Sunday after the Nativity of Christ Commemoration of the Holy and Righteous Joseph the Betrothed, David the King, and James, Brother of the Lord. Octoechos Tone 6; Our Venerable Mother Melania the Roman (439) .
Galatians 1:11-19; Matthew 2:13-23.
Read Matthew 2:13-23
Christ is born! Glorify Him!
There is something very important missing from today’s gospel reading. The stories of the Holy Family’s flight to Egypt and their return to Israel bracket the story of the massacre of the Holy Innocents. Each of the three stories has a fulfillment of a prophecy. Each mentions Herod’s desire to kill the infant Jesus. But only two have an angelic warning preventing Herod’s murderous action. Any such warning for the other parents in Bethlehem is conspicuous by its absence. What happened to the fulfillment of “Immanuel, God with us”?
There is a powerful method of writing that the gospel writers use called a “sandwich”– one story will be divided into two parts and another story placed in the middle of it to illuminate the meaning. Mark uses it when Jesus sends out the Twelve two by two and then they return and tell him all that they had done. In between those two events Mark places the beheading of John the Baptist. That informs us as readers to keep in mind the martyrdom of the apostles instead of having a triumphalist perspective on their casting out of demons and healing the sick.
The Holy Family’s sharing in the grief of the parents of Bethlehem is foreshadowed here. As Simeon said to the Blessed Virgin Mary at the Encounter of Our Lord in the Temple, “a sword will pierce through your own soul also”.
St. Paul writes, “Christ Jesus…did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And…he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.” (Philippians 2:5-9)
Sometimes the thing that is left out shows us more clearly what is there.