The Empire Strikes Back

“Is that all there is?” I can’t help it, that’s the question that I always have when Christmas Day ends. After 364 days of waiting, preparing, anxiety, anticipation and buildup when the 24 hours of Christmas Day come to a close I am left wondering, is that all there is? It usually only takes a couple of days to get all the mess dealt with, eat up the leftovers, get deep into the cookie and treat stash, the new stuff sorted and stored, the new video games played a time or two, and life’s routine to settle in. And of course you need to hit the stores for those after Christmas sales to round out the gifts and get a jump on buying for next Christmas.

And who can forget that in just a few short days we arrive at the momentous break where one year ends and the new one begins. After indulging in all sorts of less than the best for us activities for a week or a month or more we get to look back over our year and assess it for how well we did on our goals and plans; lose weight, get enough sleep, read important stuff, attend a lecture series, volunteer more, eat more vegetables, do more good, spend less, save more, work to bring about world peace…

No wonder the weeks after Christmas are seen as the darkness and most depressed weeks of the year. So you’ve come to Church today and I cannot help but wonder if part of the reason is to try and hold on to just a few more moments of Christmas. And instead you get me reminding you of all this and a passage of Scripture that is far from uplifting. I can hear you all whispering in your minds “What a bummer I’m already feeling low what with the post holiday let down and now you’re talking about death and tears.”

And like it or not, we’ve come to the harsh reality of Christmas: life goes on. Jesus was born but he was born into our world – a broken world filled with hurting people were the cries of mothers carry on the wind that just a few short days ago carried the angel’s chorus. Our passage from Matthew forces us to re-enter the real world, the world that is our everyday life.

This escape into Egypt story of Matthew is often lost or overlooked by most of us. We go straight from Wise Men and gifts to John the Baptist and Jesus’ baptism. We skip over this uncomfortable reminder of the harsh realities of human power and greed. But it is critical for us to not forget in our focus on angels and wise men and “Heaven’s all gracious king” that Jesus was born into our world, as one of us – into the rough world of political survival…of hungry people…of rulers and murder.

The reality of life, human life, our life, cannot be forgotten even on Christmas. The mundane stuff still needs doing – dishes, dogs to be fed, spills to be cleaned up. And the pains of the world still ache – wars, refugees, illness, suffering and death.

But the good news of all this bucket of cold water reality I’m dumping on you is that Jesus WAS born into the rough and mundane life we know. From his first breathe – who he is and what he represents – upsets the status quo – makes the powerful insecure and causes those in control to show their true colors. In this rough and mundane life where we know we can’t possibility make it on our own we don’t have too, God is with us, Emmanuel.

So this “First Sunday after Christmas” and often the last Sunday of the year we are reminded that life goes on. This story of the Holy Family escaping to Egypt is essential to the story of Christmas because it lets the reality of our lives and world into the crèche and places them at its core which is the true meaning of Christmas. Jesus came to help us understand that what God desires for all people is justice and peace, peace and justice not by violence and intolerance but instead through love. Jesus is the symbol of all that is right with human nature and challenges all that has been held up as our hearts’ desires. Jesus calls our ideas of power, status, wealth and peace through security into question and he makes everyone uncomfortable. This is the real story of Christmas.

The reality is that when the people who are in power see and understand that something else has come that will challenge or even displace them; they strike back, seeking to use violence and injustice to maintain their power and hold. The Empire Strikes Back! We see this all the time. We’ve even been a part of it, cheered it on, supported its efforts and felt justified in doing so. But whenever the Empire Strikes Back something always feels wrong, out of sorts, maybe even unclean about it.

The good news is that once a new way is seen, known, experienced the violent and unjust will be displaced by love, justice and peace. Rob Bell writes in Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived “Love frees us to embrace all of our history, the history in which all things are being made new.” This is why we have to hear the cry of Ramah. We have to be free enough to see the reality of what is and the reality of what Jesus is and how the one reality affects the other. We all know that there can be only one Lord. You cannot serve two masters. This means that people of faith – folks like you and me – have to ask ourselves, “How do I live in the world and still be a citizen of the commonwealth of God?” The New Year comes and with it a desire to be different, better, more. How do I be God’s partner when the world tells me it doesn’t work? How do I live in a world where violence and injustice reign and still practice justice and love?

The institutions, multi-national corporations, and governments are the ones with the power, they are the Empire. Anything that challenges their hold on things is suspect. When love and justice break out, they try to suppress, quash, and annihilate it. What can I do – what can we do, in the face of such power to bring love and justice into the world? As partners of God and Christ we live lives of love and justice, witnessing by our words and actions to God’s ways. Violence and injustice will not prevail when love is shared and justice is practiced. We are a community of love and justice; we show how it is meant to be in this world now that our King has come. Empire cannot, will not win if we love and work for justice. Our God calls us to lives of love and justice, today, tomorrow and forever. In the end violence, greed and injustice cannot prevail.

If you want peace, work for justice. If you want the world to change be the change you want to see in the world. You are the way to stop the Empire. The force is with you – the force of love and justice – use the force. Amen.