1st Sunday After Christmas Fr. James Jorgenson

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and

of the Holy Spirit, amen. Christ is born. Today

we have a concurrence of a number of important

events and persons that we commemorate today.

We've heard in the Gospel about the flight into

Egypt of the Holy Family. the murder of those

innocent young boys in Bethlehem. It also is

the feast of St. James, who's involved in the,

he's mentioned in the epistle, as you probably

noticed, that Paul said he conferred with Peter

and James, the brother of the Lord. That epistle

to the Galatians is universally recognized as

being the first of St. Paul's epistles. So James

occupied a prominent place in the church in Jerusalem.

We see him also mentioned in the Council of Jerusalem

in the 15th chapter of the Book of the Acts of

the Apostles. So we have James, and we also have

St. Stephen. Whenever I think of the Feast of

Stephen, I always think of one of my favorite

Christmas carols, Good King Wenceslaus, who went

out on the Feast of Stephen and has a delightful

moral at the very end. You who now remember the

poor shall yourselves find blessing. The flight

into Egypt. Some of the commentators and the

fathers see an irony in that When the wise men

came from the east, guided by a star, and every

year there's always speculation about what that

star might have been. This year was an interesting

concurrence. You probably know that Jupiter and

Saturn were aligned for the first time in 800

years for that celestial greeting for our Lord's

nativity. And whatever that event was that drew

them to Bethlehem, it also drew them from the

East. The East, of course, represents first of

all the Assyrians, and then later, several hundred

years later, the Babylonians, who of course oppressed

the Jews and were in a state of warfare with

them periodically. And the irony is that the

leaders of these nations, they were the instruments

for God's bringing the Jewish people back to

the pure observance of their religion, that the

leaders of these nations were the ones who came

and offered their gifts to the newborn king,

recognition by even the pagan persecutors of

the Israelite people. of their newborn king.

And then the other irony is that Joseph and Mary

go with the child Jesus, and also, by the way,

if you look at many of the icons of the flight

into Egypt, you see a young man, teenager or

a fellow in his early 20s, who's leading the

donkey or accompanying them on their journey.

This is commonly believed to be... James, the

brother of the Lord, who was very likely the

son of Joseph by his previous marriage, Joseph,

of course, himself being a widower. And so the

Messiah goes to Egypt, which was the oppressor

of the Jewish people, and there he symbolically

announces his presence, the Redeemer, to that

nation. Some of the accounts in early Christian

literature, they're not in the New Testament,

they're not canonical, but they make delightful

stories to me. When the Holy Family came into

Egypt, the idols crumbled and the palm trees

bowed down for Jesus and the Holy Family as they

were on their way into Egypt. So we have this

flight into Egypt. and the murder of the Holy

Innocents, St. James, the brother of the Lord,

and St. Stephen. I want to say a couple words

about Stephen. He, of course, is one of the deacons

that was ordained. This event is related in chapter

6 of the Acts of the Apostles. And then that

magnificent speech of Stephen. which is given

in chapter 7 of the Acts of the Apostles, where

he brings back to memory the history of the Jewish

people and their dealings with God. The God of

glory appeared to Abraham, and he relates the

story of the patriarchs, and in more detail,

the story of Moses and God's dealing with Moses.

God appeared in the burning bush and inspired

Moses to lead his people out of Egypt to freedom

and how the Israelites turned to other gods and

Israel's disobedience to God. In St. Stephen,

the fundamental point is that he appeals to the

Jewish people, his hearers, to tell them and

to underline that Jesus did not subvert the law

of Moses, but he fulfilled it. And the crowds,

of course, got increasingly annoyed at Stephen's

words, that he said, you persecuted and even

killed prophets who predicted the coming of the

righteous one, and now you have betrayed and

murdered him. So they were determined to stone

Stephen to death. They lay their coats at the

feet of a young man, Saul, who again, the connection

here, becomes Paul the apostle. And as Stephen

was being stoned, he prayed that the Lord would

receive his spirit and forgive his killers. And

he said, I see the Son of Man sitting at the

right hand of God. And that's how he ended his

earthly days and became the first proto -martyr.

So we have the individuals, the innocents who

were killed, Stephen who was killed later, and

James who also met his end after witnessing to

Christ. We're surrounded by all these important

events. This is a marvelous time of the year.

that the joy of Christmas, the joy of our Lord's

Nativity, continues throughout this period, what

we prepared for for 40 days, in effect continues

until our Lord's presentation in the temple 40

days after his birth on the feast of the presentation.

So let us ask today for these individuals whose

blessed memory is brought to our attention once

again the Holy Innocents, Joseph, James, and

St. Stephen on the Feast of Stephen to grant

us the joy that they experienced in their dealings

with and relationship to the newborn King, to

whom be glory and honor forever and ever. Amen.