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CHRISTMAS I, Year A: December 26 2010

We have just heard the account from Matthew of the flight into Egypt; where the Lord appears to Joseph to warn him that Herod was about to search for the child and destroy Him. The Magi had been warned in a dream not to return to Herod having found the child, and had returned to their own country by another road, we are told. Herod has been left angry and fearful. And so Joseph, faithful and attentive to the Lord, collects mother and Child and flees into the asylum of Egypt, the place into which Abraham had gone after God had made His covenant with him that his descendants would come one day into the Promised Land. And while the Holy Family are in this place of asylum, Herod slaughters the innocents — all male children under two. So this is an account of a family on the road fleeing persecution, leaving everything behind and venturing into an unknown future. It is an account of restlessness, agitation, fear and uncertainty. So it contrasts with the nativity scene painted by Luke where the travel to Bethlehem resolves into the birth in the stable with magi and shepherds coming to worship at the feet of the infant Jesus. Matthew's nativity account has a dangerous edge to it.

Caravaggio's painting of the Rest on the Flight to Egypt has the family resting on its journey with the baby Jesus asleep in His mother's arms, and Mary's head is heavy resting on His, with a troubled anxious tense expression on her face as she sleeps. And Joseph sits on the other side of the picture, wizened, bearded and grey, positively an old man with one bare foot on top of another as if to keep warm. A large ass's head looms out of the background over Joseph's shoulder as if he and the ass are paired as rather slow and faithful but uncomprehending figures. Evidence of the haste of their departure is on the floor around them: a flagon of wine sealed with a twist of paper, a bundle wrapped in a green striped cloth. They huddle beneath a tree like all refugees fleeing, seeming to want to make themselves small and unobtrusive. It is a picture that echoes with so much that we have seen on news programmes over the years: in Haiti after the earthquake this year, or Pakistan after the floods, or in the Balkans fifteen years ago; scenes that have been repeated throughout history of families having to leave their homes to save themselves from something worse.

In Caravaggio's painting there is an additional figure, which has no scriptural reference. In the middle of the picture there stands an angel with his back to the viewer, who is playing a musical instrument and Joseph is holding up the musical score for the angel to play. Joseph is earnestly looking at the angel as if to understand the mystery of what is happening to him and his family. The ass looks on with him, and it seems that the painter is saying that both Joseph and the ass cannot understand. But the angel and the music he plays unite Joseph and the ass on the one side of the picture with the divine activity that is embodied in the baby that is held so tenderly by his mother on the other side. The incarnation of God so mysteriously present in this baby held by Mary, who understands and keeps these things hidden in her heart, draws in the puzzled, confused, uncomprehending Joseph through the music played to him by the angel, as he carefully holds the score.

A few years ago on Boxing Day I was celebrating at the 08:00 Low Mass here: it was a beautiful winter morning with sun streaming in through the windows as the Prayer Book liturgy unfolded, with the new crib and the beauty of the Christmas season around us. And this Gospel reading from Matthew which was read seemed to strike a discordant note with its account of Herod's slaughter of the innocents. It was a jarring change of tone from the Nativity account of Luke that infuses our keeping of Christmas. But as that day wore on we heard news of the terrible tsunami that had occurred in Indonesia, where so many people had died in many countries when an underwater volcano had erupted. And it was clear that at the same time that I had been celebrating the Mass amidst such beauty here, these terrible events had been unfolding on the other side of the world.

The Incarnation comes into all the world and into all such places: into the places of great beauty and also into the places of great despair and difficulty. It came to the stable as we display it in the nativity scene, but it also came to those families affected by Herod's slaughter. Perhaps Matthew's Gospel reminds us that God is with us in the Incarnation in whatever places we find ourselves, in whatever difficulties we face. It may be that much of the time we are somewhat like Joseph as we try to make sense of the world around us, or try and make sense of what is happening to us, as we grapple with the place of God in it all, and how such things can happen in the world. But like Joseph we continue to hold up the score so that we can listen to the music, so that however puzzled and troubled we are, we can be drawn into the presence of the Incarnation which is so close to us, so that we may begin to understand what God's presence with us might mean.

But this Incarnation does not come to us as some piece of divine activity unconnected with human beings: this Incarnation is not like some Greek god coming down to earth to play around with some unsuspecting human before flying back to Mount Olympus. The Christian belief in the Incarnation says that God fully became man, He stepped into His Creation and submitted Himself to it in humility and vulnerability as a baby, and then later in His Ministry by His sufferings on the Cross. In the word of the Epistle:

'Since therefore the children share flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared the same things, so that through death He might destroy the one who has the power of death. For it is clear He came not to help angels, but the descendants of Abraham.'

Because He Himself was tested by what He suffered, He is able to help those who suffer.

And this is the extraordinary truth of what we celebrate at Christmas: it is the truth that Mary understood as she tenderly held her baby while looking so troubled and sad. In the words of Isaiah from the Old Testament lesson: 'It was no messenger or angel but His presence that saved them, in His love and in his pity He redeemed them; He lifted them up and carried them all the days of old.'

It was His presence that saved them. His coming to us, His standing alongside us, His entering into all that we experience and struggle with. It is His presence that saves us.

It is a presence that continues to be with us, and to come to us as we receive Him in His sacramental presence: we are assured of the truth of the Incarnation by His continuing sacramental presence amongst us, which upholds us and lifts us and carries us, so that from the small hidden place where we shelter under the tree we may gather our belongings and step out with Him, in full assurance of faith knowing that all shall be well.