Where's the Good News?

Why is December 28th red on our liturgical calendars? We’re still in the joyful season of Christmas tide, which lasts through the Epiphany, and in which our liturgical colors are white and gold. So why is the 28th a red day? Red days on our calendar mostly signify days on which we remember martyrs, those who died for their faith. On December 28th we remember those who died for a slightly different reason. Between the two paragraphs of our Gospel reading today there are three verses that we did not hear, but which we need to hear if we are truly to understand the meaning of today’s Gospel. These are the three verses, verses 16 through 18: “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: ‘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.’” This event is what we are asked to remember on December 28th, Herod’s slaughter of the innocent children.

Whoa! What’s going on here? Why are we asked to remember such a horrendous event in the midst of our joyful celebration of the coming of the Prince of Peace? Why does the church give us this Gospel, with or without the mention of the Holy Innocents, in Christmas tide? Wouldn’t this text be more suitable for Lent? Perhaps so, but there’s a good reason for hearing this text now. Truth be told, this isn’t an easy text on which to preach. It would be much easier to consider the coming of the Magi, which precedes the events in today’s readings, or even Jesus as a young adolescent in the story from Luke’s Gospel, both of which are also possible Gospel texts for today. But we need to hear this text. We need to hear it to avoid becoming too sentimental about what the birth of Jesus was all about. On Christmas Eve we heard Luke’s lovely story, complete with angelic voices and awed shepherds. On Thursday we’ll hear of those strange eastern politicians who visited the young child and whose departure precedes today’s Gospel. Last week, I preached on the Word becoming flesh and blood and moving into the neighborhood. Well, perhaps the neighborhood wasn’t quite as idyllic as you and I remembered it. This text, this disturbing Gospel reading, forcibly reminds us that, indeed the neighborhood in which the Word became flesh and blood was not idyllic at all.

Herod “the Great” who lived from 73 to 4 BC, was given the title “King of the Jews” by the Roman rulers who put him on the throne in 40 BC. He was famous for his brutality, and he had had many of his relatives and other potential rivals killed. He was insecure and suspicious, and the last thing he wanted was someone else who could possibly be the “king of the Jews,” as the Magi had suggested. When his religious advisors informed him that the ancient texts foretold the birth of the Messiah in Bethlehem, Herod had all the possible infant boys in Bethlehem killed. Warned by God in a dream, the Magi did not return to Herod, as he had requested, but returned home via a different route.

This is where today’s lection begins. No sooner have the Magi boarded their camels, then the angel warns Joseph to take Mary and the child and get away as quickly as possible. Imagine Joseph hastily packing, Mary climbing back up on the donkey, the three of them fleeing for their lives. Make no mistake: this was no trip back home to the grandparents, to make arrangements for the baby’s baptism in the home parish. Joseph, Mary, and Jesus became refugees heading to who knew what and where in Egypt. No maps, no credit cards, no embassy connections, no cell phone. Just the Prince of Peace and his parents running for their lives from a two-bit dictator! That’s the world that Jesus was born into!

That world wasn’t so different from our world, was it? We too live in an unstable and violent world, where the small and weak regularly experience tyranny and oppression. On January 12th it will have been a year since the earthquake in Haiti, an earthquake made all the worse by the environmental devastation visited on that poor country by its own two-bit dictators, Papa Doc and Baby Doc Duvalier. Who can forget the genocide in Rwanda and Burundi in which the leaders of the majority Hutus murdered thousands and thousands of minority Tutsis? Communal slaughter in Darfur mercifully ceased in February 2010 but may well erupt again after this month’s elections. In Iraq, Christians have been especially targeted by extremist groups. In October, a siege at a Catholic church left 60 people dead, and just a couple of days ago two people were killed and 20 were wounded by bombs placed near the homes of Christian families. In this country, we perhaps have been spared political tyranny. However, we have a higher rate of both capital punishment and criminal homicide than any other western democracy. To make matters worse, many people have lost their jobs, their homes, and their retirement savings in the recession of the last two years.

The coming of Jesus into the world, the coming of Christ into our own lives, is the greatest gift anyone could receive. But maybe that gift should come with a warning label. That gift does not allow us to see the world through rose-colored glasses, or to imagine that the adorable child and the angelic voices are all there is to our faith. Rather, the gift of Christ strips away from us a kind of “unrealistic innocence.” Herods exist. Inside us and outside us. Herods do violent, nasty, and evil things. The world, Jesus’ world, our world, is not a nice, cozy, comfortable, peaceful place. Yet.

Whoa again! Where’s the good news? What happened to “God rest ye merry, Gentlemen?” Has the joy gone out of our lives with the Christmas tree ready for pickup on the curb? Rest assured, there is good news here, and this is it. The Word was born in a dark, violent world. God came and continues to come to the darkest places. When evil seems at its strongest, when the Herods of the world do their worst and stand ready to gloat in triumph, God leads us, God guides us, and God protects us. God enables us to find safe passage out of the darkness that threatens to overwhelm us. With Herod’s minions just hours away, God awakened Joseph and led the Holy Family out of danger. True, they were refugees in Egypt, but they were safe. When Herod the Great had at last died, God led the family back to Israel. Ah, but the more cruel of Herod’s sons was reigning in Judea, Joseph’s ancestral home, so God led Joseph to settle in Nazareth, in relative obscurity, but in safety. Herod had not triumphed, and the child grew, became an adult, and began his ministry. At the end of his life, the adult Jesus faced down those same forces of darkness, and again triumphed over them. That ultimately is the greatest good news.

God came to us and God comes to us in our darkest places. Haitians are suffering still, and the cholera epidemic has only made their plight worse. Even so, God is at work in Haiti, through our church, through other churches, and through many non-denominational agencies addressing the devastation of the earthquake and Haitian poverty more generally. Rwanda and Burundi are now at peace. God willing, the vote this month on the creation of an independent South Sudan will stop the bloodshed there. At the Sacred Church of Jesus, a Chaldean Catholic church in Iraq, the Rev. Meyassr al-Qaspotros, urged his followers not to flee Iraq, despite the dangers, but to trust God’s leading and work for peace among Iraq’s peoples. In response to the poverty in this county, God has brought the mobile food pantry here, God has led us to develop our diaper ministry, and God has encouraged us to become an Ohio Benefit Bank site. And God also comes to us in the darkness of our personal lives. When despair, doubt, and grief threaten to overwhelm us, when we feel as if God has abandoned us, God comes to us. If we are light enough sleepers, if we believe in dreams, or prayer, or the counsel of others, God can lead us and guide us into a safer place. Not a place where the Herods in our lives have disappeared. No, it’s not that easy, but into a place in which we are at least protected from them.

Make no mistake. The good news of this second Sunday after Christmas is not only that of our lovely Nativity scenes. The good news is not only that the Prince of Peace was born, or that the Word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood. The good news of this second Sunday is that God also comes to us in the darkest places of our lives and leads us out of the darkness. The world can be a nasty, violent place where nasty deeds are done by nasty people. But God is with us through all that the world can throw at us. With God’s leading and guidance, we will triumph over the worst that can happen. Evil and darkness will not have the last word. They did not triumph over the baby Jesus, they did not triumph over the Jesus who was executed on the Cross, and they will not triumph over us. Ever. That is good news for Christmas, for Easter, and for every day of the year. Thanks be to God.