ANGELS

Angels are busy at this time of year. According to St Luke, they’ve been bouncing up and down on a hillside celebrating the Good News with shepherds. Now, Matthew tells us one of them is off to warn Joseph about imminent danger to his new young family.

RUNNING AWAY

Like any good father, Joseph does all he can to protect his wife and son. He gets up – I read into it that he gets up immediately in the dark – and runs away with Mary and Jesus, hoping to find a place of safety.

Joseph hears the word of the Angel. He acts on it straight away. He chooses to run. Running away gets a bad press in a society where we are encouraged to be bold, to stand firm against all the odds, be David to another’s Goliath – where courage is judged by how long you endure. Sometimes, when a situation is just too impossible, the only thing we can do is leave, protect what is precious – including ourselves – until the situation changes, perhaps we are stronger, and we live to fight another day.

HEARTBREAK AND LIBERATION

Meanwhile, Herod is enraged by the deceit of the wise men (or not-so-wise men). Their ‘wisdom’ and lack of sense of direction have put the very child they came to honour in danger. Herod’s revenge is untargeted, random destruction. The wise men have inadvertently told him of a threat posed by a newborn child. Herod doesn’t look for just this one child. He murders them all.

Joseph and Mary wisely flee to Egypt – the very place that the Israelites had fled from all those years ago, when the Lord rescued them from slavery in Egypt to freedom in the promised land. Now the Holy Family is making the journey in reverse. They travel to Egypt not to return to slavery, but to find sanctuary, so that the One who will liberate all creation from sin and death will survive to be able to do so.

In the very place where the people of Israel had experienced the brutality of slavery, Liberation lived and grew strong. Freedom was found in that place of suffering.

What does this say to those whose experience of life is of suffering and death? Those for whom the heartbreaking words of Jeremiah strike too deeply for words:

‘A voice was heard in Ramah,
wailing and loud lamentation,
Rachel weeping for her children;
she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.’

I don’t underestimate how hard this is for many to hear, especially those for whom the kind of grief described here – the loss of a child – is a bitter reality. It would be crass to gloss over that pain with easy platitudes about death being a necessary prelude to new life.

PROCLAIMING FREEDOM AND LIFE
As Christians, let’s recognise that this is the faith we proclaim. In faith, we glimpse the mystery that, by grace, freedom and life can indeed be found in a place of profound suffering. That is not always the case. There are times when pain and suffering seem to be all there is. The story of God’s deep love for his world, his loving the world into life, is a story of heartbreak as much as of faithful love.

But in this story, the voice in Ramah, Rachel weeping for her children, is the beginning of Liberation. The freedom and life that Jesus brought were hard-won on the Cross. Long before he climbed the hill to Golgotha, the die was cast: the pattern was drawn. It is out of death and destruction that life and healing are born. It is out of Egypt that God calls his Son. It is out of a tomb that Life bursts forth.

And now the Angel is busy again – this time, filling Joseph’s dreams with a new message – first to go back to the land of Israel, and then directing Joseph and the family to Galilee, where Jesus will grow safely in the little backwater village of Nazareth.

FOR REFLECTION

At a time of turmoil, grief, confusion, and even threat, the angel points Joseph and his new family to a place of safety. It’s a place where they can rest and recover. Where does the angel direct us when we face heartbreak and turmoil in our lives, and our struggles threaten to overwhelm us? Where do we find that place of rest and recovery where we can rediscover the gentle faithfulness of God who loves us into Life?