Meditations for a New Year
Matthew 2:13-18
The Escape to Egypt
Now after they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, ‘Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.’ Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfil what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, ‘Out of Egypt I have called my son.’
When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was enraged, 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:
‘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.’
*****
Sermon preparation is never easy: What context of the passage do we have to be aware of to understand it fully? What is the relevance of the message today? What does it challenge us to do? Will it bring comfort to those in need?
Some, however, are more difficult than others – Trinity Sunday is a good example. But for me – and for many others – by far the most challenging is preaching on the ‘Feast’ Day of the Holy Innocents, ‘celebrated’ on December 28th or 29th.
We spent Advent in excited preparation, Christmas is full of the joy of Incarnation, the New Year beckons with all its hopes and dreams – but in the midst of ‘The most Wonderful time of the Year’, Matthew tells us about a paranoid self-centred despot ordering a massacre of children.
If we want to read about that sort of stuff, we only have to pick up a newspaper or turn on the TV – surely we don’t need the Bible making it worse. It’s supposed to be Merry Christmas, after all!
Well, actually, we do. It would be great(?) if the Gospel story just described the Christmas Card scene, with its snow, shepherds and stable, the baby in an ox’s stall, beautiful angelic descants. But we live in the real world. A world of hatred, injustice, cruelty and raw, naked violence. A world that demands a Saviour, because it can’t save itself.
It’s all very well to enjoy a nice cosy time contemplating the Nativity scene, but the Satan would like us to stay there for ever, ignoring reality. The temptation is insidious, dulling the light that has come to the world – so slowly in fact that we are unaware of its dimming.
The Massacre goes on. The story in Matthew’s Gospel is happening today, and it will be repeated throughout 2025. Every day, across the world, precious, innocent children are slaughtered as a result of evil men and women valuing their own prosperity and power above all. How can they and those who mindlessly follow them live with what they are asked to do? There is only one answer. The disguised power of Evil. Evil that engenders sin, and blinds people from a realisation of that sin. And the inevitable consequence is an incapacity and failure to love.
So we face the New Year, not with a Bible that only describes the comfortable bits (of which there are indeed many), but the uncomfortable ones too. We resolve to walk with the Son of Man to confront those dangers and further His Kingdom. In face of evil, we will not keep silent. We choose love; love in thought, love in prayer, love in action, in the sure and certain hope that the power of the cross will prevail. Therefore choose love.
Psalm 46: 1-3, 6-7, 9
God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea; though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble with its tumult.
The nations are in an uproar, the kingdoms totter; he utters his voice, the earth melts. The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.
He makes wars cease to the end of the earth; he breaks the bow, and shatters the spear; he burns the shields with fire.
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