Hans Boersma on Matthew 2:13-15

“Out of Egypt I called my son.” Why does God tell Joseph to take the child and his mother into Egypt? Why does he tell Joseph to flee from Bethlehem? Why does he tell Joseph to stay in Egypt until Herod’s death? Obviously, you say, to save the child! Sure, but why Egypt? Why not any other place? Isn’t it because you and I so often return to the fleshpots of Egypt? Isn’t it because you and I are just like the Israelites, and our misdirected desires often lead us back to Egypt? There “we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full,” we say to ourselves, while here we are in the wilderness, starving to death (Ex 16:3). The amazing grace of the gospel, the astounding love of God, is this: not only does the eternal Son of God take on human flesh, not only does he go to Bethlehem so that we can have a place alongside him in Bethlehem; no, he goes all the way to where we are. He goes all the way to Egypt. He goes all the way to the very place of slavery and oppression. He goes all the way to our country of exile. He goes all the way to the objects of our misdirected desires. he goes all the way to the center of our darkest labyrinths. “Out of Egypt I called my son.”

from Sacramental Preaching: Sermons on the Hidden Presence of Christ (Baker Academic, 2016), 75-6.

P.S. Martin Copenhaver on “He descended to hell.”

The Apostle’s Creed contains this affirmation about Jesus:  “Jesus Christ was crucified, dead and buried. He descended to hell.” The last part of that statement always used to trouble me, until one day someone told me that, for her, it is the most treasured part of the creed. When I asked why, she answered, “Because hell is where I spend much of my life.” Hell—a sense of being forsaken, the absence of God, a place of despair. We have been there. And Jesus has been there. And having been there, Jesus transformed it.

from Jesus Goes to Hell