Sermon: An Unexpected Christmas Vacation

"An Unexpected Christmas Vacation"
Rev. Rob Rynders
Tempe First UMC, December 30th, 2007

A few years ago an American Christian missionary stationed in Bethlehem was called back to the United States for an important meeting. She woke up the morning of her flight back to the US and finished getting ready for her trip. She left her small house near the church and found a taxicab to take her to the Palestinian side of the checkpoint. She would need to get past the guards at the checkpoint in order to get into Jerusalem where a shuttle would take her to the airport.

Getting through the checkpoint was easy though as she showed her American passport to the military personnel and explained she was a pastor heading to the airport. She realized though that she was leaving at a tense time in Israeli/Palestinian relations. During the past few weeks there had been a couple of suicide bombings carried out by extremist groups and there had been a clash between the army and Muslim worshipers as they left Friday prayers at the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, one of the holiest sites in all of Islam. The Israeli government had been threatening to enter the West Bank to try to root out some of the extremists.

But as she moved through to the other end of the checkpoint she was met with a more horrifying site than she could have imagined: tanks and jeeps and soldiers were lined up down the highway as far as she could see. There had been no communication of this buildup on the other side of the wall. There was nothing she could do but to dial her cell phone and make a phone call to the pastor of the church to tell him to begin telling residents to find shelter from the immanent military incursion into the city. In a few hours the military would enter the city to begin searching houses and firing mortars and tank shells into neighborhoods where some young men had taken up arms in response to the new occupation. The majority of the residents of Bethlehem, however, would spend the next few weeks huddled in their homes in terror waiting for the violence to end and many of them would fall victim to the violence losing homes, businesses, loved ones or all three.

When I traveled to Bethlehem, which is located in West Bank Palestine, at this time two years ago a large wall, much like the Berlin wall, and a very large and an even more fortified check point had just finished being constructed, cutting off Bethlehem and the rest of West Bank Palestine from Jerusalem and other parts of Israel. Only those with approved forms of identification could move from Bethlehem to Jerusalem through the checkpoint. While I was there I could see no signs of upheaval and I always felt safe during my two weeks there, however, there were still many signs of what had happened just a few years earlier. When you go to Bethlehem today you can still see the bullet holes in the sides of the buildings and you can hear the stories of those who were caught in the crossfire.

Contrasting this image of Bethlehem in recent years and today’s scripture story we find many similarities. While Bethlehem is known as the birthplace of the Prince of Peace, throughout history it has not been a very peaceful place.


Today’s scripture passage is about the holy family having to escape from Bethlehem in order to avoid the violent jealousy of Herod and his attempt to kill Jesus. Herod has ordered that the army kill all the young babies under two years old because he has heard that the possible Messiah has been born and to him the coming of the Messiah threatens his oppressive rule over Israel.

As the story goes, shortly after Jesus is born, Joseph is warned by an Angel to take his family and flee to Egypt in order to avoid Herod’s wrath. They take an unexpected Christmas vacation to Egypt and remain there until Herod’s death, when it is safe to return.

The writer of Matthew wants to be clear in the telling of this story. This story is an echo of the birth of Moses and Moses leading God’s people Israel into a new beginning. Through this story Matthew is lifting up the importance of Jesus as God’s representative on earth and his primacy as the one who will lead us from the darkness of the world to the light of God’s love in Christ.

What does this story from Matthew say for us today? Where does this not so cheery Christmas story intersect with our lives and our modern world? How does this story of such violence that follows the birth of Jesus Christ fit into the Christmas season? Perhaps United Methodist Bishop Will Willimon offers and the beginnings of an answer. He writes in one of his own sermons about this story from Matthew, “And even though it’s not the Christmas story we want, it may be the Christmas story we need. For any God who is unwilling to come to Bethlehem, won’t do us much good. If any God is going to save us, us, God will have to come to where we are, because we can’t get to God.”

Indeed Christ came into a world of uncertainty, a world that was controlled by an unjust government and religious structure. A world that would seek to stamp out the light of God as soon as it came into the world, no matter the cost. A world where, in Matthew’s eyes, a little baby would be forced to flee for his life.

There are so many times in our lives where we feel that God has fled from our lives or even the world all together. Or there are even those times where we ourselves want to run from God. I am reminded of these more of these stories in the bible like that of the prodigal son, who took his inheritance and ran away from his responsibilities or the disciples abandoning Jesus soon after his arrest.

There are so many times where we feel that God has abandoned us or that God is no longer relevant in our lives, however, we don’t realize that God is indeed always with us inviting us to be in a relationship with God and the world. Of course the prodigal son returned and was welcomed with open arms and the disciples would go on to start and grow the church. We are able to turn these moments of despair around when we realize God has been right under our noses the whole time and we do not have to seek for God in other places.

