Read: Matthew 2:19-23 NRSV
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.’
Wouldn’t it be helpful if all of our actions could be explained or justified by an ancient prophecy? If, for example, by getting a speeding ticket I was fulfilling an obscure prediction found in a cave somewhere, it might make me feel like there was a divine plan to my life and less like everything in the world is stupid.
I suspect this principle is the reason why so many people are interested in horoscopes. If you can apply some kind of plan behind suffering or inconvenience it makes the pain a bit more palatable. To be “right” about something, even something horrible, softens the blow. That’s why horoscopes are usually a list of vague warnings and promises, so you have a lengthy list of reasons why anything and everything happens on a given day.
Matthew, a devout Jew, takes careful pains throughout his gospel account to demonstrate how all the details of Jesus’ birth, life, death, and resurrection fulfill the prophecies that would have been known to his Jewish audience. Consider what we have read so far:
‘Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and they shall name him Emmanuel’,
Is a prophecy found in Isaiah 7:14.
“And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for from you shall come a ruler
who is to shepherd my people Israel.”
Is a prophecy found in Micah 5:2.
‘Out of Egypt I have called my son.’
Is a prophecy found in Hosea 11:1.
‘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.’
Is a prophecy from Jeremiah 31:15.
And from today’s passage:
‘He will be called a Nazorean.’
Is not a direct quote from Isaiah, but may be wordplay from Isaiah 11:1:
‘A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit’ – with ‘branch’ (from the Hebrew ‘nester’) looking and sounding similar to Nazareth. (Because the Hebrew language had no vowels, both would have similar consonant constructions.)
If Joseph had been able to connect all of the misfortunes that he went through to hundreds of years of prophecy all predicting it in advance, he may have felt better about the situation. It’s more obvious that God is in control when every move you make has been studied and sung by your community for generations before you make them.
In all likelihood, Joseph probably didn’t make the immediate connection between each prophecy and their flight to Egypt or return to Nazareth. To him, it probably felt like his family had narrowly avoided being slaughtered and that he had to settle among strangers. That uncertainty and fear makes it easier for us to sympathize with Joseph. It was only after everything had happened, including the rest of Jesus’ ministry, that Jewish scholars like Matthew began to make the connection between the Old Testament prophecies and the story of Jesus’ birth.
I think that can apply to our suffering, too. It’s rarely helpful to hear that everything is “part of God’s plan” in the midst of our suffering. Sometimes it takes an entire lifetime or multiple generations for something to be understood, and even then, understanding suffering doesn’t always lessen the pain.
Once again we can admire Joseph’s obedience in a series of events that he probably didn’t live to understand in the full context of God’s story. That’s a mentality that is hard for us to adopt: reorienting our perspective to see that our most important contributions to God’s plan might be as a supporting character, not the hero. Perhaps we advance the kingdom by being a patient husband or a forgiving friend or by getting a speeding ticket. It’s possible that the real fruit of our labors won’t blossom for generations, but we are not the gardener, or even the vine. We are the branches.
