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The sermon for December 28 was on Matthew 2:13-18.
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus
Christ. Amen.
Because the festival of Holy Innocents falls on a Sunday this year we get to
contemplate this text two weeks in a row. Next week our meditation will focus on
Jesus' flight into Egypt. This week our attention is drawn to Herod's slaughter
of the innocent boys of Bethlehem.
It isn't unusual for the Church to celebrate the lives and deaths of her saints.
It isn't even odd for Christians to celebrate some pretty grisly events, Good
Friday and the Beheading of John the Baptist come readily to mind. But coming so
soon on the heels of Christmas and commemorating such a manifestly wicked crime,
today's festival remains a bit shocking to us.
Herod's act of mass murder is shocking, it is jarring but it is, unfortunately
not unheard of. Herod kills those boys because he's afraid. He's afraid of
losing his throne. He's afraid of civil unrest. He's afraid that Jesus may
actually be the Messiah. Fear is a very potent emotion. It can inspire great
achievements, both good and bad. Fear in powerful men is even more volatile. But
you don't have to be a Roman potentate in order to be driven to extremes by your
fear. Fear is a part of every human life and a part of most human relationships.
It's as common as hunger.
Fear is an inseparable part of every family. A wife knows her husbands every
weakness, his every need. No one is in a better position to destroy a man's life
and career than his wife. The same thing is true in reverse. There is no greater
potential threat to the happiness and well-being of woman than the man whom she
has married. Husband and wife have good reason to fear one another and children
have good reason to fear their parents. Parents have every reason to fear that
their children will one day shame them or turn their poor parental hearts inside
out with grief.
Fear and trust combine to produce love. The man who's wife knows all about his
secret frailties but never uses them against him is a happy man, a man who
invariably loves his wife. A woman who's husband is always faithful to her will
be a woman in love. Fear without faith, fear without trust becomes hatred. Hell
hath no fury like a woman scorned. To be betrayed or to have one's confidence
broken engenders the most visceral kind of hate. There is nothing more
despicable than a Quisling and you need look no further than the divorce court
for proof.
Herod was afraid without faith. His was the kind of fear that sours into
bitterness and mutates eventually into loathsome violence. His fear of God and
for his throne drove him to mass murder. History remembers him as a great
builder of buildings and a friend of the Jews. The Church remembers him as
cold-hearted killer of babies. St. Mary, the Mother of God, was also afraid of
God and of other things, to be sure, but she was afraid with faith and that
means love. All generations will rise up and call her blessed, and we do so to
this very day.
The world is a violent and fallen place. From the time of Cain until now it has
been full of men like Herod and crimes like the slaughter of the Holy Innocents.
We are cursed with tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, fire, flood and famine.
Wars and crimes are a constant burden. The question is not why these things
should plague us. We know the answer to that. They are generated by our sin and
selfishness. The question is how and with whom we are to face them. Do we go it
alone and trust in none but ourselves or do we take a confidant and is so, whom?
You all know that I'm going to say that we should face our lives and their
troubles with confidence in God. You came here expressly to be reminded of that.
I can't imagine why else you would have come. But we do need to be reminded,
don't we? If when our lives come crashing down around our ears we have no faith
in the goodness and mercy of God we will come to hate Him and eventually to hate
everyone else. In the absence of faith, fear turns to hatred and hatred, in
time, becomes despair. It is along that way that atrocities are committed and
souls are lost.
We feel the tug of despair on our shirt sleeves when we ask ourselves, in the
midst of adversities, why they are happening to us; as if we had the right to
expect from our Crucified Lord a painless passage through a world undone by our
own sin and rebellion. Faith doesn't ask God why bad things happen. Faith knows
exactly why bad things happen. Faith simply looks to God for comfort and
strength and the assurance that we have not been betrayed by our God. Faith
looks to Jesus Christ alone and finds in His crucifixion the all the consolation
it needs.
Faith in God is His free gift to us through Word and Sacrament. The Holy Ghost
creates faith, when and where He pleases, through the preaching of the Word, the
Lord's Supper, and Holy Baptism. I, personally, wish there some other way to
receive saving faith. I wish that I could persuade people to believe in Jesus or
love them so much that they came to trust in my God but it doesn't work that
way. Faith is God's gift to us through His chosen means and so is our love for
our neighbors. We say it in our prayers every week.
God has a reason for granting faith the way He does and no matter what I might
wish for, His reasons are best and I trust Him. He has given us His Word and
Sacraments and He has given us saving faith. Our sickness and setbacks are in
His hands as surely as is our salvation. And in those same divine and redeeming
hands are the scars from the nails that held Him to the cross where He died to
forgive our sins and restore us to the good graces of God our Father. We have
good reason to fear God but we have even more reason to trust Him above all
things. He loves us.
The innocent boys of Herod's Bethlehem were abruptly and criminally sent from
this world by their fully grown and ruthless king but those little lads were
called to paradise by their merciful infant Lord. The one for whose sake they
died, died in their place and they are with Him.
He is also with us, turning misfortune in to blessing, bending the intentions of
our enemies toward our own good, forgiving our sins, strengthening our faith and
assuring us that we can trust Him to be our God at all times and our savior from
any threat or accusation. Our God loves us and He gives us the faith that turns
our fear of Him into a love of Him. Amen.
The Peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds
in Christ Jesus. Amen.
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