Jeremiah 31:7-14 Ephesians 1:3-6,15-19a Matthew 2:13-15,19-23 Psalm 84 or 84:1-8

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.”

[Ephesians 1:3-6]

On this Second Sunday of Christmas, as we begin a new year, this is the source of our praise to God:  We are blessed in Christ; we are chosen in Christ; we are gathered to God through Christ; all according to the pleasure of God’s will – God’s “glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved” – Jesus Christ.  Blessed, chosen, gathered to God.  God’s great pleasure is in gathering us.

In our Old Testament lesson, the prophet Jeremiah speaks God’s words of intention to gather the people of Israel from exile in foreign lands.  After witnessing the destruction of the Temple, being forced from their homeland, and spending decades in exile, the remnant of Israel is being gathered home.  God says, “See… I am going to gather them from the farthest parts of the earth… With weeping, they shall come.”

The theme of returning, being gathered to God’s pleasure, continues in our Gospel lesson from Matthew.  It is only in Matthew that we read of the flight to Egypt by the Holy Family in the days following Jesus’s birth.  The brutal and paranoid King Herod was alerted to the significance of the birth of Jesus by the Magi’s visit.  Herod was driven mad by this perceived threat to his power and prestige.  

Thus began Herod’s siege of terror in an effort to destroy all male children of Jesus’ age.  Matthew tells us that Joseph, warned of the danger by an angel of the Lord, spirited his family to safe lodging in Egypt.  Centuries earlier, even centuries before the time of Jeremiah’s prophecy, the remnant of Israel had been preserved in Egypt when the life of the baby Moses was spared.  We know the saga of the people of Israel, exiled in Egypt for centuries and subsequently returned and restored to their homeland.  Once again, in this account of the escape to Egypt, the remnant is preserved; after the danger had passed, we read of the Holy Family’s return from exile and their subsequent settling in Nazareth, all directed by God’s pleasure.

No doubt, we have all experienced exile – maybe in feelings of alienation or abandonment by loved ones, or even alienation from God – times of a sense of separation from God and a need to be restored – a need to be gathered to God.  

There is a touching significant tribute to the Rev. Billy Graham presented by his daughter Ruth at his funeral. Ruth defines the incident that provided her with the clearest revelation of her father’s character and his calling as one who was to make God known.

Ruth begins by telling of the breakup of her marriage after 21 years and the devastation that that brought to her life and her children’s lives.  In response, she relocated far away and began to rebuild her life in a new church community where  she soon met a man with whom she fell in love.  They very quickly made plans to marry.  Her children did not like the man; both of her parents called from far away pleading with her to take some time, to allow her family to get to know this man, to be sure she was making the right decision.  

But Ruth was unwilling to allow any guidance from loved ones.  She was stubborn and determined to get on with her new chapter in life.  She and her new beau were married on New Year’s Eve.  

Within 24 hours, she reports, she knew she had made a terrible mistake.  Fearing for her safety, after just five weeks in this abusive relationship, she left her new husband and began her journey homeward – a two-day journey, which she undertook with trepidation.  It is one thing to embarrass your father, she quips, but quite another to embarrass Billy Graham.  What would her parents say?  How would she be received by them?  Yet, where else was she to go, but home to her father and mother?  

Tearfully, Ruth describes rounding the final curve of her parents’ lengthy driveway, and there stood her father waiting for her.  As she exited the car, his first words were “Welcome home.”  He embraced her in a warm fatherly hug. Billy Graham was not God, but at that moment he represented our best understanding of God’s unconditional love – the father welcoming his child in the state of greatest pleasure.  

God’s pleasure is in our being gathered to him, restored to him.

As affirmed by the prophet Jeremiah:

For the Lord has ransomed Jacob,
and has redeemed him from hands too strong for him.

[God says] I will turn their mourning into joy,
I will comfort them, and give them gladness for sorrow.

Through Jesus Christ, by virtue of the Incarnation, the Word made flesh, we see God and come to understand God’s desire to gather us and restore us to right relationship.  

We are blessed in Christ; we are chosen in Christ; we are gathered to God through Christ; all according to the pleasure of God’s will – God’s “glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved” – Jesus Christ.