Herod sends the wise men on their way and tells them to come back and tell him where the child is so he can go and pay homage, which we can guess is probably not true, and as it turns out we know is not what he wants. But the wise men are warned not to go back to Herod and so go a different way, and Joseph too is warned to flee Egypt. And so Joseph takes Jesus and Mary and they flee during the night making their way to Egypt in order to protect themselves from Herod. And because he appears to be thwarted by the wise men, we are told that Herod is furious or extremely angry. And out of his anger he strikes out at Bethlehem. Fear and anger, although different emotions, are not unrelated to each other.
In an article in Psychology Today, they said that “while
fear leads us to feel vulnerable and not in control,” or as I’ve been arguing
comes from a loss of control, anger, they said, “can be energizing and
empowering.” That is, anger can make us think that we are taking back control
of a situation, perhaps simply be yelling at it, but it at least makes us feel
like we are doing something. And so in his anger, Herod lashes out, asserting
his power and authority and control to do such a thing, and orders that all
children under the age of two be killed, and please note he doesn’t do the actual
killing. He has others carry it out for him, which is not just an exercise of
authority and power, but also a distancing so that he doesn’t actually have to
deal with the aftermath. He can escape to his castle and let the turmoil play
out without any concern. And Matthew then quotes from the prophet Jeremiah of
the wailing and lamentation of Rachel whose children have been destroyed, and
she refused to be consoled in her loss.
Brutal. That was the word that was used quite a few times in
our staff meeting after we read this passage, and it’s true it’s brutal and its
violent and its pitiless and it’s appalling and ghastly and disgusting and
upsetting and lots of other words you might get from the thesaurus. And if you
are regular attendee you might have noticed that we did not have a closing line
after the gospel passage was read, because how do we hear this is the good news
of the birth of Jesus, or even just this is the word of God, after hearing that
story? There is not an easy way to deal with it, and one of the things that’s
striking to me is that Matthew doesn’t really add much detail to it, and while
he doesn’t deal with it as if it’s exactly ordinary, he doesn’t really seem to
make it extraordinary either. Just something that happens, and something you
sort of expect to happen when political rulers, like Herod, get their noses out
of joint, or even just to prove a point. Now there is nothing in the historical
record to give evidence that this event actually took place. No modern biographer
of Herod thinks it’s true.
But, Herod was certainly capable of committing this act, as
he was not known for his grace or forgiveness, haven even killed a wife and a
son to protect his rule, and he even ordered that political prisoners should be
killed at the time of his death so that there would be weeping in the land.
Bethlehem was also a small city, and so scholars say that at most there may
have been no more than 20 children killed. Only 20 right? And so who would pay
attention to that number? Just another day at the office. And to make the point
of political violence even clearer, after Herod died, his son Herod Archealus
comes to power and his rule of terror and violence is so bad that the Romans
actually remove him from power, which was unusual. They will do the same later
with Pontius Pilate. Archelaus’ ruling is the reason we are also told that
Joseph and the family do not return to Judea, but instead go to Nazareth where
Jesus grows up.
But let’s not pretend like this is something that never
happened again. This week will be the 9th anniversary of the shooting at Sandy
Hook elementary in which 20 six year old’s were killed, another slaughter of
the innocents. Can you hear Rachel’s cry? Canada is working on coming to terms with
the discovery this year of the bodies of 215 previously unknown indigenous
children at the largest residential Indian school, and when added with
discoveries at other schools there are more than 1,100 unknown and unmarked
graves that have been discovered. Can you hear Rachel’s lamentation? And then
we could talk about the genocides in Rwanda and Kosovo and Bosnia and Myanmar
and Darfur, to name just a few in the last 30 years. And Afghanistan is
descending back into chaos and tribal rule and Somalia has not had an operating
government in 30 years. And that’s just scratching the surface. Can you hear
Rachel’s weeping for her children have been lost, they are no more and she
refuses to be consoled. And if we can hear the cry, what are we going to do
about it?
I know that there are parent’s here this morning or watching
this that know the absolute pain of losing a child. The first funeral I ever
did, just a few months into my first appointment was for a 15 month old, and
Samantha was just 3 months older at the time, and so it hit really close to
home. And then we lost our nephew and Marianna’s son a few years later. That
agony is not something that I would wish on my worst enemy. And the good news
for most of us is that the vast majority of children these days, at least in
the west, make it to adulthood. . That was not always the case, and so we
should celebrate the accomplishments that we have made, but we also have to
hear Rachel’s complaint for those who don’t, because we know that God hears the
wailing. In Exodus, God tells Moses that he has heard the cry of the people and
seen their affliction, or as Psalmist says that the Lord has heard the voice of
my complaint. And that’s what Christmas is really all about.
