Warning! Danger Will Robinson!

This sermon was delivered on Sunday December 30, 2007, the 1st Sunday after Christmas at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas.

Isaiah 63:7-9
Psalm 148
Hebrews 2:10-18
Matthew 2:13-23

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

From 1965 through 1968, there was a television show on CBS called “Lost in Space.”[1] “Lost in Space” was the story of the Robinson family, launched into space in 1997 in aluminum foil space suits, sent to colonize Alpha Centauri. But their ship is boarded by a foreign spy who was trying to sabotage the mission. Instead of disrupting the lift-off, his weight added just enough to the payload to throw the ship off balance and its crew off their flight path. Yes, you get it; instead of “The Swiss Family Robinson” we have “The Space Family Robinson.”

This show had all of the obligatory characters every good science fiction ship wreck show needs. Along with the stowaway there’s mom and dad, one’s a biochemist and the other is an astrophysicist. There are the kids, one older two younger. There’s the dashing military man serving as ship’s pilot. And of course, there’s the robot. Every week the family faces some peril, and when their fate is in question, seemingly without question the robot would say, “Warning! Warning! Danger Will Robinson!”

Though used only once in the run of the show,[2] this little phrase made it into the lexicon as an expression of warning, at least among my friends. And this week, while reading Luke’s gospel, Joseph receives warnings from the Lord. We have several suitable examples of “Danger Will Robinson.”

Joseph gets the warning about the impending doom of his family. He hears the angel of the Lord in a dream saying, “Warning! Warning! Danger Joseph, son of David (or David’s-son if you will)!” “Warning! Warning! Danger Joseph Davidson!” Joseph will also hear the word of when to return and about where to return because of the dangers of their return.

When we celebrate Christmas, there are some things we expect, and some we don’t. I expected to see a Christmas tree, but the chrismons were new to me. Every other church tree ornament I have ever seen pales to the humble construction and deep theology of these chrismons. Even more special, these were created by the children of this congregation who were taught of their meaning while making them; how wonderfully glorious, teaching and crafts, theology and pottery all in one afternoon.

At Christmas time we expect pageants. We expect the oldest kids to be Mary and Joseph, we expect the triplets to play the wise men, and we expect the cute kids who aren’t old enough to handle spoken lines to be the shepherds. Sure enough, somewhere there will be a nervous director or parent who wants everything to be absolutely perfect just as the plastic sheep rolls down the chancel steps.

We expect parties and presents and song and caroling and our reading today has nothing to do with any of these wonderful things. Any reading that includes a passage known as “the slaughter of the innocents” doesn’t seem to have the “Christmas Spirit.”

But this is the pericope, this is the lesson we read today.

The reading begins as Jesus, Mary, and Joseph leave Bethlehem. And 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.”

Let’s face it; Herod doesn’t seem to have any place in a Christmas pageant. King Herod was the Praetor, the Chief Magistrate, of Judea and he had been in power for over thirty years and you didn’t accumulate and keep that kind of power in the Roman Empire without knowing how to quell a rebellion or two. But Herod was more. On top of his winning personality Herod was angry, vengeful, and brutal.

So when the three wise men tricked him going home along a different route, Herod knew there was only one thing to do. So he consulted his advisors and they figured out the maximum age of the new-born king. He then sent a detachment to Nazareth where any child who even remotely close to that age was massacred. This is the slaughter, the slaughter of the innocents, and I don’t think it will be in the Christmas Pageant anytime soon.

Before he could walk, even before he could take food from beyond his mother’s breast, Jesus of Nazareth, Son of God and Son of Man is surrounded in blood and death. Death and suffering are the things we read about in the Good Friday liturgy, not the Christmas liturgy, but it is here in Matthew for all to see. So why does Matthew put this here? Why is this in the Lectionary?

I have a couple of ideas. The first is that Matthew is constantly pointing to the ministry of the Christ with the cross and to the resurrection, pointing forward by looking back. Much of Matthew’s gospel contains reference to prophecy. Verse 15 shows this off noting that one of the results evading Herod was fulfilling “what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, ‘Out of Egypt I have called my Son.’”

