Sermon Sunday December 30, 2007
First Sunday after Christmas
Brothers and sisters,
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Well here we are this morning still in the Christmas season. I mean we got the white paraments out, I got my white stoll on. And that means that we are still in the Christmas season. Christmas is not just a day it is in fact a season and we are still in it. And so with that in mind why would we be confronted with a Gospel lesson that seems so harsh and so, dare I say, even ugly?
I mean, although this week’s lesson is from Matthew whereas last week’s was from Luke, chronologically the Gospel this morning begins not long after last week’s Gospel lesson left off. Mary and Joseph have completed their journey to Bethlehem. Jesus has been born in a manger. The shepherds have shown up after being visited by the Angel of the Lord, and they have heard the multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom He favors.’
We are still in Christmas. Most of you probably still have your trees up and lights on your house if you put some up. Shouldn’t we be joyous?? Shouldn’t we be happy?? Then why do the scholars who put the lectionary together follow up last week’s Gospel lesson with a passage that seems to be filled with death, destruction and evil??
The Christ child has just been born and now Joseph is visited yet again by an Angel of the Lord and this time the Angel tells Joseph to take Mary and the baby Jesus and flee to Egypt because Herod has set out to destroy the baby. Jesus has just been born. Joseph and Mary haven’t even had time to enjoy the gifts of frankincense and myrrh that they received, whatever that is. And so they do flee to Egypt and they manage to remain there until after the death of Herod.
But, and this is where this passage often makes people pretty uncomfortable, before Herod died he did something pretty despicable. He realized that he had been tricked and deceived by the wise men whom he had ordered to find the Christ child and then tell him where the Christ child was. Of course Herod was deceptive also. He told the wise men he wanted to go pay homage to the Child when he actually just wanted to kill Him.
Well the wise men found Jesus but never went back and told Herod where He was. And this made Herod very upset. It made Herod so upset in fact that he ordered the death of all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or younger.
So again, why in this season that is supposed to be so full of joy and happiness are we confronted with a text that is so brutal? Why? Because that is what Christmas is about. Jesus is born and immediately He experiences the ugliness of a sin-filled world that is in such great need of Him. He barely has a chance to experience the loving embrace of His earthly parents before He is being rushed off to Egypt because His life is at stake.
This is the world that Jesus comes into. Truth be told there are some who question whether the ‘slaughter of the innocents’ that Herod ordered in frustration over being deceived by the wise men ever really happened. It’s not mentioned in any of the other Gospels and there is no record of it anywhere else.
On the other hand it is certainly not far-fetched to think that something like that could have happened. The Jewish historian Josephus writes about Herod ordering the execution of three of his sons, so this is certainly not out of the realm of possibility for Herod. And certainly it is not out of the realm of possibility for the world that we live in that is so severely plagued by sin, death, and the devil
Does this story of Herod’s despicable slaughter of the innocents make you uncomfortable?? Does the possibility that it didn’t happen somehow make you a little more comfortable?? If it does, ok, but is this story any more brutal than so much of the other brutality that we as humans have inflicted? Is the slaughter of the innocents any more brutal than the nearly three hundred Sioux men, women, and children who were killed at Wounded Knee in December 1890? Is it any more tragic than the concentration camps of World War II? Is it any more tragic than the lives being sacrificed in Iraq and Afghanistan? Or for that matter is it any more tragic than the literal slaughter of the innocents that we see with abortion and the over 1 million lives per year that abortion takes? Or really is it any more tragic than the three funerals that I did in the last two weeks?
The truth is, in the eyes of our Lord, death for any of His people at any age is tragic because it is not what our Lord intended for His people. What the tragedy of death shows us is that when we say that Jesus came to save us from our sin, we are talking about more than simply the act of sinning or our sinful deeds, although that is certainly a part of it. But it is not the core of why Jesus came.
But the author of Hebrews cuts right through all of the self-focused, works-based, morality centered stuff that we like to think that the Gospel is about when he tells us that our Lord has sent Jesus so that "through death He might destroy the one who has the power of death and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death."
And so what it means when we say that we are sinners, is not simply that we sin, which of course we do. But at it’s core what it means is that through our sinful nature, the one who has the power of death, the devil, takes hold of our lives and holds us in captivity through the fear of death. But the author of Hebrews also has good news for us today.
In the Hebrews lesson we are assured that Christ Jesus came to be like His brothers and sisters, us, in every respect so that He might be a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make a sacrifice of atonement for the sins of the people. And He made that sacrifice of atonement for you when He took all of your death and sin with Him to the cross where He destroyed the one who has the power of death.
