God's Invincible Plans

Matthew 2:13-15, 19-23

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Well, how was Christmas day for you? When you think about it, most Christmases are planned quite a few days, even weeks and months before Christmas actually arrives. I mean, how many of you started your Christmas shopping last January, for instance? Or, how many of you weren't agonizing over what sort of gift to get a spouse, or a son or a daughter, or a mother or a father? And, how many of you planned what you would be having for Christmas dinner earlier than just a few days before December 25? And, shortly after Thanksgiving, how many of you didn't go outside your house and turn around and take a look at your place and plan just how you were going to decorate it? Indeed, it is true, most of us did at least a fair amount of planning in order to get ready for Christmas.

My mother did some planning to get ready for Christmas this year. Way back in October she called my sister-in-law and told her to call Frankenmouth Bavarian Inn, up in Frankenmouth, and make reservations for 13 for Christmas dinner at 2 p.m. on Christmas day. So, she did that. And then after the reservations were all set up my mother called me and asked me if our family would join the families of my brother and sister and her up in Frankenmouth. So, way back in October we looked at our calendars and decided that that's what we would do.

Yesterday, those plans were played out as the 13 of us gathered around a long table in the Alpine Room of the Frankenmouth Bavarian Inn, served by a maiden in a Bavarian dress and a young man wearing lederhosen. And then after that, according to my mother's plan, we went back to my mother's house in Flint and opened presents. And, somehow, as I look back on yesterday, the events we shared together were almost things that had to have been. I never saw plans work out so well: everybody got there on time. No one groused or got upset, like sometimes has happened. No one spilled their water all over the table, like sometimes has. No one put their foot in their mouth, like often happens. None of the kids got lost, like always happens. But, it was one of those unusual Christmas events where everything seemed to go according to plan.

The first Christmas was one of those Christmases which seemed to go according to plan, God's plan, that is. My mother called me on the telephone to tell me about her Christmas plans, but God used an angel to tell Joseph in a dream about his Christmas plans. His first call to Joseph, of course, came shortly after Mary got pregnant. It was an important call to him, explaining that Mary hadn't been fooling around with some other guy, but that she had actually become "with child" by the power of the Holy Spirit. So, hearing the angel's message, believed what he heard and took Mary to be his wife. Then, his second call to Joseph was to warn him about how Herod had some nasty tricks up his sleeve to murder all the newborn babies of Bethlehem. And, then, finally, God's third call to Joseph was to give him the "all clear," saying that Joseph could now take his family home to Nazareth.

Now, that was pretty trusting of Joseph, to believe messages brought to him in such a way. You really have to give Joseph a lot of credit; that after having had been visited by an angel he believed the messages. I mean, how many of us, after having experiences like this would trust them? Would we think, later on, that we would be foolish to believe dreams? Would we think, maybe, that we had simply overdosed on caffeine, or eaten too much pizza? Indeed, there would have to be something special about our faith to really believe that we had been visited by a messenger of God.

And, certainly, there was something special about Joseph. For we aren't told that he had any doubts, at all, about what was told him. Rather, he went with the messages and trusted them. And, as a result, God's Christmas plans were fulfilled.

Certainly, there are means by which God speaks to us, today. Sometimes God does speak to us in dreams. Often his messages come to us encrypted in our private devotions. Or, sometimes God speaks to us through a worship service. Or, sometimes it happens while talking with a friend, or even someone we may not even know. And, sometimes, God speaks to us from the totally new and unsuspected. But, when it happens, we may get the feeling that God is trying to tell us something. And, then, it is up to us to either "go with the message," as Joseph did, or to dismiss it as simply being a piece of undigested cheese, as Ebenezer Scrooge called it.

Now, there is something else important about our gospel lesson for today. For the story of the Flight into Egypt hints at the fact that the Christ child wasn't simply for those living in Israel, but was for those living in foreign lands, as well.

