First Sunday after Christmas
“Let Fear Fuel a Fire for Justice”
Scripture Reading – Matthew 2:1-23
I know what you’re thinking — believe me, I know because I was thinking the very same thing. Today’s reading from Matthew’s Gospel, which tells us about the Holy Family’s fearful flight to Egypt and King Herod’s slaughter of the innocents, isn’t exactly overflowing with Christmas spirit.
We’ve heard enough songs and watched enough shows over the past few weeks to know that this isn’t the way these things are supposed to go. Sure, Rudolph gets blackballed from the reindeer games for having a shiny nose, but then he saves the day by pulling Santa’s sleigh. Yeah, Frosty becomes a puddle of water there on the floor, but we all know that he’ll be back again someday. Charlie Brown does pick out a pretty sad excuse for a tree, but he and his friends make it look beautiful. Christmas stories do generally seem to end on a high note.
Now you needn’t worry too much because next week we’ll be celebrating the Epiphany and so we’ll hear all about the Magi and how they knew that Jesus was the One; how they brought gifts to honor the newborn king; how they outsmarted Herod and snuck out of Bethlehem. This is a reasonably happy ending to the Nativity story and a great way for us to conclude the holidays.
But the way the season’s scripture readings are arranged means the whole thing is presented out of order; I say this because next week’s story of the Magi actually comes before today’s text in Matthew’s Gospel. In other words, Matthew decided to share this shocking and disturbing tale as the ending to his account of the first Christmas. It’s definitely not a happy way to wrap this all up; in fact, it’s terrifying, it’s awful, and it’s violent. But it’s also a part of the story that’s essential for us to hear because it tells us so much about we are and, even more importantly, about who God is.
Herod the Great, ruled over the region of Judea during the years leading up to Jesus’s birth. Herod managed to get the tag of “Great” added to his name mostly because he oversaw the rebuilding of the Temple. Putting that achievement aside, however, Herod was nothing to write home about. He was nominally the King of the Jews, but he was mostly just a puppet of the Roman Empire. He exploited slave labor on his various building projects; he also had his wife and two of his sons killed because he’d heard some rumors about them wanting to overthrow him and take over his kingdom. That’s the kind of guy that Herod was.
As the end of his reign of terror approached, the rumblings were starting again. People were saying that the Messiah, the great liberator king that the prophets had spoken about in days of old, had finally been born. This was news that would have caused devout Jews to jump for joy. Suffice it to say that this revelation provoked a much different reaction from Herod, who was far more concerned about his own job security than he was about anything else. After all, the one person you can count on not to be happy about a new king arriving on the scene is the current king.
Herod was concerned, but he had been through this kind of thing before — well at least he thought he had, anyway. Herod just figured he’d do what he’d done in the past whenever he’d found himself in a situation in which his power was threatened; he’d intimidate and kill his way out of it.
So Herod summoned his religious scholars who reminded him that the prophet Micah had foretold exactly where the new king would be born — and that place was Bethlehem. Herod figured that the strange Magi, who showed up out of nowhere looking for the Messiah themselves, would unwittingly point his henchman right to the defenseless Christ child.
But God presented the Magi with a warning in the form of a dream, and so they managed to avoid Herod’s trap by heading home a different way (Herod, of course, found out about this part of the story pretty quickly and was none too happy). Then God sent an angel with a dream to Joseph too, which enabled him to get his family the heck out of town and to take them to Egypt where they would be safe (Herod didn’t actually know about this part of the story, though).
Herod responded to this situation exactly the way you’d figure a evil, power-hungry, paranoid dictator would respond — not knowing which young boy in Bethlehem was, in fact, the Messiah, Herod orders that all boys in Bethlehem under the age of two be killed.
It’s a terrible story for sure but, sadly, not an unfamiliar one. After all, Pharaoh had done pretty much the same thing to the Israelites’ male infant children way back in Exodus when Moses was born.
We need to understand that one of the essential ideas that Matthew is trying to convey to the readers of his gospel is that Jesus is, among other things, the new and improved version of Moses. And if Matthew seeks to show that Jesus is the new Moses (only better), then he seems to be supporting that by showing that Herod is the new Pharaoh (only worse).
The Pharaoh of Exodus was a brutal ruler — he was the one who killed the children of the Israelites, who were God’s chosen people. Matthew is telling us that Herod the Great, King of the Jews, was an even more brutal ruler — Herod not only was a child of God’s chosen people but also had the audacity to kill other children of God’s chosen people (including but his own family).
While Herod was clearly as bad as they come, it’s a sad fact that worldly kings throughout history have dependably turned to violence — against their own people, against the most vulnerable of people, against poor innocent children — in order to maintain their power. As a result, there has never been a shortage of “wailing and lamentation,” there have always been mothers weeping for their children, refusing to be consoled because they are no more. It was true then and, I’m sorry to say, it’s still true now.
By telling this story about Herod here, by drawing a straight line between him and Pharaoh, Matthew shows that this toxic link between violence and worldly power transcends time and place; in other words, it’s not simply an Egyptian problem or a Roman problem, it’s not simply an ancient problem or a modern problem, it’s not simply a problem that other people have — it’s a human problem for which we all bear responsibility.
And yet, our all-too-human tendency has been to try to absolve ourselves of this responsibility and put it all back on God. When Matthew explains the slaughter of the innocents as having “fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah,” it’s always been easier to shrug our shoulders and chalk it up to being “God’s will” than it’s been to acknowledge our role in allowing tragedies like this to continue.
When God sends Joseph an angel with dream so that Jesus might be saved while sending no such warning to the parents of the children of Bethlehem, it’s always been far easier to interpret it as God putting a finger on the scales, as God picking winners and losers than it’s been to see it for what it is: a case of human free will gone wild. People continue to suffer and we all ultimately lose because we don’t seem to have either the strength to say “Enough is enough” or the courage to speak truth to power.
But this baby born out in Bethlehem changes absolutely everything. This vulnerable, defenseless baby — the one whom Herod seeks to kill — will show us another way to be.
He will demonstrate his authority through service, not through violence.
He will not seek to gain and maintain power for its own sake or for his own sake, but will instead use the power he has to heal and empower others.
He will reveal a vision of God that is more accurately reflected by a poor, powerless and peaceful child than it is by a rich, powerful and violent man.
He will live and act like a caring and loving parent, not like a cruel and hateful king.
We only need to turn on the TV, look at the Internet or read a newspaper to see that we do not yet live in the kind of world that Jesus sought for us, the kind of world that God wants for us. Our present reality continues to be marred by seemingly endless violence and suffering.
But to live, as followers of Christ, in the midst of this story that is still unfolding means that we must never give up,
it means that we must always side with the vulnerable and the least among us,
it means that we must be fiercely loyal to a better king and tirelessly seek a better kingdom.
In this season of Christmas, we celebrate the fact that Jesus was born, that God truly came to live among us. Yet, at the very same time, we acknowledge the fact that the dream for which Jesus lived and died remains incomplete and unfulfilled. As long as God’s children continue suffer, as long as their mothers continue to mourn, God’s dream for us will be incomplete and unfulfilled.
So as we light our candles of peace and love and joy and hope, let us also remember all of God’s children who suffer; let us remember all who grieve; let us remember all such people everywhere so they might know that we join them in their weeping; and let us understand that just remembering is not enough.
In this season of love and hope and miracle and wonder, we are bold enough to believe that God actually feels our pain, that God actually comes to us to bring us comfort, that God actually shows us a different way to be.
And if we truly believe this, then we must also be bold enough to walk alongside God, to help write the ending to this story of salvation and redemption by doing our part to change the world for the better.