This Sunday at Peace

A Note from Eric Garbison

Scripture: Matthew 2:13-23

I almost hate to introduce next week's sermon. We still have Christmas Eve filled with the birth story and singing Christmas hymns. My apologies.

I was raised on Christmas pageants with live animals, life-size stables and real people dressed in the entire cast of the Christmas characters. It was an annual spectacle.

But Matthew 2:13-23… it steals any warm fuzzies you may have left over from Christmas.

There is no rest for the holy family. They are immediately forced to live life on the lam. They become an immigrant family, fleeing Herod’s violence. As they escape with their lives, Herod sends his assassins to Bethlehem and slaughters all the baby boys. What do we make of this buzz kill?

This story continues along the same lines of last week's lesson: the genealogy reminds us that the main plot of the Jesus story, the God plot of the Bible, moves along the margins. It’s a minority report. We can learn how to take it and find strength from those who spend their lives fleeing it, facing it, fighting with it, as the Avery Brothers sing, “head full of doubt but a road full of promise.”

Eric