When Herod sought to destroy Jesus, it was the devil himself at work through Herod, seeking to destroy the One who would come and destroy the devil, and the devil failed. In fact he never really had a chance. Whenever I do a funeral I am always struck by the words from one of the prayers that I recite where it says that we ask God to enable us to see in death, the gate to eternal life.
But that is exactly what Jesus does. That is the Gospel. Sin came into the world through the fall of Adam and Eve, and that was tragic. And we see the effects of that to this day whenever see tragedy such as war, death and violence. Whenever we see death, we see the fall of humanity. Yes we see it when we commit sinful deeds, but they are a result of the sinful nature that takes hold of us, the sinful nature that leads to death, and that is why Jesus came.
Where sin came into the world and ushered in your sinful nature, the prophet tells you that Christ Jesus has come in and declares you to be His and becomes your Savior in the midst of your distress. And it is no angel or messenger that saves you but the presence of Christ Jesus Himself. He doesn’t come to you merely to try to prevent you from making a few mistakes in moral judgment or to give you encouragement, ultimately leaving redemption in your hands. He comes to you and flips the death that binds you upside down, and gives you new life and makes of you a new creation, with the promise that one day all things will be made new. And He does it Himself by claiming you in baptism, coming to you in His Word and His supper, nourishing you and sustaining you in your faith.
And so when you see death and destruction and it makes you uncomfortable, remember that our Lord came into the world in the midst of death and destruction. Where you see death and destruction, Christ Jesus is bringing new life in the midst of that death and destruction through you. You have been freed from captivity to death, so you no longer need to fear it. Your Lord Christ Jesus has flipped death upside down and made of it a gateway to eternal life. That is what His presence does. And that is the Gospel.
Amen
Brothers and sisters,
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Well here we are this morning still in the Christmas season. I mean we got the white paraments out, I got my white stoll on. And that means that we are still in the Christmas season. Christmas is not just a day it is in fact a season and we are still in it. And so with that in mind why would we be confronted with a Gospel lesson that seems so harsh and so, dare I say, even ugly?
I mean, although this week’s lesson is from Matthew whereas last week’s was from Luke, chronologically the Gospel this morning begins not long after last week’s Gospel lesson left off. Mary and Joseph have completed their journey to Bethlehem. Jesus has been born in a manger. The shepherds have shown up after being visited by the Angel of the Lord, and they have heard the multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom He favors.’
We are still in Christmas. Most of you probably still have your trees up and lights on your house if you put some up. Shouldn’t we be joyous?? Shouldn’t we be happy?? Then why do the scholars who put the lectionary together follow up last week’s Gospel lesson with a passage that seems to be filled with death, destruction and evil??
The Christ child has just been born and now Joseph is visited yet again by an Angel of the Lord and this time the Angel tells Joseph to take Mary and the baby Jesus and flee to Egypt because Herod has set out to destroy the baby. Jesus has just been born. Joseph and Mary haven’t even had time to enjoy the gifts of frankincense and myrrh that they received, whatever that is. And so they do flee to Egypt and they manage to remain there until after the death of Herod.
But, and this is where this passage often makes people pretty uncomfortable, before Herod died he did something pretty despicable. He realized that he had been tricked and deceived by the wise men whom he had ordered to find the Christ child and then tell him where the Christ child was. Of course Herod was deceptive also. He told the wise men he wanted to go pay homage to the Child when he actually just wanted to kill Him.
Well the wise men found Jesus but never went back and told Herod where He was. And this made Herod very upset. It made Herod so upset in fact that he ordered the death of all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or younger.
So again, why in this season that is supposed to be so full of joy and happiness are we confronted with a text that is so brutal? Why? Because that is what Christmas is about. Jesus is born and immediately He experiences the ugliness of a sin-filled world that is in such great need of Him. He barely has a chance to experience the loving embrace of His earthly parents before He is being rushed off to Egypt because His life is at stake.
This is the world that Jesus comes into. Truth be told there are some who question whether the ‘slaughter of the innocents’ that Herod ordered in frustration over being deceived by the wise men ever really happened. It’s not mentioned in any of the other Gospels and there is no record of it anywhere else.