Perhaps one of the most important lessons obtained from this is the perception or the understanding that the message of God's love is for all the earth. Indeed, this is an important lesson. Certainly, many of us may have already assumed that this was true, but it is also surprising how many people think that the message of God's love is just for them and people like them.

For instance, in my years in the ministry, I have been amazed at how many people actually believed that Jesus spoke English and that the Bible was originally written in the English language. In fact, I've met various people who have actually thought that the King James Version of the Bible was the only version of the Bible good enough to read, as though the King James Version of the Bible was the first version ever written. What these persons either forgot or just didn't know was that the first scriptures of the Bible were written hundreds of years before English, as we know it, was spoken. And, even then, the Bible was written in dialects of Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic that are no longer spoken today.

So, the point is that Christ and the Christian faith isn't the sole possession of Americans or English speaking people, any more than it belongs to any other nationality. And this we learn, not only from the account of the Holy Family's flight into Egypt, but also from the story of the Wise Men, and the story of the Good Samaritan, and many other stories throughout the Old and New Testament.

And, really, this should make us think, a bit, especially when some of us may think that all of our mission money should stay at home, rather than go abroad to countries far away. It should challenge our thinking, especially when we may think that God can only speak to us through those things that are familiar to us. And, it should challenge our thinking, especially when we are considering God's amazing power. For, just as God used the Egypt for his purposes, so may God use the unusual, the foreign, the new and the unsuspected, to work God's plan in our lives.

I was talking with a person, the other day, who told me, almost bragged to me, that the only TV they ever watched was Christian TV; that the only books they ever read were books by Christian authors; and that the only music they ever listened to was Christian music. In almost the same breath this person criticized any Christian who might listen to non-Christian TV, or read what they called "secular books", or listen to what they called "secular music". But, I had to wonder if perhaps this person wasn't limiting God's power to speak through the secular media, as well as the Christian media. I had to wonder if perhaps this person wasn't perhaps missing out on many other ways that God may be using to speak to the world. For, if God was able to use Egypt, if God was about to use a Good Samaritan, and if God was able to use the Magi of the Zoroastrian religion for to fulfill his plan, then certainly God is able to use things we may think are "non-Christian", today, to fulfill his plan in our lives.

Someone once warned me that if ever the Church becomes stayed, if ever the Church closes itself to things which are new and creative, if ever the Church shuts its doors upon the innovative, choosing only to listen to those things which are old and trusted, it is then that God will seek out another means to reach out to the world. For God is not always and only in those things which are trusted, but is also on the very cutting edge of human endeavor. Indeed, as has been said many times by many a wise man and wise woman: "The First words of a dying church are, 'We've never done it that way, before!'"

So, what kind of plans has God made for you this Christmas? Have you been listening? Have you been dreaming? Have you believed what you have heard and dreamed, or has it been too new, too crazy, too unreal, too risky? None of us can deny that what God wanted Mary and Joseph to do was something radically new. God's Christmas plans for Mary had never been done, before. God's Christmas plans for Joseph demanded that Joseph be willing to be out there, alone with God, on the cutting edge. And, yes, God's plans for us may often be very much the same.

I am reminded of a poem I wrote several years ago:

Light through darkness glowing brighter

Through these Advent weeks we've trod.

Candles on the altar, burning,

Lead us to the Child of God.

Born of Mary, Son of Joseph,

Love's incarnate mystery,

Calls the world to faith, united,

Children of the Deity.

Promised to the world in scripture,

Sent to us from God above,

Gives us grace to be apostles,

Serve we now the Christ of Love.

As the infant lies before us,

Ever mindful must we be:

This is Christ, the One who saves us,

Christ who died at Calvary.

Let us have the faith of Joseph,

Trusting those angelic dreams.

God is with us as a shepherd,

Leading us to quiet streams.

Let us have the faith of Mary,

That the child may in us be.

Love is born of those who share it

To the world, for all to see.

Amen.