In Our Bethlehems And In Our Egypts

Matt 2:13-23

I can’t tell you how much I used to enjoy going on holiday to the Isle of Wight..

Arriving at Portsmouth Harbour and getting on board what seemed like a giant  sea going liner.

Climbing the steps as high as I could, getting right up close to the funnel and feeling the smoke.

Jumping out of my skin when suddenly the siren went off.

Peering down into the engine room all alive with pipes and wires and steam.

Jam packed with holiday makers like us as we crossed the Solent to what seemed like a foreign land.

“Have you got your passport” my Dad would say and then everyone would laugh when I started to look dismayed.

Then going down the gangplank at Ryde Pier Head, imagining myself to be a pirate or something  but then being transfixed by the  steam trains right there waiting by the quay.

The drivers all grimy but with big toothy smiles who  would let you onto the footplate if you were lucky,  so that you could gaze at the big roaring fire in the boiler.

Then setting out down that great long pier to go all the way to Ventnor with brilliant tunnels and sudden glimpses of the sea.

We went to the Isle of Wight loads of times and each time it was magic.

As a grown man I went back to the island once all on my own.

The steamer had become a square box. A Catamaran that they called the Solent Seacat.

On board it was all fast food and slot machines – children running wild, adults huddling together in a gloomy sort of way.

At Ryde, the old station was now a rusted and worn sort of  place. No trains were waiting on the draughty platforms but after twenty minutes or so a couple of old underground carriages rumbled in.

The journey was bumpy and windswept and standing room only and  came to an abrupt end at Shanklin.

It was one of the saddest journeys of my life really. It felt as if dreams and memories were being cruelly and carelessly shattered.

We’ve been basking in the wonder and the glory of the Christmas story.

We’ve shared that marvellous journey to Bethlehem and the awe inspiring birth of the Christ child.

It reminds us of the great times in our lives.

When we have been all boggled eyed and amazed about the world in which we live and the people in it.

Thinking of Christmas Days when so much seemed bright and good.

Innocence. Joyful pleasure. Contentment.

As we take our place with the shepherds and the wise men before the stable.

I’d like to stay with those feelings a bit longer.

I don’t want to be wrenched away from the childhood magic of Bethlehem.

But after only three days it seems that the Holy Family is in the run.

Herod smashes our Christmas hopes with his thoughts of murder.

And we journey with Mary and Joseph and Jesus to Egypt in a state of blind panic.

In this journey, the Son of God goes to Egypt, to the place of his own people’s slavery.

He retraces the steps they made centuries ago when they had not a place to call their own and no land to inhabit.

He goes to Egypt and in so doing puts his footprints all over the Old Testament.

He goes through the wilderness they knew for forty years.

As a babe in arms he is carried through the foothills of the mount where the Commandments were given.

He stands with Mary and Joseph before the Red Sea listening out for Herod’s armies just as Moses looked over his shoulder for the clanking of Pharoah’s chariots.

I find this journey so important because in it, Jesus becomes identified with the sad, disappointing moments of my life as much as those happy and joyful ones.

Isle of Wight as a magical kingdom of steam trains, boats and happy people.

A place of freedom it was to me once.

The same place all flaky and worn, empty and tired.

A place of twenty first century slavery it had become for me.

So here is an angle on today’s Gospel reading.

We thought Christmas was about our going to Bethlehem to share in the story of the birth of the Christ child – and at one level it is.

But today we learn it is about the Christ child making a journey into our lives and  wanting to share in all the stories that make them up.

 Stories where life has been like Bethlehem for us – free and magical and fulfilled

Stories that have been more like Egypt  - where outcomes have been disappointing and we have been left flat and unhappy.

Christmas teaches us that God will not stay in his own place.

He comes to our places To celebrate the positive and if we let him., to redeem the negative.

You thought all your Christmas presents were opened – well here’s one to consider.

The grace of God being let into the whole of your life in the form of a Christ Child who journeys anywhere past, present or future – if we really want to let him.

RH  28.12.08

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