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December 28, 2003
The Holy Innocents, Martyrs, (C-Christmas 1)
Matthew 2:13-18
Pastor Robert Raasch

A Double Dose of Post-Christmas Reality

1. God's Family Experienced Hardship
2. God's Enemy Administered Injustice

Is there any holiday which has as much atmosphere, as much ambiance as the Christmas season? I mean, when you think of Christmas, what do you think of? A newborn baby laid in a manger, shepherds under a starry sky. A congregation singing Silent Night by candlelight. A family gathered around the Christmas tree, laughing and enjoying each other's company. Christmas is such a beautiful time of the year, a time when everyone is happy, a time when there is peace on earth and good will to men. A time when you can almost hear the angels singing. And then something happens to snap us out of this idyllic dream world of Christmas and bring us back to reality.

Maybe it was the fight that broke out between the two children who each wanted to play with the same Christmas toy. Or maybe for you reality set in when you looked around the living room after all the presents were opened and you realized, "Wow, somebody is going to have to clean this place up." Or maybe your dose of reality is coming in the form of January's credit card bills. Or honestly, maybe your dose of reality hit when you picked up the paper on Christmas day and it read, "Merry Christmas" and then was filled with stories about war and sickness and tragic auto wreaks.

As you think about the reality of what our world is really like these days, or what your life is like, maybe you're wishing that you could go back in time and enjoy Christmas the way it was meant to be. The way that Mary and Joseph enjoyed it. Certainly, the birth of the Christchild brought unlimited joy into their hearts and lives, right? Giving birth to and raising the sinless Son of God would have been a completely stress-free experience, right? I'll bet that for Mary and Joseph it was like Christmas Day every day of their lives, right?

Wrong! Just as surely as you and I experienced a dose of what we might call "post-Christmas reality" this week, so did Mary and Joseph. In fact, in our text for today, Mary and Joseph encounter what we might call:

A Double Dose of Post-Christmas Reality

The reality first occurred when God's Family Experienced Hardship
Secondly, it occurred when God's Enemy Administered Injustice

Just for a minute I want you to think about what Mary and Joseph must have been feeling after the birth of their son. Mom's and Dad's, you remember what that was like, right? Dad, you were probably proud as a peacock, handing out cigars, bragging about how well you did in the delivery room. And Mom, you were just so happy to have your own baby to hold, maybe a bit overwhelmed by all the cards and gifts you've received. Don't you think that's what Joseph and Mary were feeling-multiplied by about a 1000? I mean, not only do you have a newborn baby. But that baby is the very Son of God. He's the Messiah who had been promised for thousands of years. And gifts? You received more than a pair of booties from your mother-in-law. You received treasures of gold, incense and myrrh from men who had traveled hundreds of miles to come and worship your Son. Boy, talk about an atmosphere of excitement and anticipation. Don't you think you'd be looking forward to all the other "perks" that would come with being the guardians of God's only Son? Sure you would. Well, here's the first perk of being Jesus' parents. Matthew records the event with these words: "An angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. "Get up,' he said, 'take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.'"

Whoa! How's that for a dose of parental stress? You haven't even made it home to Nazareth yet. You've got a newborn baby and post-partem bride. And now in the middle of the night you've got to beat tracks out of town and take your family to Egypt. That's a foreign country! And who knows how long you're going to have to stay there?

Now, if you're Joseph, what thoughts are going through your mind? How about, "God, what are you doing to me? You bring this miracle baby into the world. You announce his birth with a host of angels and a star in the sky and now we've all got to run for our lives? Where's your protection? Where's your power? Aren't you in control over all things? God, I just don't understand why you're letting this happen to us-especially considering Mary and I are your believers."

My friends, can you at all relate to those kinds of sentiments? Haven't we all found ourselves wondering, "God, what is going on here? Why are you making my life so difficult? I mean, my car needs repairs, my job is stressing me out. I'm not able to take the classes I need to graduate. The guy I thought was Mr. Right wants nothing to do with me. Why is this happening?"

Wait a minute. Let's remember that God never promised that our lives as Christians would be easy. No, quite the opposite. Scripture says that "we must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God" (Acts 14:22). God doesn't insulate us from the hardships and heartaches that come from living in a world corrupted by sin. Joseph and Mary certainly discovered that early on. Even though they had in their arms the sinless Savior of the world, it didn't prevent them from going through some rough times. They experienced hardships, just as we experience hardships.

And yet, they and we can have the confidence that the hardships we face in life will be used by God to serve his purpose. Certainly that was the case in Joseph's situation. Although Joseph maybe didn't realize it at the moment, his flight to Egypt and back was all a part of God's plan. In fact, it was the fulfillment of an Old Testament prophecy. In Hosea 11:1, God says, "Out of Egypt I called my son." Even though that statement was originally a reference to the Children of Israel being brought out of captivity in Egypt, here the Gospel writer applies it to the infant Christ, being brought back from Egypt after God gave Joseph the all clear to return home.

