Matthew 2:13-22
What a horrifying story! Killing all the baby boys under two? What a staggering image! The word, Gospel, literally means Good News. Reports of good news are not typically supposed to include such language, such painful images, such harsh realities. They interfere with our holiday season, with our Christmas celebrations, and with our good cheer and happiness. If Gospel is good news, there is a part of us that wants to say to Matthew, “Just stick to the good news.”
As a reader of Gospel, we may prefer a different topic today… a different text on the first Sunday after Christmas. But as a preacher, I think I can understand Matthew: the Good News is not good news if the human reality is not reflected.
I enjoy watching interviews on TV. I enjoyed watching Charlie Rose until it was cancelled abruptly in a de facto manner… and you know why. Anyway, I recall someone on the show saying that “Love songs are pain songs.” I don’t remember his name, but I remember what he said. He said something like this: “Those songs that speak of love without having (within their lines) an ache or a pain are not love songs at all. The song writer who refuses to explore the darker regions of the heart will never be able to write convincingly about the wonder, the magic, and the joy of love…. So within the fabric of the love song, within its melody, its lyric, one must sense an acknowledgment of its capacity for suffering.”
Today, Matthew reminds us that his Gospel is the greatest love song. From its very beginning, Matthew embraced pain and suffering. It sighed and it ached. It co-mingled with the darker regions of this world and because it did, we are convinced of the love which it reveals.
It also reminds us that we live in a sinful world. And even at Christmas, with the promise of peace and hope in our hearts, that sinfulness is still present. That sinfulness was personified in the first Christmas story by Herod. There are still so many Herods in our world: Bashar Al-Assad,
Kim Jong-un, Nicolás Maduro and many more.
So even today, as we continue singing “Joy to the World” we read about children dying senselessly, and mothers weeping uncontrollably. And there are so many tragic stories, along with the verses in the Bible that are too painful to read. These verses have come to be known as “texts of terror.” Ironically, this text reminds us why Jesus came.
The story of the birth of this baby who Herod tried to kill reminds us that we need Jesus. We cannot save ourselves. We cannot save our world. We need a savior. Only God can save us. We need Jesus because in Jesus, God was giving Himself or Herself to us.
The Point of Christmas is that God understands us. Christmas story tells us that God identifies with our problems, sorrows, hopes, frustrations and joys. God knows us not because God made us, not because God is all-knowing, but because God became one of us. God became a human being. Incarnation. Immanuel. God with us. Jesus. And this is the Good News!
We need the Hope only He can bring. We need the Forgiveness that only He can offer. We need the Unconditional Love that only He can share. We need the Eternal Life that only He can give. We need the Redemption that only He can promise. We need Jesus. Immanuel.
And that was the greatest act of love ever shown. No one, not even Herod (they called) the Great, could stop.
Make sure you look up and see the star as you continue your journey. Make sure you make that trip to Bethlehem and peer into that stable. Don’t be like Herod and miss the greatest gift ever given.
Once we have found the Messiah, we cannot remain the same. Every one who encountered the Christ child was changed by the meeting and dreamed new dreams. You cannot continue on the same journey once you have found Jesus. You must take a different road. You cannot dream the same dream once you have found the baby in the barn. You must dream a different dream.
For the Magi, “they returned home another way.” For the shepherds, they were fearful but when they returned, they were “glorifying and praising God.” For Mary and Joseph, they had to leave Bethlehem.
What will it be for you?
Let us pray…
Blessed Lord, into our darkness you have brought the Light of your love. You have given to us a reminder of the many ways in which you care for us and guide us.
Lord, help us to see that the power of Christmas is not exhausted with the music and the lights and the gifts and the food, but grows as slowly as a baby, to become a living treasure, a reservoir of peace and love, to sustain us, not only through December and into the holidays, but each and every day of the days you grant to us. Indeed, O Lord, bless us that we may see your presence with ever greater brightness and that we may ourselves become more and more like unto him whose birth we celebrate this season.
We pray in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
