This morning Dave spoke on ‘the other side of Christmas.’ Christmas is often perceived as being sweet and familiar, but in Matt 2:16-18, we read of Herod’s murderous intentions towards the Messiah and see that the arrival of Jesus was not welcomed by all.
Herod was a cruel and bloodthirsty king who killed his wife and sons – his solution to any kind of opposition was murder. When the wise men aarrived, he feigned devotion but actually took steps to murder all boys aged two and under. Jesus was born into a world that did not value the sanctity of human life, into a world of suffering and death. He was born into the real world, the world we too have to navigate. We may prefer a saccharine view of the world, but the gospel is the story we need in our sorrow, in our failure, in our suffering and in our death.
The death of these babies (the ‘slaughter of the Innocents’, as it is known) vividly foreshadows the violence which Jesus would face in His lifetime and which God surrendered Him to. We follow in Christ’s footsteps and have to show a real God to a real world.