When adversity strikes it can be so easy to pack up our things and run the other way, to start new and to put the past behind us. When we are faced with adversity, a bad family situation, a loss of a loved one, uncertainty in our jobs, health problems, when can feel lost and hopeless and these are the places where the light of Christ can shine through those dark times when we allow it to. We must be transformed through those times and experience God’s healing so we may return as a light to the world. God does not run from us but encounters us and is God with us during our times and the world’s times of darkness.
Jesus did not come into the world without adversity and spent most of his life bringing the transformative love of God into difficult situations. Jesus returned to his homeland and shined as a light of hope and love for the world. Jesus calls us to shine as a light in the world today and he calls us to stand up in the face of darkness and be a light for our families, our friends, co-workers, neighbors, our church and our communities.

In the darkest and maybe not so dark places we can proclaim the Christ of love, justice, and peace. Those places can be far away places like Darfur, Iraq, and Afghanistan, and not so distant places like New Orleans, Phoenix, Mesa, Tempe, and yes, even places like Bethlehem.

Today Christians make up only a very small minority of the population in Bethlehem, however, many of them are shining their light in hopes of peace and reconciliation. With every reason to leave their homeland they have heeded God’s call to stay and represent the biblical birthplace of their savior in lives of peace and justice.

The phone call that the Christian missionary, who I spoke about earlier, made after she made it through the Bethlehem checkpoint was to Mitri Raheb, an Arab Palestinian Christian, a Lutheran pastor at the Christmas Lutheran church in Bethlehem. He is also the director of the International Center, an organization that hosts faith based groups from all over the world that take part in immersion experiences to learn about the biblical history of Israel and Palestine as well as engaging them in the modern day culture and politics of the Holy Lands. Mitri was born and raised in Bethlehem and was raising his family there as well. Despite the history of the city, this was his home and it was his family’s home. He was there during the intifada’s, or uprisings of Palestinians against Israeli occupation, one of which ended with a long military standoff at the church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.

In his book Bethlehem Besieged he recalls huddling in his house with his family as gunshots went off and tank shells exploded outside their home. He also recalls a dangerous encounter with Israeli soldiers as he ventured out of his home after the shooting stopped to check on the church and the international center.

Most inspiring, however, is the story he recalls of a candlelight vigil that he organized with other religious leaders during the dangerous days of the military occupation. While some young Palestinian men were attempting to engage the Israeli army with violence during this time, most of the residents of Bethlehem were left to feel like hostages in their own homes as the skies at night would light up with the firing of artillery, gunfire, and explosions.

The Christian and Muslim community, however, grew tired of the fighting and the military presence and began to approach members of their community to invite them to participate in a vigil for peace. Their goal was to light up Bethlehem not with weapons but with candles. They knew that this was a dangerous proposal as the Israeli military could see a large group of people as they threat and could respond violently to them. The organizing went on and to everyone’s surprise over two thousand people showed up on the night of the vigil and they even ran out of candles to give to marchers. They walked through the streets of Bethlehem to show that they were not thugs or terrorists and they did not represent the few that used violence to represent their culture. They also marched as a symbol of peace and hope in the face of a military force that did little to protect the innocent. The night ended when a statement was read, a statement that ended proclaiming, “We are marching tonight to give a message of hope and light to people around the world seeking justice and freedom. We are marching tonight to overcome fear and to light a candle for hope. We are marching in Bethlehem, the birthplace of Christ, to call upon all of you to break your silence and play an active role for the cause of peace and justice, so that the light of the resurrection would shine again upon Jerusalem.” While the people of Bethlehem still live with the reality of the uncertainty of violence they took this moment to let the light of Christ shine through them to the world so that they may live in a little less darkness and fear.

So where and how will your light shine? This next semester I will be challenging all of our Wesley students to volunteer with a ministry of outreach at least once a month if not more. To volunteer with places like the United Methodist Outreach Mission in Phoenix, with an after school program at a church in the area, with Sidewalk Sunday School or with the Urban Outreach Program here at 1st Tempe. I challenge all of us here today to do the same, to take a little time out of our lives to shine the light of Christ in the world.

Earlier in the service we all took part in welcoming a new member into our church family through baptism and we all reaffirmed our baptismal vows together. In and through our baptismal vows, we renounce the powers of evil that enslave and mangle the world and pledge to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves as Christ's representatives in the world. Perhaps today those vows can be our new years resolutions, or even better, our all the time resolutions – to remember that Christ has come into our lives in the midst of great adversity to shine his light in and through us to the entire world. So may you go, arise, shine out, and proclaim that God’s light has indeed come. Amen.