The people praise God, but
the Messiah is a fugitive among a sorrowing people.
The prophetic
reading for the first Sunday after Christmas is a short passage praising the
God who acted in the past to rescue the suffering people.
God’s past
saving acts are the basis for hope in the present -- hope that God’s character is
true and will again produce a reversal for these needy children of God. (“Surely they are my people, children who
will not deal falsely,” verse 8, NRSV.)
This praise
of past saving deeds is in fact only the opening of a long and passionate
lament for new, urgently hoped-for saving events in the near future. (The full passage is Isaiah
63:7-64:12 [Heb. 64:11].)
This lament speaks
for a people excluded by Abraham and Israel
Though our
passage of praise is quite brief, there are two different versions of it in
ancient Jewish traditions. The Greek
translation followed a slightly different Hebrew text from the one that
became fixed in Rabbinic tradition. The
Greek reads,
[God] became
their savior in all their distress. It
was no elder or messenger but his presence [literally “the Lord himself”] that
saved them. [LXX, which is approximated
in the NRSV main text.]
The
Masoretic text reads instead,
So He was
their Deliverer. / In all their troubles He was troubled, / And the angel of
His Presence delivered them. [JPS Tanakh
version, and NRSV footnote is similar.]
The Greek
text, used through the early ages by Christians, puts the emphasis on God’s
own activity as savior, as distinct from intermediaries such as angels or
strong men. The Masoretic reading puts
the emphasis on God’s empathy with the suffering of the people – “in
their troubles He was troubled” – and accepts an angelic presence in the actual
salvation. (The King James Version, it
might be noted, follows the Masoretic reading.
“In all their affliction he was afflicted, …” God suffers with God’s elected ones!)
Psalm 148.
The Psalm reading is an exuberant
and delightful summons to heaven and earth to praise the Lord, to “hallelu”
(the plural form) God. The literary
skill exhibited by the composer of the psalm is not complicated but is
pleasing to watch as it unfolds.
In the first section, seven
imperatives call upon heavenly things to praise the Lord (verses 1-4), moving
from one aspect to another of the heavenly realm. These imperatives are followed by an
exhortation: “Let them praise …,” which
in turn leads to a reason for the praise: because all these summoned entities were
“created” by God and fixed forever.
The second section (verses 7-13)
gives only a single call to praise, but elaborates more fully those to whom it
is addressed. We hear a chain of earthly
things, places, and people who are included in this imperative: components of the earth, elements of weather,
the lands, animals, and people, all called on to “Praise the Lord.” Again there comes an exhortation, “Let them
praise the name of the Lord.” And,
finally again, a reason for the summons to praise is given: because “his name alone is exalted; his glory
is above earth and heaven” (NRSV).
Does this
reason for praise seem too general, too vague?
The poet has completed the original basic structure, but both creative
art and faith erupt in a final declaration, a final proclamation of why
God is to be praised: “He has raised up
a horn for his people, …for the people of Israel
This psalm
is not about this horn, this pillar of strength to empower the people. More about it will be heard in other psalms. This psalm is about the heavenly and earthly
realms transformed by God’s gift of such a leader.
The Epistle
reading emphasizes the incarnation in the Christmas message.
A divine son
and brother came into the human condition, joining the brothers and sisters
soon to be saved, and defeating the powers of sin and death on behalf of those
in bondage.
For the one who
sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one Father [literally “are
from one (source)”]. For this reason
Jesus is not afraid to call them brothers and sisters… (verse 11, NRSV).
Since,
therefore, the children share flesh and blood, he himself likewise shared the
same things, so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power
of death,… and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear
of death (verses 14-15).
Therefore he
had to become like his brothers and sisters in every respect… Because he himself was tested by what he
suffered, he is able to help those who are being tested (verses 17-18).
The message of
the Incarnation is that we are not alone.
One like us, but with power and compassion, has penetrated our condition
and has made for us a path to life and new being.
The Gospel
reading presents the coming of Jesus as re-enacting the sacred history
of the birth of Israel
There are three
episodes included in the reading, each with a prophetic saying that the
episode is said to “fulfill.”
One of the
most distinctive things about the Gospel According to Matthew is the Sermon on
the Mount (chapters 5-7). The Sermon is
presented as the Law to be observed by the disciples of Jesus instead of
the old traditional law from Sinai. The
Sermon is the new Torah, like the old Torah given at Sinai, and the episodes
that precede the Sermon highlight a few moments of the Israelite story before
Sinai.
In all these episodes
Joseph is the actor, and he is guided by the messenger (“angel”) of the Lord
who speaks to him in dreams. In the first
episode Joseph is told to take the holy baby and its mother to Egypt Egypt Hosea 11:1 , reads,
“When Israel Egypt
The second
episode is the “slaughter of the innocents,” as it is traditionally
called. The wicked King Herod
corresponds to Pharaoh in the Moses story, who out of fear of the revolutionary
threat of the Israelites ordered that their male children be killed after birth
(Exodus 1:22 ).
Herod, afraid
of a new king in Judah Bethlehem Egypt
Rachel,
favorite wife of patriarch Jacob, had died and been buried in the vicinity of Bethlehem Bethlehem Matthew 2:18
follows very closely.)
The third
episode of the reading is the secret return from Egypt Galilee because there was still
danger in Judea . If
this has a parallel in the book of Exodus, it must be the flight of Moses from
Pharaoh’s death penalty, a flight that took Moses to the land of Midian, where
he got a family and eventually found God (see Exodus
2:11-3:12 ).
In Matthew, the
“prophecy” fulfilled by this move reads, “He will be called a Nazorean”
(Matthew 2:23 ). Presumably this is supposed to remind the
hearers of “Nazareth Israel
Joseph, guided
by the messenger of the Lord, has carefully preserved the savior of Israel
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