will be protected, the name of Jesus that means oppression and fear will not last forever, the name of Jesus that means that those who flee will find a new home, the name of Jesus that means that the tyrants and the powerful and the Herods of the world will not get the last word. The name of Jesus which is also “Immanuel,” which means “God with us.”

And we do that too. Some of us have had to flee from a country or a home or a school or a job where we were not safe, but we left with the name that means “God will save” and “God is with us.”

All of us probably know that perfect moments are few and far between, and we know that life is full of safety and danger and peace and fear.

And God will save. And God is with us. It’s the First Sunday of Christmas, it’s “The Name of Jesus”, and God will save, and God is with us.

The first reading we heard today was that reading from Numbers chapter six. At that point the people of Israel have only a short while ago been set free from slavery. For four hundred years they were not free and then Moses and Miriam and God led the to freedom. It’s a high point. But now they’re about to settle in to decades of life in the wilderness. The high point is behind them, and now ordinary life will just be trying to find their way and trying to learn how to be God’s people, and the won’t really have a home or any place to call their own for all that time. And God gives words for the leaders of the people to say to them:

“The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord face shine on you and be gracious to you. The Lord look upon you and give you peace.”

And then God says, “When you do this you will put my name on the people.”

We will leave here in just a few minutes to go to whatever our days bring. On Friday morning we will wake up and it will be back to ordinary time. If you’ve had vacation it’s probably ending soon. If you’ve been off school for awhile, well…it’s back at it soon. But that name has been put on us, God has put a name on us. It’s the name of Jesus, and we carry it around with us, like shepherds who heard good news, like Mary and Joseph who walk into a regular new day or who walk into a day with fear and fleeing. That name of Jesus has been put on us, and it travels around with us. It’s the name of Jesus; a name that means God will save.

AMEN.