Category: Christmas

Moses. Pharoah. The Red Sea. The Promised Land. And Christmas. Wait! What? How did that get in the list?

We don’t normally associate Christmas with Egypt, Passover, and manna in the wilderness, but the gospel writers did, in large ways and small.

We all know the story of how the three kings asked Herod to help them find the new king of Israel. When he realized they tricked him and didn’t come back from Bethlehem, he ordered all the baby boys in Bethlehem to be killed to be rid of any potential rival king. But Joseph had already taken Mary and Jesus to Egypt to escape Herod (Matthew 2:1-18).

Even here, Matthew links Jesus’ story to Moses’ story. Moses’ life as an infant was also threatened by the king of the land, in that case Pharoah (Exodus 1:15-16). Moses likewise finds refuge from death in Egypt—ironically, in Pharoah’s own household (Exodus 2:5-10).

But Matthew is not done linking these two figures. Years later Joseph is told in a dream that it’s safe to go back because “those who were trying to take the child’s life are dead” (Matthew 2:20).

That same turn of phrase is used about Moses. As an adult he fled to Midian because Pharoah wanted to execute Moses for murdering an Egyptian soldier (Exodus 2:15). Years later God calls Moses back to Egypt to free his people from slavery. It’s safe now, God says, because “those who wanted to kill you are dead” (Exodus 4:19).

Why link Jesus to Moses? The Exodus was God’s great act of salvation for Israel when they left Egypt to find rescue, release, and safety in the Promised Land. Matthew wants us to see that Jesus will do something very similar. He will be another Moses.

Matthew continues to link Jesus to Moses and the Exodus throughout his gospel.

• Jesus passes through the waters of baptism as Israel passed through the Red Sea (Matthew 3:13-17 and Exodus 14:29-31).
• Jesus then goes into the wilderness for forty days of fasting like Moses (Matthew 4:1-11 and Exodus 34:28).
• Jesus delivers new authoritative teaching from a mountain top as Moses provided the law from Mount Sinai (Matthew 5–7 and Exodus 19–20).
• Jesus provides the people with miracle bread as Moses announced manna from God (Matthew 14:13-21 and Exodus 16:13-36).
• And there is much more.*

The story of Moses and the Exodus gives us a deeper richer understanding of Jesus’ mission of salvation. But, Matthew tells us, Jesus is not just another Moses. He is even greater than Moses.

While Moses gave the law, Jesus fulfilled the law (Matthew 5:17). While Moses was sent to deliver Israel, Jesus came to deliver all the nations (Matthew 4:13-16; 28:18-20).

At Christmas we celebrate a miracle birth, yes. We also celebrate a new, better, more complete story of redemption out of slavery and darkness into “a great light.”

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_{*See David Capes, Matthew Through Old Testament Eyes (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Academic, 2024); and Bryan Estelle, Echoes of Exodus (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2018), chapters 7-8.}

_{Image: Pixabay}

As a child I loved everything about our Christmas tree. I loved picking it out with my father on a cold winter day. I loved bringing it into the home a few days before Christmas to let it warm up so the branches could thaw out. I loved the smell. I loved helping with the lights and then adding ornaments and perhaps tinsel and strings of popcorn.

You can imagine my disappointment when I was told that Christmas trees were an adaptation of a pagan custom. Likewise, you can imagine my delight when I read recently that the “pagan custom” story was in fact a myth. As Emily McGowan writes:

Though many in the modern period have sought to trace the Christmas tree back to pre-Christian paganism, historians now acknowledge this is a myth. Others have attempted to link it to legends about Saint Boniface or Martin Luther, but these stories have no basis in history either. Our best historians think the Christmas tree tradition developed in the medieval period. During that time most people couldn’t read or write, so plays were put on to teach biblical stories. One feature of such plays was a paradise tree representing the tree of knowledge (Genesis 2:9 ). In the play, the tree symbolized both the fallenness of humankind and the cross, the “tree” that brought us salvation. They decorated the paradise tree with apples for the fall and round pastry wafers for the Eucharist—the body of Christ that saves us. Interestingly, the Feast of Adam and Eve fell on December 24, so the public display of the paradise tree coincided with the day before the start of Christmas.*

The Bible Project podcast on trees confirms this. Trees in Scripture are not just interesting botanically as we encounter oak, cedar, juniper, and many other kinds. They are important as symbols of humanity and of our relationship with God.

