Holy Family, A                 December 29/30, 2007

This story of the flight into Egypt is not as simple as it sounds.  You see, Matthew wrote his Gospel to Christians who had previously been Jews.  So, his readers were intimately familiar with all the Old Testament stories, which Matthew alludes to in order to present Jesus as the fulfillment of those events of old.  For Matthew, the meaning of Jesus life is much more important than bald historical facts.  So, Matthew will freely embellish the facts of Jesus’ life to fit Old Testament prophecies and events.  The story of the flight into Egypt seems to be one of these embellishments, a story not based in history, but in theology.  Matthew wrote it with the same purpose he had in mind for his whole Gospel, namely, to present Jesus as… the new Moses!  With this key to unlocking the story, it now comes to life. 

In the story St. Joseph takes his family to Egypt to flee the danger of King Herod.  This recalls the patriarch Joseph, who brings his family to Egypt to flee a famine in their homeland.  In the story Herod kills the baby boys in Bethlehem.  This harks back to the death of the firstborn male children in Egypt prior to the Exodus.  The child Moses, whose life was sought by the pharaoh, is spared, and later leads the Hebrews out of slavery in Egypt to the Promised Land.  This parallels the story wherein the child Jesus, whose life was sought by Herod, is spared, and later leads the New Israel, the Church, out of the slavery of sin into the promise of eternal life.

In this story of Jesus’ flight into Egypt, St. Matthew parallels Jesus’ death on the cross.  For example, Herod and the chief priests and scribes were involved in hunting down the child Jesus in Bethlehem.  But, they are unable to destroy Jesus, who is taken away to Egypt and brought back to Nazareth.  In like manner, Pontius Pilate and the chief priests and scribes conspire to kill Jesus, but they are unable to destroy him by crucifixion.  God delivers his Son by having him taken away into the tomb, and brought back again in the resurrection.

It’s amazing, isn’t it, how much such simple Gospel stories contain.       

I’d like to turn now to another story, that of a contemporary family that was busy decorating the house for Christmas.  John, the youngest, wanted to be part of everything.  After several shattered ornaments and almost falling into the tree, the five-year-old tried to help his Mom set up the manger scene.  The manger was a precious family heirloom and Mom held her breath every time John got near a piece.  So she suggested that John make his own manger in his room, and gave him an inexpensive figurine of the baby Jesus.

John took the Jesus figure and, with great resolve, headed upstairs.  After an hour or so, the family wondered what John was up to.  They went to his room and found John hard at work on his manger scene.  It was quite creative!  He had taken a cheap family photograph of every member of his family, including the dog, cut them up, pasted them on cardboard backing so they would stand up, and put them in a circle around the little plastic Jesus.  He opened the circle at one end and made his little goldfish part of the scene.  He was working on pictures of their house and grandparents when the family came in.  John’s older brother and sister ridiculed him.

“That’s so stupid, all those people weren’t there when Jesus was born!  There wasn’t a goldfish in Bethlehem, that’s silly!” they observed.

But John looked them in the eye and said proudly, “I don’t care.  Jesus is really here.”

Five-year-old John got it right.  While the family’s heirloom manger tells the story of old, John’s manger tells a new story that is still being written.  John’s scene captures a deeper meaning of today’s feast of the Holy Family.  For, each of our families is a holy family.  Christ dwells within and among us today, right now!  In the love we share with our own family members and with our closest friends who are like family to us, we experience what it means for us to be a holy family.