Sermon File

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ and may our Lord and Savior sanctify you in the truth; for His word is truth. Amen

Second Sunday after Christmas (2025)

God Provides the Way of Escape                                                                                                                                                                                        Rev. Toby Byrd

“Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.”” (Matthew 2:13, ESV) 

Are we shocked that God saved His Son and yet allowed innocent babies to be killed by Herod’s soldiers? Some people are when they read the Gospel for today. But if we put our trust in God and in His will, and not our own, we will see the wisdom of God’s action. Herod’s evil plot to kill the Messiah, the very Son of God was an attempt to thwart God’s plan from before the foundation of the world, and if he had been successful, he would have emboldened Satan to keep man enslaved in sin. For Jesus would not have grown into manhood and thereby fulfilled the Law for us. Indeed, many of the blessings Jesus brought to us would not have happened.

Christ freed us from the Law, and the Apostle Paul has much to say about this. Writing to the Church in Galatia, he wrote: “Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.” But the law is not of faith, rather “The one who does them shall live by them.” Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”—” (Galatians 3:11–13, ESV) It was imperative that our Lord grew into manhood, performing miracles and signs of healing and of raising the dead, while also telling all who would hear that He was the One who was to come, the promised Messiah. This to assure all that His atoning sacrifice on the Altar of the Cross was the final blood sacrifice for forgiveness of the sins of all mankind. Furthermore, St. Paul writes to the Church at Rome: “But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe . . . For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law” (Romans 3:21-22, 28, ESV). He then concludes, “But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.” (Romans 7:6, ESV)

We are released from the law solely by the life, death, and resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. But if our Lord’s life had been cut short, we could not confess fully the second article of the Apostles’ Creed; “[I believe] in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried. He descended into hell. The third day He rose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty. From thence He will come to judge the living and the dead.”

Yes, He is God’s only Son, our Lord, conceived by the Holy Spirit, and born of the Virgin Mary, but if He had not fled into Egypt, but fell prey to the evil plan of Herod, we could not confess that He suffered under Pontus Pilate, that He was crucified, died and was buried, that He descended into hell, rose again on the third day, and now sits at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty, to come again to judge the living and dead. If the infant Jesus had been slain by the soldiers of Herod, where we ask, could be His suffering at the hands of Pilate, where we ask would be His crucifixion, that very divine sacrifice that atoned for our sins? Where, we ask, is His burial, His descending into hell, His resurrection from the dead, and His ascension into heaven. None of this would have been possible if He had met death at the hand of Herod. These mighty works of Christ would not have been completed and we would still be held under the power of the law. Man does not have the ability to sever himself from the law, his life without Christ can only weaken the Law. Therefore, St. Paul tells us that God, through Christ has done what the law could not do. He writes, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” (Romans 8:1–4, ESV) God saved His Son from the hand of evil so that He could grow into manhood and save us from the evil which affects us. He grew into manhood to save us from our sin and its unforgiven consequence.

Prior to His ascension into heaven, Jesus gave the Church this command: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” (Matthew 28:19–20, ESV) Furthermore, in instructing Nicodemus regarding Baptism, Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” (John 3:5, ESV) But if He had met death at the hand of Herod, this command would never have been given.

Baptism is a divine ordinance to be carried out by the church. It is divine because in Baptism one receives the Holy Spirit and the forgiveness of sins. However, without our Lord’s baptism in the River Jordan, there would be no Christian Baptism. Regarding baptism, Jesus told John the Baptist, when he tried to prevent Jesus from being baptized by him, “Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” (Matthew 3:15, ESV) Jesus’ Baptism is a concession, an allowance due to His state of humiliation: the sinless Son of God receives the baptism meant for sinners because he shall be the sin-bearer. In those blessed waters, Jesus who had no sin and therefore needed no forgiveness, performed a great divine reversal. In the River Jordan, Jesus took the sins of all men upon Himself so that He could carry them to the cross. Baptism is a means of God’s grace which imparts and conveys to the baptized the forgiveness of sins, that very forgiveness provided to them by our Lord’s vicarious satisfaction, on the Altar of the Cross. Moreover, baptism is a means of justification, making it God’s work and not ours. Therefore, Baptism in not Law, but Gospel. But, if our Lord had met death at the hand of Herod, there would be no Christian baptism, and thus the world would have been denied this blessed Means of Grace.

Our Lord’s ultimate purpose for becoming man was to die on the Altar of the Cross as the final sacrifice for the forgiveness of men’s sin, but if He had met death at the hand of Herod, there would have been no betrayal, no trial, no suffering, and no crucifixion, therefore, no reconciliation of man with God. There would have been no burial nor a resurrection from the dead. Where would Christianity be if these things had never happened? There would be no Christianity. And if no Christianity, there would be no hope for reconciliation with God. Our eternity would at best be unknown and at worst, doomed to the fire of hell. Yes, there were many reasons for God to intervene in the life of His holy Son, this Child born to Mary, saving Him from the hand of evil so He could rescue man from evil itself.

