Entering Reality: Sermon for First Sunday of Christmas 2017

Sermon

Text: Matthew 2:13-23

Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ who is born into the reality of life.

            There are texts that are just difficult, that we ask, why was this chosen for Sunday, why was it even written down? Luke tells the story we read on Christmas Eve as one of all glory and praise, angels singing, shepherds rejoicing, now, there is some dirtiness, it doesn’t happen in a fancy palace or mansion, but a dirty stable, but it still is nice to us, it’s peaceful and calming.

            Matthew starts that way, Joseph doesn’t leave Mary, and then after Jesus is born, the wise men come and they give three wonderful gifts. Wonderful gifts, but also very real gifts, Gold for a king, Frankincense for a priest, and Myrrh for one who will die. But, they’re still gifts, still happy moments really. It allows us to stay in the fairy tale mood of Christmas. Of good cheer to all, of carols and warm drinks, of togetherness and peace.

            And then this text.

“When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the wise men. Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah:

18 “A voice was heard in Ramah,

    wailing and loud lamentation,

Rachel weeping for her children;

    she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.”

            It’s just hard. We don’t want to look at it, we don’t want to confront it, we want to move passed this part and go, yay, Jesus was saved! They went to Egypt and freedom and come back when all was good.

            But, this was real. It is real. To us, to those parents and families that it happened to, and it’s real to Jesus.

            Who are those children slaughtered? They are his cousins, his relatives. Jesus is of the line of David, from the town of Bethlehem. Who lives in Bethlehem? The people of David. Now days Bethlehem is a large city, around 25,000 people in it. In Jesus’ time, it was small, maybe one or two hundred. The number of kids killed by Herod? Around 7-20 maybe? But, it’s all of Jesus’s cousins. When Mary and Joseph take Jesus to Jerusalem for festivals like Passover, the family is still going to get together, as families do. And as they gather together all the kids are going to play, these are big families, 6-7 or more kids is norm. There will be what 5-7 kids of each age, except right around Jesus’s age, where there will be this two year gap of only him. Everyone else has cousins their age, but him.

            And he’s going to turn to Mary, his mom, and ask, Why are there no other kids my age?

            That changes a person. There have been studies of kids that survive refugee situations and genocide situations and they display a lot of the same things that Jesus does throughout the Gospels. Do things the right way, if you don’t you’re a bad one. When Jesus talks about dividing between the sheep and goats, the wheat and chaff, that’s all similar things to what people who go through these things do.

            In the translation of this text, the section from Jeremiah, of Rachel weeping, ends with “because they are no more.” A much more accurate translation is, because they are not. Because of what happens here, these children do not exist. They never existed in the eyes of those around. Herod gave the order and never had a second thought about them. The soldiers and leaders who carried it out never had a second thought. It’s the same with other genocides, the one’s perpetrating it don’t give the ones they kill a second thought, they never existed to them. But, to the ones who survive, who come out of that horror, it’s a constant fight to remember them, to never have that happen again. The quote originating from the just liberated prisoners of the Concentration/Extermination Camp Buchenwald at the end of World War Two is Never Again, can this happen.

            And, so this story is told today to show that Jesus’s whole life leads on this mission that no one should to go through what he had to go through, go through that kind of Tragedy and horror.

            We don’t want to move away from the fairy tale nature of the Christmas Story, but this text forces us to address that the fairy tale doesn’t last in this world. I can’t read this text without thinking of the kids killed at Columbine, the children killed at Sandy Hook Elementary, the children slaughtered in Aleppo, Syria as they flee for their own lives.

            We don’t like this text, because it makes us aware that these things are real. It’s not just a story, it happens now. But, it also makes us aware that God went through that in Jesus. That God walked through the tragedy of the slaughter of innocents. That Jesus lead his life to make sure that all matter, especially those who are made to be not. He leads his life to make sure that no one ever becomes that unknown person. That all know they are beloved, and wonderful, and cared for. And we should live our lives like that as well. No matter who that other is, they are loved. Be it the kids at school, or the refugee fleeing, they are real, and they matter, and we can’t just look away from them, Jesus calls us to go to them, so they do not become not.

            This text shows us the reality of the incarnation, the reality of God being born to us in Jesus, that God does not cause these things to happen, these very, very real things, but that God is with us in the very midst of them. Jesus isn’t born into fairy tale, but into reality. The reality that life is horrendous sometimes, but God is with us in the midst of it, and calls us to work and work so that maybe someday, never again will be true.

            Let us pray,

God of healing, peace, and calm. Be with the world. Be with those who have lost loved ones, be with those who flee from persecution and slaughter this very day. Be with the people of Syria and all refugees everywhere. Make war to cease and all to live in peace. Amen.