Wise Men- Massacre of the Innocent 2

Today our church will be remembering the magi, the wise men, that came to give the gifts of frankincense, myrrh, and gold to Christ.

The account comes in the book of Matthew chapter 2.

Sometimes, around Christmas, we conflate all of our Christmas stories together, putting Luke’s account with Matthew’s. You even typically see the wisemen depicted with the shepherds at the manger scene.

But the account we have in Matthew has a very different tone or feeling than the other gospels.

It was the week leading up to Christmas in December of 2012.

I had just gotten back from Turin, Italy. I would be spending a semester here in America before going over to Rome.

I have a very, very vivid memory of being at Church on the 16th. We happened to be singing the carol, “I heard the Bells on Christmas Day.”

I got choked up and struggled to finish the song. We got to the line where it said, “And in despair, I bowed my head. There is no peace on earth, I said. For hate is strong and it mocks the song of peace on earth, goodwill to men.”

I know that the next line talked of the bells singing louder and how God isn’t dead or asleep and how the wrong shall fail and the right prevail, but I was struggling to sing as I found myself crying.

I was wondering if there were parents who were struggling with those words that day, struggling with wondering if God really was there and cared.

It was the morning of the 12th that past week. A young man who later is stipulated to have had undiagnosed schizophrenia and other issues going on, got ahold of his mother’s gun and after killing her, he then got in her car and went to Sandy Hook elementary school and began opening fire. He killed 26 people inside, including 20 children between the ages of 6 and 7, before turning the gun on himself and taking his own life.

We stood at our TVs and cried. We were speechless.

And I sat there all morning in church, crying on and off thinking about those children.

What do we do with such evil and tragedy in the world?

Just as soon as Christ shows up, it seems to be at his door.

Because perhaps the only thing worse than a madman with a gun... is a madman with an army.

Matthew 2

In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, 2 asking, “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.” 3 When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him; 4 and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. 5 They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet:

6 ‘And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,

are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;

for from you shall come a ruler

who is to shepherd[d] my people Israel.’”

7 Then Herod secretly called for the wise men[e] and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. 8 Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage.” 9 When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising,[f] until it stopped over the place where the child was. 10 When they saw that the star had stopped,[g] they were overwhelmed with joy. 11 On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. 12 And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.

The Escape to Egypt

13 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.” 14 Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, 15 and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, “Out of Egypt I have called my son.”

The Massacre of the Infants

16 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. 17 Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah:

18 “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.”

The Return from Egypt

19 When Herod died, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, 20 “Get up, take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who were seeking the child’s life are dead.” 21 Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel. 22 But when he heard that Archelaus was ruling over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. And after being warned in a dream, he went away to the district of Galilee. 23 There he made his home in a town called Nazareth, so that what had been spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, “He will be called a Nazorean.”

There are times when things happen and our response is to ask, “Where was God?”

Where was God at Sandy Hook?

Where was God on September 11th?

Where was God during the Holocaust?

Where was God at Bethlehem that day?

Here in Matthew 2 He is a young babe.

He seems vulnerable and frail, and then when things happened, he escapes, like He’s running away from the problem.

The Israelites were hoping for a military leader, and to be honest, it seems like they could have really used on that day.

God, couldn’t a general have been more helpful that day than a babe?

Humans have a habit of trying to find an answer to this problem, the problem we typically call the problem of evil.

We humans don’t often deal well with this problem and sometimes will stop believing that there could be a God in heaven who is good with the bad that happens in the world.

Some who don’t lose their faith try to find fairly unstable answers.

I’ve heard people who want to say that it was God’s will even if we don’t understand it.

Some wish to believe that if it happens, it was in the will of God, and His will is always good even if we are limited humans who can’t see it and it only seems like these things are bad but if we had the viewpoint of God then we could see how this was all actually in God’s perfect will and according to plan.

That answer doesn’t usually hold up. I think we’re trying to comfort ourselves, but I don’t know if such a view is all that helpful in the long run.

No. I think there are things that happen that God does not wish or will.

I think there are ways that humans use their freewill that break God’s heart even deeper than it breaks ours.

It is hard to fathom sensing how God still allowed these massacres to happen, but I do believe that God loved the children at Bethlehem, at Sandy Hook, and the million other tragedies we can think of.

He did not wish it to happen.

Each gospel has their own account of the crucifixion.

Each records different words of Christ, and those words in each is significant for the tone, the message of each particular gospel.

The end of Matthew’s gospel records Jesus saying very little.

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

They’re some of the most mysterious words in the gospels, and some theologians and pastors even, perhaps wrongfully in my opinion, try to draw conclusions from this phrase about the Father and Son separating.

