Lectionary: Matthew 2:13-23
Having just celebrated the Nativity of our Savior, today we now hear of an immense tragedy: 14,000 children slaughtered at the hands of a bitter king. Killed because that king rightfully saw the threat of this newborn Christ.
Herod lashes out at these innocents. He rejects Christ from the very moment of his birth, and he seeks to destroy him. And this is because, for the sinner, the arrival of Jesus is frightening. Herod knew that the birth of Jesus brought an upheaval to the status quo, that it spelled doom not just for his own regime, but for an entire way of living. For the World had fallen into sin. But now, with the coming of Christ, everything was going to radically change.
And so, fearful of what he might lose, Herod greets the coming of this child with murderous anger and fear.
Now, for someone like Herod, who has sold himself to sin and to death, the arrival of the One who is to conquer sin and to destroy death is understandably worrisome. But then how should I feel, one who is a sinner myself? For in pursuing the passions of this world, I too sell myself to sin and to death. So where does this leave me in all of this? Indeed, it can be very easy for me to also be frightened by the coming of Christ, to be frightened of the path that he sets out for me.
For when I see the path of Christ’s life, I see the heights of his humility, but also the depths of his suffering. And I’m afraid. Because I am told that this path is to be mine as well. That I am to take up a cross and follow him. And it doesn’t matter how much or how little I have to hold on to in this world, I am also fearful of what Christ asks me to leave behind: which is everything. I am to go forth and be a stranger to the world that I love so much, and to be a brother to every person, even to those I fear and especially those who hate me.
And so, fearful of entering into such a radical and difficult life, I so often find myself rejecting what Christ offers me in fear, and even in anger. I shirk the responsibilities God has given to me. The tools that He gives me to imitate him - prayer, fasting, almsgiving - I start to see them as punishments, I see them as distractions from my “real” life, things that get in the way. I see them as hurdles to be overcome, or simply annoyances to be ignored. I instead seek the pleasures and the cares of this life. I eradicate Christ from all corners of my daily life, I banish him to the outskirts of my thoughts. I cling to the status quo, to the habitual lifestyle that is seeking pleasure, and fleeing pain. I ultimately remove Christ from the center of my life.
But without Christ at the center, life then loses its trajectory. I am now just here to distract myself, and to avoid all that I can until everything, inevitably, ends. And that is a life without purpose, a life without meaning, a life without Joy. Not much of a life.
But Christ does not promise us a life that ends in chaos, in destruction. Christ promises us a life of mercy, and compassion, and peace, and then he delivers on that promise. This Christ child, rather than being destroyed by a tyrant, survives, and he grows up. He then goes out and he faces all the tyrants head on. The tyrants of this world: illness, sinfulness, suffering. Christ rebukes them. He doesn’t even speak truth to power, for he is the power. He is the glory. He reveals that the fallenness of this world is powerless, and that it is not the status quo. That the suffering of this world is not natural, that is not normal.
For when he heals, he restores. When he rebukes the demons, he sets things back to where they were meant to be. Christ’s mission is radical, but it is only radical to those blinded and deluded by Sin. We have told ourselves that this life, one of greed and anger, and fear, is normal.
But Christ comes to us, God comes to us in the flesh, and he reminds us that this is not normal. But acknowledging how far we have fallen, understanding that we cannot shake this blindness on our own, Christ then chooses to face all of this tyranny for us, and to accept, of his own free will, death itself.
He dies for us. This Child walks a path with a never-wavering trajectory. Christ’s focus is always transfixed on Golgotha, on the Cross. That is why we hear of such suffering today, brothers and sisters. With no moment to breathe, we are reminded of the crushing and suffocating weight that Sin has placed on this world. We are reminded that the Incarnation, that the Nativity of our Lord, is miraculous, that it is joyful, but that it is not all that he has come to do. It is neither a beginning nor an end, instead it is precisely a continuation of God’s work for us.
For before this Nativity, before this child lay in that manger, our God had sent prophets, he had guided the kings of Israel, he had already delivered his people out of the hands of the Egyptians. And now, using that same Egypt as a safe resting place for himself, this Child continues the work he has always done for us. For this Child is the very same God who called Moses out of Egypt, the very same God who led his people to the Promised Land, the very same God that placed a star to guide the Wise men to himself.
And now, Brothers and sisters, armed with this knowledge, we have nothing to fear in this life that Christ offers us. We no longer have any reason to fear suffering and hardship. For the work in which we are called to has already been fulfilled, by Christ. On the Cross, Christ proclaims that “It is Finished.” And so then, whatever suffering we might face, whatever hardships that lie before us as Christians, all of this has already been borne by our Lord and Savior.
Which means that we are indeed invited to a path with struggles, but they are struggles that are already embodied and conquered by Christ. We now face a death that bears no sting, we now encounter a Hell that possesses no victory. Each one of us is called to a unique and beautiful life, yet all life is unified, purified, and perfected by the One life of Christ. What a joyous gift Christ gives us this Nativity Season: a promise that we are not alone, that God is with us. It is a promise already delivered to us, delivered to us through his own suffering, death, and resurrection.
How loved are we, how loved are we that God did all this for us. He sees our fear, so he goes first. He leads us on a path already tread by himself, through his own saving sacrifice for us. And so, brothers and sisters, as we go forth into our daily lives, lives that are complicated, and hard, and filled with struggle, we are reminded that God has entered into all of it, and he has provided us the path to comfort and peace, through his saving death, and through the institution of his Church, the One Body of Christ.
Christ is Born!
