January 22, 2023.
Texts: Isaiah 9:1-4; 1 Corinthians 1:10-18; Matthew 4:12-23.
From the very beginning Jesus lived on the edge of threat. Matthew’s gospel tells us this plainly. There was very little that was easy about his life.
First Jesus’s parents were forced to travel to an inconvenient location to become documented by the government. Mary and Joseph were turned away from many doors before they found shelter in a barn just in time for Jesus to be born. We love to tell this story, knowing the end will be good. But Mary and Joseph must have felt desperate as parents who had only their love and the kindness of strangers to give their child a safe entry into life.
Next, the Wise Men revealed the presence of the infant Jesus to King Herod, and the family had to flee the country to save their child from being killed by the government. We know this story well too. Later the family returned from Egypt to their homeland but still had to keep the presence of Jesus secret from dangerous political leaders.
Many hard things can be outgrown. Jesus safely grew into adulthood despite his rough start. And perhaps it was even the difficulty of his beginning that helped form Jesus so that he was ready to answer when God called him into his messianic mission.
But here we are again. New threats. Jesus was in the wilderness, and had just overcome all the temptations of the devil. He’d scarcely recovered from his hunger and exhaustion when he heard that John the Baptist had been arrested.
Why Jesus didn’t stay in the wilderness where God’s angels were now with him. Why go back to Galilee at such a dangerous time? Why take on John’s risky mission to publicly proclaim the nearness of God’s reign, and the need to prepare with repentance? Because if John the Baptist had been arrested, surely Jesus would be too.
But perhaps it was exactly because Jesus had already lived with so much threat in the course of his life that he could step out like that. Maybe being born in difficult circumstances, chased by political enemies, and tested by the very source of sin and evil gave Jesus all the strength and wisdom he needed to show up publicly for God’s purposes. Because by the time Jesus was thirty he was ready to be God’s voice of love in a world so badly needs compassion.
So Jesus left the wilderness and went to Galilee. He stepped into John’s place, speaking of God’s coming in ways that comforted some, but troubled and challenged other people. And he also began to form a community. Because our community – sisters and brothers and friends who love us and care about us no matter what – can keep our body and soul together in tough times.
And despite how exposed Jesus was in Galilee, his stepping out and surrounding himself with other people offered another kind of shelter. The wilderness has its own threats. The danger of being too alone. Alone with your thoughts and fears. Or if you do speak out, who can stand with you, who can you turn to in a time of need? Who can pray or sing with you, cry with you in your worst times, and be joyful with you in the best times? God knows, we need each other.
Now, we don’t know exactly what Jesus said to each person as he invited them to join him. But Jesus didn’t just build a community. He formed people to be his community. This means that while he offered friendship, he also offered his experience and shared his insights generously.
Jesus knew the world’s desperate need for God’s Word of hope. He understood the hunger of the poor, the plight of the refugee, the desperation of the sick, and the destructive power of corruption. All who joined Jesus understood that they were to care as Jesus cared. To act as Jesus acted. To love as Jesus loved. To be God’s good news in a world full of bad news.
Heaven knows that it’s not just what happens outside our doors that can take us down. Just think of Paul writing to the people in Corinth. Their community was threatened from the inside with arguments about who they chose for a spiritual leader and whose baptism was real.
It’s still happening today. We still forget that there is one Lord, one faith, one baptism as Paul’s letter to the Ephesians says. We are not baptized into any denomination. We are all baptized into Christ. So we all share one witness in faith that God cares for us all, loves us all, and calls us all holy children.
The cross of Jesus speaks loudly about the sin that overcomes each one of us when we forget whose children we are. When we forget that we are all one human family. And Jesus suffers whenever we cause others to suffer by our unforgiving words, destructive acts, or failure to care.
Jesus, knew so well what it means to live in a threatening world. He was even willing to take on the pain of our sin. No wonder the cross of Jesus is God’s most powerful message. It reminds us that the betrayal of God’s love led to the death of Jesus.
Sometimes it can seem like there are just too many threats for us to overcome. Things that are inside us and things outside of us. But in our community of faith we find strength. Jesus lived with love and laughter. Perhaps one of the greatest things that Jesus did was show his friends that a full and joyful life is possible even when the world is full of threats and dangers.
Our community of faith is the place where we remind one another that God’s got this. God’s got you! We live joyfully with Jesus and like Jesus in the strength of God despite every threat when we pray together, cry together, sing, and celebrate together as God’s family. Just as Jesus did all the way to the cross, and into Easter. Amen.