St. Matthew begins his Christological focus on the identity of this holy Child born in Bethlehem by saying He is none other than the “King of the Jews” (Matt. 2:2). This proclamation leads to the unveiling of the jealousy of Herod, who upon hearing the news, that a king had been born in Bethlehem, immediately begins to plot His death. However, God intervenes and sends an angel, in a dream, to faithful Joseph, telling him, “Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” (Matthew 2:13, ESV) This God did to fulfill His promise from before the foundation of the world, saving His holy, infant Son from the hands of evil men, for it is only, “In him [that] we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.” (Ephesians 1:7–10, ESV)

In the flight into Egypt, we behold the prophecy of Hosea (1:1) who had foretold of the sojourn of Jesus into the land of the Pharaohs, thereby attesting to the identity of this holy Child. St. Matthew tells us that this happened “to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, “Out of Egypt I called my son,” (Matthew 2:15, ESV). St. Matthew also refers to another prophecy, the prophecy of Jeremiah (31:15) regarding the slaughter of the innocents, and all this establishes the fact that even in this detail the New Testament history had been foreseen by God and foretold by God’s people.

As for the innocents, we ask, “But what of those children at Bethlehem”? How does the cruel slaughter of these children contribute to the glory of Christ, for whose very safety they were sacrificed? We know that there were many homes in Bethlehem filled with heart-breaking grief that day, but there was also a rejoicing in heaven. For these children became the first martyrs in the cause of Christ and the Church, and we may be certain that their reward in heaven is very great.

 God always watches over His own. Yes, at times He permits persecution and bloodshed to rage against the Church, and the blood of martyrs has often flowed freely into the soil of the earth. But never is a martyr’s death a sign of defeat and dishonor, never is it a loss or a disaster. Nor is the death of a martyr wasted in the economy of God. It is a Christian’s highest glory to suffer for the Lord. The blood of martyrs has always been the seed grain of the Church. And when in eternity the books of heaven are revealed, the names of these children of Bethlehem and the names of all who have followed in their steps of martyrdom will shine beautifully radiant to the everlasting glory of the Lamb victorious.

When the Holy Child was persecuted by His enemies and fled from them, and those who were entrusted by God to be His earthly benefactors also had to flee with Him, this action reveals the truth that whoever receives Jesus in faith is not guaranteed earthly peace and good days just because of their faith. Instead, the believer may well come upon great distress and trouble. St. Peter reminds us of this when in the Epistle Reading for today, St. Peter writes: “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.” (1 Peter 4:12–13, ESV) When the world discovers that a person is a faithful Christian, the world will hate him, persecute him, and tempt him. The world will do everything possible to kill the Holy Child within him, snatching Christ out of his heart. Therefore, the Christian can only go the way of the persecuted Savior. The Christian can only go the way of the cross. Thus, with Jesus, he will flee from the evil world, severing all intimate friendships with the unbelieving world with its sins and vanities. He will prefer to lose everything rather than lose Christ.

As followers of Jesus, God does not promise us angelic intervention when we are threatened by the evil of this world. So, we cannot be oblivious to distress or danger in our own lives. When we are threatened by the world, we must seize the opportunity to flee if it presents itself and does not offend divine glory or shortchange our neighbor. This is clear in the Gospel Reading for today. Thus, we pray, may God’s Holy Spirit instruct and strengthen our faith as we meditate on the truth that God Provides the Way of Escape.

Throughout His blessed life, our Lord Jesus was continually active as our Savior. From the moment of His birth there was never a time when He did not assume the task of our redemption. There was never a time when He laid aside His obligations and responsibility that He had taken upon Himself when He and His heavenly Father planned our salvation. He was always “The Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29, ESV) This responsibility required that He would become the lowliest of the lowly, to be “despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.” (Isaiah 53:3, ESV) This was His calling already in early infancy. Therefore, deep humility would be the character of His ministry.

However, even greater than this was the humility of the flight into Egypt itself. That the Son of God should yield before the persecution of inferior enemies, that He should flee for safety, that He should permit Himself to be driven out, that He should become an exile from His native land and live in a country that was remembered by His people as a land of slavery and oppression ─ these circumstances combine to make the Gospel before us one of the greater mystery chapters in God’s holy Scriptures. There is humility and lowliness here that is amazing and wonderful to behold. But this is symbolic in the familiar story of God’s people.

As Herod raged against the Child, so the world rages against Christ and His Church. As the Holy Child depended on the safety and protection of imperfect creatures, the Church in our time is served by imperfect humans, and protected by imperfect human kingdoms, even though she is herself a Kingdom far higher than any of the world. As the blood of innocents satisfied the anger of Herod when He could not find the Christ Child, his satisfaction also shielded the Holy Family against his persecution. Therefore, to this day human blood, shed in the confession of the Church, that Christ is our Lord and Savior, that God’s Word is inspired, inerrant, and infallible, that God calls us through the Gospel, and that He blesses us through His Means of Grace, all make possible the continued existence of the Church and its work in this world. As the Son of God accepted flight and exile into a strange land as part of His life, so we Christians are also strangers and pilgrims on this earth, wandering through an alien land, seeking our Father and His heavenly home. Furthermore, it is true, the Church and those who preach the Gospel have at many times been driven from one place to another by the enmity and hatred of unbelief. This is the whole story of the flight into Egypt. Our Lord’s flight into Egypt presents a picture of the humility and lowliness that characterized His life and one that forms much of the life of God’s people to the end of time. But more than the deep humility in today’s Gospel, the gloom of flight for protection, there also appears the vision of radiant glory that even in flight the eternal heritage of the Son of God is exposed, the prophecy of Scripture revealed, showing God’s saving hand in the history of man.

So, it will finally be with all who follow Christ. The path of the Christian may lead through persecution, pain, and grief. It may bring days of suffering and nights of bitter tears. It may lead through dangers and distress and into strange and unfriendly places. But in the end the road of the Christian will bring them home to heaven. For this is the will of God who Always Provides the Way of Escape. In the name of Jesus. Amen.

May the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.