First Sunday after Christmas Day (A)—Isaiah 63:7–9 and Matthew 2:12–23

Dürer, Albrecht: Flight into Egypt (1494-1497)
Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister (Dresden, Germany)

Isaiah 63:7–9

Not Just in Days of Old

God knows it's not enough to talk,

So God comes by to visit,

To lift, to carry those God loves 

E'en when they fail to get it. 

The point of God has always been

That grace, you cannot lose it;

To those who fear, love sidles near,

So anxious folk might cool it.

Scott L. Barton

I will recount the gracious deeds of the Lord, 

the praiseworthy acts of the Lord, 

because of all that the Lord has done for us, 

and the great favor to the house of Israel 

that he has shown them according to his mercy, 

according to the abundance of his steadfast love. 

For he said, “Surely they are my people, 

children who will not deal falsely”; 

and he became their savior in all their distress. 

It was no messenger or angel but his presence that saved them; 

in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; 

he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old.

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Matthew 2:12–23

The Two Josephs 

It seems to me I've heard this song before;

Remember Joseph, by his dad, adored,

Who, off to Egypt went one day, enslaved,

As good as dead, his brothers so depraved

They'd even murder just to guarantee

He'd bloom no more upon the fam'ly tree?

But then, in dreams, we see that God persists

In showing that he all the while insists

That even though a tyrant's on the throne,

Those loved by God will never stand alone.

Again weeps Rachel—God abandons not—

And this new dreaming Joseph finds a spot

To raise the child born with no silver spoon!

—All to the end that we might be attuned

To hear the old familiar score, known well;

And yearning, searching love for all, retell.

Scott L. Barton

Now after they 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 wise men, 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 wise men. Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah: “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 over 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 Nazorean.”