First, Matthew uses the words of the prophet Hosea who says, “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.”[3] Matthew uses the words of the prophet to tell the world who Jesus is. Then as Matthew has Jesus coming out of Egypt to save and lead the people, he looks back on Jewish history with Moses foreshadowing the movements of Jesus. Moses is the warning, Jesus is the real thing.

Another possible reason for this savage incident in the middle of a birth narrative is to show the people that in the midst of joy and hope is despair and pain. At that, Matthew’s words show that in the midst of despair and pain is the presence and the joy of the Lord.

We need to remember that Matthew’s gospel was written around 75 AD, not long after the temple was destroyed and Israel and Judea were scattered again. The Jews, including the Jewish Christians who were the people Matthew was writing for, were being cast to the wind. The temple had been destroyed. The life of pain that they knew as subjects of Rome was being increased. So even in the midst of their despair, the hope of salvation was with them. It was with them in the birth of the baby and continues to be with them years after the crucifixion, resurrection and ascension. Yes there is danger, but yes there is more than pain. There is joy in the midst of the blood and there is blood in the midst of the joy.

These messages are still important to us today. There are warnings we need to listen to, warnings we need to heed. These things can’t be lost on us today. We have just celebrated the day of the Nativity of the Christ, but in this celebration of birth, death and strife surround us.

Former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated Thursday in Rawalpindi. Bhutto led Pakistan for nearly 5 years and had just returned from self-imposed exile in Dubai. She was a leading opposition candidate for Prime Minister again who was shot leaving a campaign stop. She was injured by gunfire, but she and another twenty were killed when the shooter detonated a bomb he was carrying.

She knew the dangers of returning and seeking to lead her people, but this didn’t stop her. She heard the warning of danger, and was paid back in pain and death.

Michelle Anderson and Joseph McEnroe confessed to the brutal slaying of Anderson’s parents and four other family members, including her young niece and nephew on Christmas Eve in Washington state. We were singing Lessons and Carols and two time zones away this is happening, its own version of the slaughter of the innocents. When King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg was asked about motive he said, “In the end, what motive could you find that would make sense of the senseless slaying of the Anderson family?”[4]

Danger Will Robinson.

Just to add insult to injury, and prove that the universal church knows its own share of hostility during this season of joy, the Associated Press reported that “Robed Greek Orthodox and Armenian priests went at each other with brooms and stones inside the Church of the Nativity on Thursday as long-standing rivalries erupted in violence during holiday cleaning.”[5] Priests swat one another with brooms while cleaning the church built over the site that according to tradition is the place of our dear Savior’s birth.

So this doesn’t rate next to the other two examples, but considering the religious tension that exists in this world and the violence that follows it; this story is like a pie-fight in the middle of a fire fight.

Yet, still, in his time of torment and pain, Joseph receives a warning to leave. He later receives a message when to return. After contemplating the wisdom of returning to Judea where Herod’s son Archelaus is on the throne he receives another warning of danger and returns instead to Nazareth in Galilee, north of Judea.

According to Matthew this fulfills another prophecy in a round about way,[6] “He will be called a Nazorean.” In the blood of his birth and the blood of his death, the signs of warning and danger are all around us, they are not to be ignored. Yet, in the danger there is grace of the Son of God.

Let this be our lesson, in the days of his birth, in the days of his death, and in all the days of our lives, the only constant is Jesus the Christ. He is King of Kings and Lord of Lords, not Herod, not Archelaus, no one. We crown him with many crowns. We acclaim his authority and proclaim his work and his word in the joy of his birth and the terror of his death.

Matthew shares the prophecy of old in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. He shares the joy of the birth of the child. But he is in tune with the pain of his people so he reminds his people of their pain in the violence and blood of Herod. Yet through it all, there is Jesus, the babe, the Messiah.
The only constant is Jesus the Christ.

[1] Lost in Space Episode Guide, http://epguides.com/LostinSpace/, accessed December 29, 2007.
[2] Lost in Space, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_In_Space, accessed December 29, 2007.
[3] Hosea 11:1
[4] Chilling Details Emerge in Washington Family Massacre, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22420704/, accessed December 29, 2007.
[5] Priests Brawl Inside Bethlehem Church, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22419654/, accessed December 29, 2007.
[6] Isaiah 11:1