A deeper, more traditional interpretation, sees in Christ the mysterious reality that through this birth, this life, and this death, God Himself knows what it feels like to be God forsaken.

And so what is the answer to this problem we call the problem of evil?

There has never been one given.

But...

When the people of God began wrestling with this problem, what was birthed in them, what we would believe was inspired in them, was not an answer...

but a hope for something greater than an answer.

The passage from Jeremiah that is quotes comes from the time of Exile.

There was a promise of the Messiah, but not within their lifetime.

In their lifetime, they lived through a whole era of tragic death, death of children and weak and innocent, of suffering, of oppression, of loss of land and culture.

They could hope for a better time in the future, but what about that moment and the life they experienced?

Did God care nothing for them?

What about the few who had stayed true to God, and they still suffered the pain of exile along with the rest?

Where was God when Israel fell?

Where was God when Babylon was overtaken?

Where was God when Rachel wept for her children?

Up until that point in history, Israel hadn’t wrestled much with God about what happens after death.

In the book of Isaiah, the prophet wrestles with this when he says, “For the grave cannot praise you, death cannot sing your praise; those who go down to the pit cannot hope for your faithfulness.”

The Israelites struggled with these questions.

And the heart of their struggling and its development went something like this...

Maybe ... (one hand)

Maybe we were wrong in trusting God...

Maybe God’s really not just but apathetic...

Maybe God isn’t good or compassionate...

Maybe He is too weak to do anything about it and we were wrong to think He was strong...

Maybe God isn’t who we thought he was...

But... no.... no... He showed us who He was and we will remember what He did and His character revealed to us... No, we are who we are because of who He’s been to us...

We can’t believe He’s been evil all along...

This has been so horrible, though...

Either... either God isn’t just... or...

or God’s ability to bring about justice...

God’s work to restore and save and make right...

It has to be bigger than the one we can see.

It has to be bigger than just this lifetime.

Either God is not just as we look at this death, or He will bring about justice in some way that… goes… beyond.. death.

And from this struggle, from this wrestling,

there was this vision of… resurrection.

It was still a hotly debated topic even in Jesus’ day.

The Pharisees believed in the resurrection.

The Sadducees did not.

The resurrection was connected with the time of the Messiah.

It was something they were expecting at the end when God will raise up the righteous and make things right finally...

But it was only an idea at first… a hope… that God’s people were trying to hold onto…

The idea of resurrection was a question posed to God about whether He was just or not…

Until…

Until God decided to answer…

Until that future hope came crashing through time and space…

God came in Christ, in the form of a babe, to grow and die...

but not allow death and tragedy to have the final say, because on the third day He rose again.

What was only a hope became a reality that you could touch and see...

as Mary Magdalene heard Christ call her name, as Thomas placed his hand into the nail scars, as the disciples watched Him ascend.

And in this new reality, there is a hope and a promise.

It is why we can look to a cross and see a message of salvation rather than defeat.

There will come a day...

There will be a time...

When that hope will be fulfilled and justice and goodness will be fulfilled.

When God will bring… redemption… real, deep redemption…

When God will bring about something so great, so profound, that will outweigh and redeem all the hurt and suffering that it took the human race to get there.

As audacious as such a hope sounds, Christians believe…

Anyone looking back from that point, no matter what terror or evil they suffered here, would be willing to say that it was worth it.

I know this only leaves us with faith.

I know it only leaves us with hope.

I know it only leaves us with the option to trust.

And I know… I know that’s not easy.

I know we can’t do it with our own strength.

So often we act like faith and hope are these really nice, pretty ideas that make us want to write them all pretty in calligraphy for our home or office decorations.

But their reality when lived out is a lot less domesticated and much grittier and messier and harder and overwhelming.

I know this isn’t an answer as to why.

I know it doesn’t necessarily make us feel better.

I honestly...

I honestly don’t know what that kind of redemption would look like...

A redemption that really could take the sting and pain and loss out of all the suffering the world has incurred.

I don’t know what that redemption would look like.

I don’t have an imagination big enough...

But I hear God’s voice in scripture...

Time and time again, inviting, calling, pleading, weeping, asking us to trust Him...

saying that even if we can’t imagine...

He can...

He can and He does and He will...

He will work and create and rebuild and restore and bring about a redemption of it all that is so great that it won’t just “make up for” the evil, but it will overwhelm it and overtake it and overcome it so much that not even a hint of that pain will remain.

No eye has seen

No ear has heard

Paul says, “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.”

In Habakkuk, He says, “For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told.”