Our Christmas Hangover
The First Sunday After Christmas
Now after the magi had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Get up, 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.” Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, “Out of Egypt I have called my son.”
When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the magi, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the magi. Then what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled:
“A voice was heard in Ramah,
wailing and loud lamentation,
Rachel weeping for her children;
she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.”
When Herod died, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who were seeking the child’s life are dead.” Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus was ruling Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. And after being warned in a dream, he went away to the district of Galilee. There he made his home in a town called Nazareth, so that what had been spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, “He will be called a Nazarene.”
Matthew 2:13-23
I admit I am experiencing a (completely sober) Christmas week hangover this morning. It’s not just that there’s been a little extra work for a preacher, but a hangover of the season of joy, anticipation, watching and waiting, capped off with a beautiful Christmas Eve service with all the special music and choirs of human angel. Now we are either basking in the glow of Christmas or recovering from food, or maybe recovering even more from being with our families.
To cap off these post-Christmas blues, on Christmas night, I got news that my grandmother, who had just gone to the ICU days earlier, would be in her last days. She passed on Friday night. I have many grandmotherly accolades I could give and stories to share, but in this moment of preaching, I miss her presence because she used to watch all of our live streams, watching me say words from this pulpit, and until last week, she’d always email me nice words about it later, even if they were not earned. Years ago in my twenties, she would always email me that she was praying for me when faith was the last thing on my mind, and in many ways prayed me back to faith.
There are many worse days to die than right after Christmas, and arguably only Easter would be “better,” but it is a somber and stark reminder of death, a reminder I know several in our congregation have had in the past several years. Even for those who have the most centered-on-Jesus Christmas traditions, it would be hard not to have a Christmas hangover when the reminder of death, that which Christ came to overcome, is right in your face.
If you are also feeling a Christmas hangover today, you might be surprised to learn that yet again you are not alone and that yet again God gets you. He loves you, he knows what you are going through, and he cares about what you are going through, and he lives it with you. Can we hear that enough times? Does our spiritual amnesia rob us of feeling solidarity with God yet again?
God gets you. I know that’s a Super Bowl ad now, but really, whatever pain, malaise, fear, anxiety, even boredom, God has intimacy with us. Through Jesus, God has never lost intimate solidarity with anything you’ve gone through—even feeling estranged from God.
Thankfully, in our Christmas hangovers or otherwise, most of us have not had to flee political persecution at the hands of people who wanted him dead. But Jesus has, and his earthly mom and dad did. The glorias had scarcely stopped echoing in the Judean hills when Herod sought their blood. Imagine the stories they must have told Jesus, especially when he was being a typical boy and running off to the Temple without letting them know. “I didn’t spend years of my life eating Egyptian bread for this, Jesus.” “Listen to your mother.”
Most of us haven’t gone through anything like that. But some of us have. God has.
Most of us haven’t been rejected and scapegoated for speaking truth to power. Many of us haven’t felt completely disenchanted with the world being utterly wrong and following darkness. Many of us haven’t been so hungry that we are tempted to do the wrong thing by hunger, seduced by forces hijacking our bodily chemistry to rationalize harming a neighbor and ourselves because our basic needs have not been met. Many of us haven’t had to choose between jumping off our cross through a lie or standing in the truth that we know will make us bleed. But some of us have. God has.
Really, the idea of a “Christmas hangover” makes too light of the stark reality of evil that Jesus faced, resulting in one of the most horrifying passages of Scripture where Herod mass-slaughtered infants to try and protect his power. Most of us have not faced anything like that. But some of us, even today, have. God has.
Still, in some regard, we who renew our vows to follow Jesus, like the Israelites who imperfectly followed God through the desert, spend our whole lives in a Christmas hangover. We aren’t angels who get to pop in and see how humans are doing in their suffering, give them a bunch of good news, and return to our comfortable lives in the heavenly court in the presence of God.
But it’s actually part of the good news that we aren’t like the angels, because the angels are not really the point or the power of God’s work. As Isaiah said this morning, “It was no messenger or angel but his presence that saved [his people.]” “And he became their savior in all their distress…in his love and pity it was he who redeemed them; he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old.” (Isa 63:8-9) What’s more, as the author of Hebrews also told us this morning, God did not come to help the angels (Heb 2:16). He came for us.
Stop and think about this for a second and what this tells us about God and God’s love. I mean, I’m sure God cares about the angels, but he knows they’re fine. I can almost hear him, “Angels? Yeah, they’re great. Love them. I use them sometimes, they have a good service.” I imagine God sees angels like Fedex or Amazon. They get stuff delivered. That’s great, but also, Amazon’s doing fine. No, God is telling us, “What I really love—who I really love—are the people. I love angels, but I really love angels for how they help me help people.”
This alone may not cure our lifelong case of Christmas hangover. But also remember how God did this. Remember how his glory fully metabolizes and remember how his salvation flourishes: through us sinners, we broken jars of clay, us crackpots. God comes to us as a human to share our sufferings and to call us brothers and sisters. (Heb 2:10-11). He did not come to avoid suffering and he did not come to hang out with angels and be better than us, for he knows that to be with us means to suffer with us and that is exactly what he did before he could even speak a word. Just as miraculously, the great God of the universe, the God by whom and through whom all things are made, the God who reminded Job that he crushes dragons and reminded Israel that they were not in control and neither were their false gods, that God wants to not only be alongside us, not only be inside our hearts through the Holy Spirit and dwell with us, but he even wants to partner with us.
Could God do it unilaterally? Of course he could, he is the Author of life. But there is something about the story of his love which he loves to write with us. There is something about his love that has him inviting us, not forcing us, to join him in the work of his love, whether it is Adam naming animals or Rahab saving spies or King Hezekiah reforming a corrupt Israel or a disgraced woman facing a stoning teaching us something about forgiveness or Mary and Joseph keeping a vulnerable baby Jesus safe, God has a role for us to play in his work. Not to mistakenly believe we can bring it about ourselves if we force others to do it—the exact logic of powers and principalities that God opposes again and again—but for us to look and see who God is, what he is like, and do likewise. To hear the music he is playing, pick up an instrument, and join in the band.
I know that all of our loved ones who lived lives of faith did so. Even though they aren’t here, I know you can hear their music if you try. And when you do, hear again how the music of God played through them. Hear what it sounded like. Remember how God loved you through them. How could we not rejoice at that?
Glory, glory, glory is not top down, nor is it pure humanism with no sense of the sacred. The true glory of God is “God with us,” and that means God is with us. Can we behold that? Can we bask in that? Can we help others who are threatened, like Joseph helped the infant Christ? Can we be vulnerable with our love as God is vulnerable in his love? When we are in the depths of darkness, can we remember there is no depth that can leave behind the love of God?
Do you believe that he loves you? Can you hear it enough times?
Whether you are just a little tired from the holidays or really hurting in the void right now, God’s gloria is in you, is with you, and is inviting you to join in the most joyful work imaginable with him. God’s gloria is calling you in your pain into a role. When you are next in a darker and harder moment than any you can imagine, listen for his gloria and sing back gloria. Let it echo far beyond the hills. He is with you. He is with all of us. Rejoice, rejoice, again I say rejoice. Amen.