So what's the point? The point is simply this: God had a plan for his Son, and the family into which he was born. The plan did not guarantee that Jesus' family would not endure hardship. Rather it saw them through hardship, as they humbly put their trust in God's will and God's timetable. And now God invites you and me to do the very same thing. Trust that the same God who planned and carried out your eternal salvation in Christ will also see you through the other rough spots in your life, just as he did with a baby and his parents here in our text.

You might say that that's the first dose of reality dished out for us here in our text, namely, that even the family of God himself endured some very real hardships. And yet, the hardships they faced pale when compared to the hardships their community endured at the hands of a bloodthirsty king. Our second dose of post-Christmas reality is found in the (II.) Injustice Administered by God's Enemy.

St. Matthew records the event with these words, "When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi." Do you remember the background of this event? Remember, the Magi came to Jerusalem looking for the one born king of the Jews. King Herod told them, "Make sure you tell me when you find him." But God came to the Magi in a dream and instructed them not to go back to Herod. Well, when Herod finally realized that the Magi weren't coming back, and that instead there was a potential rival king of the Jews out there somewhere, Herod went berserk. He ordered that every boy in Bethlehem, 2 years and younger, be slaughtered, in the hopes that he would catch the baby Jesus in his little drag net. Obviously, Jesus escaped Herod's diabolical plot, but many other innocent children didn't. Can you imagine the horror those parents must have felt as they had their infant children ripped out of their arms and put to the sword? Can you imagine the cries of "Injustice!"? Their tears falling on the ground along with the blood of their children? Who can fully comprehend the pain those parents were feeling?

Well, Matthew draws a parallel between this time of extreme sorrow and a much earlier time. He quotes the prophet Jeremiah who said, "A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more." When the Ten Northern Tribes of Israel were marched into exile by the Assyrians, Jeremiah says that their mother Rachel, figuratively speaking, cried for them from her grave. Now Matthew says that the same thing happened when these innocent children were slaughtered. Rachel was once again "weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted because they are no more."

I don't know if you realize it, but for centuries, the Christian Church has set aside December 28th as the day to remember those children who lost their lives in Herod's jealous rampage. The day is called Holy Innocents Day or Holy Innocents, Martyrs. It bears that name not because we believe those little boys were without sin. But rather, because they had done nothing to deserve the death penalty from Herod. And we refer to them as martyrs not because they willingly surrendered their lives for Christ. No, they didn't even know who Jesus was. Yet, they still gave their lives for his sake. Usually we think of Stephen as being the first martyr in the Church. But these children of Bethlehem could also be considered martyrs. They were killed not for being followers of Christ, but rather for being contemporaries of Christ. They were killed because one of God's enemies wanted to put an end to Jesus.

You know, if you think about it, our world hasn't changed much in 2000 years. All over the globe, in places like China, Indonesia, Pakistan and Turkey, Christians are being put to death because of Jesus Christ. Satan is still trying to exterminate Christ's church one life at a time.

Not only that, but you still have Herod's in our world as well. History tells us that Herod was so ruthless and power-hungry that he murdered anyone whom he thought proved a threat to his throne-including his uncle, his mother-in-law, his wife and even his three sons. Sound like anyone you know? Someone who's been in the paper a lot. Someone who regularly tortured, raped, mutilated and murdered thousands of his own people, even his own family members? Someone who was recently caught like a rat in a hole?

My friends, when you read the atrocities committed by men like Saddam Hussein, when you hear about all the children who are molested and abused each year, when you think about the thousands of unborn children who are routinely put to death in abortion clinics across our country, you realize that our world is still a very evil place. God's enemy, the Devil, is still wreaking havoc in people's lives and in our world. He's still responsible for countless examples of violence and cruelty all around us.

In that sense, nothing has changed. The world in which we live is no different than the world into which Jesus was born. But, just as surely as our world hasn't changed, neither has God's grace changed. God's solution for the problems in our world is still found in a baby. A baby who lived a perfect life and then offered that life on a cross to rescue all mankind from the power and punishment of sins forever.

And really, it's that fact that allows us to keep everything else going on in the world in perspective. There are some who would say, "Oh, you Christians are just living in a dream world. You're walking around with your head in the clouds, oblivious to all the pain and suffering in the world. You think life is one big snow globe, with big fluffy flakes falling down."

My friends, I hope you realize that that is a false charge. We Christians do see the terrible things happening in our world. And it bothers us. We do experience hardships in our lives, sometimes because we're carrying out God's will and other times because we're not. But through it all our focus remains the same. Our focus is still on a real baby born to real parents who lived in a real world. And that baby has given real sinners like you and me forgiveness for our past sins, strength for the present life and hope for an eternity with our heavenly Father. And that, my friends, is a healthy dose of post-Christmas reality! In Jesus Christ. Amen.