We don’t have Christmas because everything was honky dory.
We don’t have Christmas because we live idyllic lives. We don’t have Christmas
because we, like who’s down in whoville, gather together hand in hand and sing.
We have Christmas because the world is broken, because we live in a land of
darkness and we need the light of Christ to come into our lives. We need
Christmas because of Rachel’s wailing and loud lamentation. But it’s not just
about welcoming that light into the world, but to in turn offer that light to
the world. To hear Rachel’s loud cry and to respond, not by throwing up our
hands and saying “well, there’s nothing I can do” but to hear her pain and to
offer first a listening hear to actually hear, and then to bring healing and
hope and peace and real solutions where they are possible
And so as we have been talking about not being fearful, and
the need for that in our faith lives, Rev. John Indemark says that we as
Christians need to be aware of whom we need to have fear for. Notice I didn’t
say fear of, because fearing others leads us to do terrible things. We just recognized
the 80th anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor this week, and in response
to that act, we stripped Asian Americans of their property and their
citizenship and locked them into internment camps, for no other reason than
fear. Fear causes us to do terrible things. And so we need to be very aware of
that, and scripture has a lot to say about overcoming that fear. But what I am
talking about here is fear for. Last week I talked about a couple who were
working to adopt some children they were fostering who had been severely
abused. We should fear for children who live in the midst of violence and
terror. This week a truck full of migrants from Honduras and Guatemala flipped
over in Mexico killing at least 54 people. We should fear for them. Today and
every day approximately 25,000 people, including 10,000 children will die from
hunger and hunger related issues, like malnutrition. We should fear for them
and we should hear Rachel’s loud lamentation.
According to the National Retail Federation, American’s will
around $850 billion dollars around Christmas this year. That includes 6.1
billion on Christmas trees, and 15.2 billion on presents that people don’t
like. The average American will spend almost $1000 on gifts, which includes
more than $100 on gifts for themselves. And all that is great, and I love
Christmas, and as we just talked about last month giving is important, but some
other numbers to consider. We should celebrate the fact that childhood
mortality is down 58% since 1990, but the biggest killer of children every year
are still pneumonia, diarrhea and malaria, which are largely preventable. It’s
estimated that more than 60% of the deaths of children under the age of five
around the world today could be prevented with access to vaccines and other
medical interventions. The Gates Foundation estimates it would take an
investment of about $34 billion to eradicate malaria, and investment I think is
the right word because what is the world losing in these lost children? How
many might have become great scientists or leaders or artists? There are 2.2
million deaths from unclean water, and the WHO says that for an investment of
$10 billion a year we could provide clean water and sanitation to the world. It
is a huge success that to that 91% of the world’s children today are receiving
some level of education. And the number one key indicator of whether a child
will be raised in poverty is the education level of their mother. For 14 cents
more per student, of an investment of $39 billion we could make sure that every
child is receiving an education. And we should celebrate that poverty levels
around the globe are at their lowest ever, that, contrary to what you see on
the news and on TV and the movies, we are living in the safest time in human
history. Rachel’s are still crying out in loud lamentation, and we need to hear
those, but those cries are lessened because of the work we have been doing.
Because while Matthew just leaves this stark and brutal story
standing as it is with his quote from Jeremiah, in Jeremiah’s original text,
there is a note of hope. That while Rachel cries for her children that they
have been lost but God will redeem the people. God will bring hope. God will be
restoration. God will bring joy. And the same is true here. Now there are many,
many questions we could ask about God’s role, or non-role, in the slaughter of
the innocents, but Matthew is not concerned about questions of theodicy, or why
bad things happen to good people, and we don’t have the time today to tackle
these issues.
But Matthew is concerned with telling the story of Jesus the Savior, the Messiah, the one who came to redeem and save the world, the one who comes to offer hope and joy and peace and love, the one who comes to bring light into the darkness. He is the recognition that the world is not as God wants it to be, that tyrants kill children and families have to flee in the middle of the night, and Christ is the call to us to be agents of change. We prepare our hearts and minds in this season of Advent not just to welcome the Christ child into our lives, but to welcome Christ into the world and to be the people who make the light of Christ present for the world. We are promised a day when there will no longer be mourning and weeping, that death and pain will be no more, and we wait for that day crying Maranatha, come Lord Jesus come, but until that happens we are the ones God calls to fear for those who are in danger, to hear Rachel’s wailing and loud lamentation, and to be the ones who respond. To be Christ to the world so that people may indeed know that while mourning and weeping may last for the night that joy comes with the morning, joy comes in the presence of Christ in our lives, and joy comes in the healing of Christ in the world. I pray that it will be so my brothers and sisters. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment