Sermon - December 26, 2010Year A - The Year of Matthew - Christmas 1
Isaiah 63:7-9; Psalm 148; Hebrews 2:10-18; Matthew 2:13-23
There is no other time in the year so filled with nostalgia and the possibility of being removed from the ordinariness of life than Christmas. This is a time of the year in which both religious tradition and secular consumerism come together to make this season different from every other part of the year. From the decorations and blinking lights to the packed churches singing carols, it often feels as if Christmas plucks us from the world as it is and, for a brief moment, time is suspended in peace, light, and joy. However, we then come to this Gospel reading from Matthew. Herod kills the children of Bethlehem in order to secure his power.
In 1991, China’s state-run press wrote about how Christian churches in Communist Bloc countries played an opposition role against the Communist state thus helping to bring Soviet Communism's demise. The Chinese press said that if China did “not want such a scene to be repeated in its land, it must strangle the baby while it is still in the manger.”
We may be tempted to think that the juxtaposition of the nostalgia and peace of Christmas with violence and uncertainty is something unique to our time. However, when we read the narrative of today's Gospel, and the violence committed by Herod, we discover that violence at Christmas is not unique with us.
King Herod was ruthless. He brutally suppressed rebellions in his kingdom. As king, he was jealous of the popular high priest Aristobulus. One day, he invited the young priest to a party in Jericho. While they were swimming, he held the man down until he drowned. When Herod was suspicious that his wife was seeing another man, he killed the man, his wife, and even her mother. Around the time that Jesus was born, Herod had two of his own sons executed for treason. Even the Roman emperor remarked, “In Herod’s house, his pigs are safer than his children.”
Matthew’s first two chapters piece together this violent image of Herod. King Herod tells the wise men that he wants to worship the child king; all along, he wishes to destroy him. The story of the wise men is followed immediately by the flight of Mary, Joseph and Jesus into Egypt.
This story of the flight into Egypt connects the story of Jesus with the story of the Exodus. The parallels are certainly evident. In Moses' story, an infant was spared so that a leader could be born to save his people. In Jesus' story, the "new Moses" the Christ Child was spared so that a savior could come and save not just his people, but also all people. New life and hope emerge from Egypt. The drama is set against the backdrop of the cruel excess of kings; one is Pharaoh, and the other is Herod. Both kings are responsible for the death of innocents.
However, we can also look at this story as an embodiment of the human story in every age. When we hear the news from Somalia of the murder of Christians by Muslim extremists on Christmas Eve, we must know that the violence was perpetrated not just against a group in a church, but against all that is decent, moral and just. The violence is against all for which Christianity stands. It is just as much an attempt to kill the Christ Child, as was Herod's mass murder.
Consequently, the story of the ruthless murder by Herod of innocents and the flight of Mary, Joseph and Jesus into exile in Egypt tells us that what we have read from Matthew is story that is not frozen in time. The people and the events are first century. However, the story is one, which was real a thousand years before it happened, and is real in our time.
Violence and the displacement of people are a part of the human tragedy, which knows no boundaries of time and place. The Bible is not a means of denial concerning the ugliness of the human condition. Life then as now can be cruel and unfair. Tyrants will continue to make chaos.
Satan is at war in this world. He will not hold back. Satan will attack men, women, and children. All are his targets. All are his enemies. Down through the centuries, Satan waged continuous war in a vain attempt to exterminate the remnant of God's people who carried the promise of the coming Messiah. Sometimes, it seemed as if Satan was winning as the remnant dwindled in size to the lone prophet Elijah. There were several times that the remnant of God's people almost disappeared, but God always preserved a few faithful people.
However, Matthew's Gospel also mentions something that we often ignore in this text. Matthew writes, "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.'"
Matthew is telling us that the powers of evil in this world do die. They are mortal.
Human life is fraught with terrible things, but it also contains powerful moments of compassion, joy and love. Those moments when we are still and at peace, those moments when families delight in tradition, those carols we sing at Christmas, and the story of the Christ Child in a manger—all of these moments are real. It is true, that they are interrupted with painful regularity by the tragedy of life, but those moments of peace, wholeness, and love, they need not be destroyed by it.
Our faith does not deny the realities of life. Rather, it provides us with an alternate vision, which enables us to resist the despair and seek ways to live in opposition to the tyranny, which leads to tragedy.
Eventually, Jesus stood trial before another Herod, the son of the one who tried to kill him in Bethlehem. After that trial, Jesus finally did die.
He did not die in Bethlehem when the first Herod wanted. Instead, he died when he finished his mission on earth. He died as God's sacrifice for our sins. He died at the time God established and not at the time, Herod established. He died only after Jesus himself said, "It is finished."
Christmas is a season that holds within it so many promises that rise above this life. The essence of Christmas—the little peasant family on the verge of becoming refugees hold with them God Incarnate. He is God who is one of us. He is God who came to share our humanity in all of its beauty and tragedy. He came to be victor over Satan and the men like Herod who carry out Satan's wishes. Christ is the Prince of Peace and through him, we find a place that holds the peace, love, and joy, which always will resist those parts of the world that seek to assault the promise of Christmas. Satan can fight with evil forces like Herod, and evil in this world is real. However, the boldness of faith we proclaim more is also real and more powerful; it is the very stuff of eternity - against this, Satan cannot win. Amen.