Christmas 2January 3, 2016
Let Us Take Care of Children
As we read Mathew’s rendition of Joseph and Mary’s move to Egypt this morning…there is a great poetic retelling of the Holy Families flight to Egypt by Maedleine L’Engle.
She paints a picture with her poetry of an enchanted night scene in the desert when the small toddler Christ breaks away from the circle of travelers sitting around the largest of the fires. He walks confidently toward the silhouette of a sand-colored lion who has appeared on the perimeter of the camp, even as the lion utters a deep, sustained roar.
Mary, the young mother, rather than restrain her son, waits to observe, and trust, keeping others from going after him. L’Engle describes how the lion, in a non-threatening manner, suddenly rose on his hind legs to full height. And “the child stood at the edge of the firelight, holding out his arms in greeting”.
The lion is the first of the dancing creatures to entertain Christ, moving in measured, courtly circles around the company. Then he kneels before the child.
Each creature in turn: tiny mice, birds, donkeys, and even an adder make their appearances and contributions to the desert dance…while the child absorbs their beauty and moves among them, unafraid.
Mary turns to her husband to explain that the creatures honor their child because, “he gives waters in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert, and drink to his people”.
This beautiful retelling of the Flight to Egypt expresses wonder and underlines for us the uniqueness of Christ, suggesting how his early days were protected so that he could grow up to fulfill His destiny.
In the earliest narratives describing Christ’s earthly life, already darkness seeks to snuff out the light. Matthew emphasizes this point…”Herod the Great” is juxtaposed with “Jesus the Child”. The embodiment of worldly
wealth and power comes up against pure defenselessness…poor young parents, with a small dependent child, far from home and family.
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Too often in our world today children are seen as expendable. Little people, when it comes to adult priorities, usually get the shaft. “Holy Innocents” suffer and die every day due to the devices and desires of adult concerns and demands.
Who knows how Herod slew the innocents in Bethlehem, when he learned from the Wise Men about a supposed new ‘King’ in his midst…by spear or sword, it is likely. In the days since, children have starved to death in Africa and have been kidnapped and made into child warriors to die for someone else’s greed…and they continue to be the most vulnerable victims in current wartime efforts. We also read and see on TV everyday about children left home alone, dying in fires, being drowned, abandoned, left in hot cars, starved or riddled with bullets in the throes of adult domestic violence.
How we treat out littlest ones is a sign of how we have understood the meaning of life that Jesus came to bring. The record is appalling.
Yes, the Holy Family did have to undergo what would have been a traumatic displacement into Egypt. Yes, they would be terrified, in a later incident that their son had stayed behind in Jerusalem without their knowing where he was. Yes, Mary would have to endure seeing her son barely escape a vigilante mob comprised of neighbors from her hometown (Luke 4:29).
And Mary and Joseph and Jesus’ brothers and sisters would have to live with the accusations that he was “out of his mind,” or even implications that he was acting in league with the devil (Mk. 3:20-22). And, in the final vulnerability, his family would hear of his betrayal by a friend and would witness the wordless, suffocating and shameful death of His crucifixion.
Yet, as in the threatening desert, God was doing for the Holy Family what they could not do for themselves. Just as Joseph obeyed the warning he received in a dream to remove his family out of Herod’s grasp, and flee to Egypt, we too are given signs that God cares, and is with us.
Perhaps there were no dancing beasts…yet the little family survived the great trek, and returned. Perhaps they were not feed by palm trees bending down before them as they passed by, offering coconuts at arm’s length…as told in a fifth century pseudo rendition of the Gospel of Matthew.
But they must have had provisions for every day that sustained them to the end of their journey.
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Can we trust and reach out to God for the crossing of the deserts and the oceans of our lives? “Be of good cheer,” Christ said, “For I have indeed come to walk the journey with you and help you cross your deserts and oceans. Here is my hand, grasp it.”
And in the words of an African Prayer. “Let us take care of the children, for they have a long way to go. Let us take care of the elders for they have come a long way. Let us take care of those in between, for they are doing the work”.
But being reminded as always that:
Christ has no body on earth but ours, no hands but ours, no feet but ours. We are the eyes through which Christ’s compassion is to look out to the world.
We are the feet with which Christ is to go about doing good.
We are the hands with which Christ is to bless all people now.