On the other hand it is certainly not far-fetched to think that something like that could have happened. The Jewish historian Josephus writes about Herod ordering the execution of three of his sons, so this is certainly not out of the realm of possibility for Herod. And certainly it is not out of the realm of possibility for the world that we live in that is so severely plagued by sin, death, and the devil
Does this story of Herod’s despicable slaughter of the innocents make you uncomfortable?? Does the possibility that it didn’t happen somehow make you a little more comfortable?? If it does, ok, but is this story any more brutal than so much of the other brutality that we as humans have inflicted? Is the slaughter of the innocents any more brutal than the nearly three hundred Sioux men, women, and children who were killed at Wounded Knee in December 1890? Is it any more tragic than the concentration camps of World War II? Is it any more tragic than the lives being sacrificed in Iraq and Afghanistan? Or for that matter is it any more tragic than the literal slaughter of the innocents that we see with abortion and the over 1 million lives per year that abortion takes? Or really is it any more tragic than the three funerals that I did in the last two weeks?
The truth is, in the eyes of our Lord, death for any of His people at any age is tragic because it is not what our Lord intended for His people. What the tragedy of death shows us is that when we say that Jesus came to save us from our sin, we are talking about more than simply the act of sinning or our sinful deeds, although that is certainly a part of it. But it is not the core of why Jesus came.
But the author of Hebrews cuts right through all of the self-focused, works-based, morality centered stuff that we like to think that the Gospel is about when he tells us that our Lord has sent Jesus so that "through death He might destroy the one who has the power of death and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death."
And so what it means when we say that we are sinners, is not simply that we sin, which of course we do. But at it’s core what it means is that through our sinful nature, the one who has the power of death, the devil, takes hold of our lives and holds us in captivity through the fear of death. But the author of Hebrews also has good news for us today.
In the Hebrews lesson we are assured that Christ Jesus came to be like His brothers and sisters, us, in every respect so that He might be a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make a sacrifice of atonement for the sins of the people. And He made that sacrifice of atonement for you when He took all of your death and sin with Him to the cross where He destroyed the one who has the power of death.
When Herod sought to destroy Jesus, it was the devil himself at work through Herod, seeking to destroy the One who would come and destroy the devil, and the devil failed. In fact he never really had a chance. Whenever I do a funeral I am always struck by the words from one of the prayers that I recite where it says that we ask God to enable us to see in death, the gate to eternal life.
But that is exactly what Jesus does. That is the Gospel. Sin came into the world through the fall of Adam and Eve, and that was tragic. And we see the effects of that to this day whenever see tragedy such as war, death and violence. Whenever we see death, we see the fall of humanity. Yes we see it when we commit sinful deeds, but they are a result of the sinful nature that takes hold of us, the sinful nature that leads to death, and that is why Jesus came.
Where sin came into the world and ushered in your sinful nature, the prophet tells you that Christ Jesus has come in and declares you to be His and becomes your Savior in the midst of your distress. And it is no angel or messenger that saves you but the presence of Christ Jesus Himself. He doesn’t come to you merely to try to prevent you from making a few mistakes in moral judgment or to give you encouragement, ultimately leaving redemption in your hands. He comes to you and flips the death that binds you upside down, and gives you new life and makes of you a new creation, with the promise that one day all things will be made new. And He does it Himself by claiming you in baptism, coming to you in His Word and His supper, nourishing you and sustaining you in your faith.
And so when you see death and destruction and it makes you uncomfortable, remember that our Lord came into the world in the midst of death and destruction. Where you see death and destruction, Christ Jesus is bringing new life in the midst of that death and destruction through you. You have been freed from captivity to death, so you no longer need to fear it. Your Lord Christ Jesus has flipped death upside down and made of it a gateway to eternal life. That is what His presence does. And that is the Gospel.
Amen
posted by Steve at 12:09 PM
1 Comments:
I really liked this sermon-you really hit it hard with the talk about what death really means.
I loved this part:
When Herod sought to destroy Jesus, it was the devil himself at work through Herod, seeking to destroy the One who would come and destroy the devil, and the devil failed. In fact he never really had a chance. Whenever I do a funeral I am always struck by the words from one of the prayers that I recite where it says that we ask God to enable us to see in death, the gate to eternal life.
But that is exactly what Jesus does. That is the Gospel. Sin came into the world through the fall of Adam and Eve, and that was tragic. And we see the effects of that to this day whenever see tragedy such as war, death and violence. Whenever we see death, we see the fall of humanity. Yes we see it when we commit sinful deeds, but they are a result of the sinful nature that takes hold of us, the sinful nature that leads to death, and that is why Jesus came.
You brought up the abortion thing. I was thinking of that, but my sermon went a different way. Bold
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