Psalm 1 famously compares a righteous, flourishing human to a tree by water that abounds in fruit. The wood from trees elsewhere plays important roles in salvation. The ark that saved Noah and his family was made of wood. Sacrifices were often burned with wood.

So to bring a tree into our homes and celebrate it is no pagan holdover but a reminder of our salvation.

For as Emily McGowin reminds us, while humanity was banished from the garden so that we would be cut off from the tree of life, because of Christ we now have full and free access to the new tree of life—the cross.

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*Emily Hunter McGowin, Christmas (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2023), p. 74.

Image by 🌸♡💙♡🌸 Julita 🌸♡💙♡🌸 from Pixabay

We all love the Christmas story in Matthew’s gospel. Mary and Joseph are pledged to be married. An angel appears to her. When Joseph finds out she’s already pregnant, he decides to divorce her quietly. But an angel tells him no. Her son will be the savior. After Jesus is born in Bethlehem, the Magi bring their gifts. Joseph then takes his family to Egypt to avoid Herod’s threats (Matthew 1:18 –2:18).

What we seldom notice, however, is that there is another Christmas story in Matthew, another version of how Jesus was born to Mary and Joseph. This overlooked account is squeezed between a list of Jesus’ ancestors and the familiar story. Here it is:

And Jacob [was] the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, and Mary was the mother of Jesus who is called the Messiah. (Matthew 1:16)

The first seventeen verse of Matthew contain a genealogy of Jesus, tracing his roots from Abraham to David, then through the exile in Babylon, culminating in Jesus. In verse 17 Matthew emphasizes these four touch points in Israel’s story.*

♦ The promises to Israel of land, of being a great nation, and of blessing all nations (Abraham)
♦ Israel’s royal history (David)
♦ Israel’s failure to keep the covenant (exile in Babylon)
♦ The culmination of Israel’s history (Jesus)

All the promises to Abraham and all the restoration Israel needs for her sins, Matthew is saying, are fulfilled in Jesus, Israel’s royal son of David.

Matthew’s grand, sweeping overview before the intimate portrait of Mary and Joseph is like a movie that begins with the whole universe in view. Then the camera moves faster than the speed of light through billions of galaxies to pause momentarily on the Milky Way before finding our solar system, racing past Saturn and Jupiter to Earth, then the Middle East, and zeroing in on a room in a Palestinian hovel.

Yes, in those first 17 verses Matthew is saying, Jesus came to save us as individuals, but he also came to fulfill God’s entire plan for Israel and all creation through King Jesus.

We should notice at least one other important feature of Matthew’s list. Remarkably for a patriarchal culture, he lists four women—Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Mary. Why are they included? What they have in common is a clue.

To begin, the first three are gentiles. God promised to Abraham in Genesis 12 that Israel would be a blessing to all nations, a role it often forgot. Jesus’ own genealogy (yes, his genes) already showed how all those outside Israel were also included in the promise.

Second, while all four women had suspect sexual backgrounds, that is not Matthew’s emphasis. They are all honored for their fidelity to the line of the Messiah. Each of these women played a critical role when the line of promise was threatened.

Tamar rescued Judah’s line from ending (Genesis 38:1-30). Rahab protected Israel’s spies in Jericho, preserving Israel so it could enter the land God promised Abraham (Joshua 2:1-21). Ruth’s deceased husband was from the line of Judah; by her faithful tenacity, she found a new husband from that tribe and became the great grandmother of David (Ruth 1-4, especially 4:16-22). As Chris Bruno and others said,

These three Gentile women are not only the ancestors of the Messiah, but also point forward to him in their work of preserving God’s covenant line and rescuing his people from imminent destruction. In other words, they are themselves saviours of Israel. (p. 21)

The familiar Christmas story offers so much to love. Through Matthew’s other story of Christmas, we have even more.

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*Chris Bruno, Jared Compton, and Kevin McFadden, Biblical Theology According to the Apostles, NSBT (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2020), pp. 11-22.

Nativity image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Galaxy image by ENES KOÇ from Pixabay