Dec 28, 2025 - Matthew 2:13-23 - Christmas 1

Every so often in the church year, we get one of the lesser holy days that coincides with a Sunday. While, Our Redeemer, First Lutheran, and Bethel all work together to bring out Epiphany, Ascension, and Easter Vigil, as 3 of the most significant days that aren’t associated with Sundays, it’s good that we have time to reflect on some of the others as well. In this case, the Gospel reading for today is also the one appointed for the commemoration of the Holy Innocents. Since this event is only recorded in Matthew’s Gospel, we only get it every three years unless we make a special mention of it.

Herod’s attempts to jealously guard his power are well known historically and have already been alluded to in Matthew’s Gospel. Just before this. we are told of the magis’ visit and their encounter with Herod. His conniving may have had them fooled, but God was ready to deal with that little problem and Herod’s initial plan is thwarted. Not to be stymied for long, Herod follows up. If the magi won’t inform him of where Jesus specifically is, then he’ll take the broader approach. If he can’t just do away with one little challenge to his earthly power and authority, then he’ll kill a bunch of babies to ensure the threat is dealt with in there somewhere. It makes no difference to him. He cares nothing for the people or their torment. His family has always been ruthless, so for him it’s just another day.

As a parent, I can hardly imagine this sort of thing. Some guy who you know only by name decides that your little baby boy is a threat and that the only way to deal with that threat is to kill him. What a horrifying thought. The idea that there is that kind of evil in the world doesn’t strike us all that often. You might see this kind of thing on the news, but it isn’t often that it really hits home. Not that these kinds of atrocities don’t happen. They certainly do. We hear about them happening especially in atheist or Muslim nations, like Nigeria, where Christians are slaughtered by the thousands. But they also happen here at home, particularly when we consider abortion and the millions of deaths that have come about because of it. The parents may not be mourning the deaths, like those in Bethlehem did, but the deaths are no less tragic, in some ways even more so.

Regardless of how the tragedy happens, now you’re left with the fallout. There is a hole there now, an emptiness where a person used to be. Whether it was through some malicious intent, through someone’s negligence, or through an unfortunate accident, the end result is the same. A terrible thing has happened and there is no fix for it. No amount of money will take care of it. No doctor can heal it. No amount of therapy will change the reality of the situation. You may eventually come to terms with it. You may not dwell on it as much, but nothing will undo the damage. You will have to live the rest of your days knowing that someone you love will never be there again.

What are you supposed to do with that? Even atheists understand the wrongness of the situation. This is not how things should be. This is not something that’s supposed to happen. Unbelievers will sometimes try and explain it away as a good thing, but their explanations don’t help. They don’t fix the wrongness. But that doesn’t stop them from trying, trying to understand, trying to make sense, trying to figure out why. Why did this happen to me? What is the meaning behind it? Was it because of something I did?

It’s not surprising that someone who deals with this sort of tragedy might act like they’re under attack. You withdraw. You hide. Maybe you attack back, lashing out at those around you. After all, unless everything truly is random and nothing that happens here means anything at all, then there had to be a reason your son or your daughter, your husband or your wife, died. If there’s a reason for it, then something or someone has it out for you. Either the problem is someone around you, in which case you need to get away from them, distance yourself from them so they don’t bring more pain down on you, or the problem is you, in which case you should get away from everyone else, so no one else has to suffer in the same way you have.

In either case, again the result is the same. Separation, distance, isolation, loneliness are all found here. It’s here that sin does some of its most destructive work. Sin has to be involved. After all, if there is death, there must be sin. Maybe it was your child’s sin. Maybe it was your spouse’s sin. Maybe it was your sin that brought all of this down on you and is now requiring you to live with the aftermath. Whatever it was, sin is doing its work, not just the death, but everything else that comes with it.

It isn’t a sin to suffer loss. It isn’t a sin to be afflicted with grief. It isn’t a sin to be on the receiving end of some horrible circumstance. It’s all in what comes next. Do you run and hide? Do you lash out at the world? Do you rage and yell as you unleash your hatred on the world around you?

This particular story is a little different than most that we hear regarding Jesus. Sure, later in his ministry, Jesus runs into people who aren’t happy to have him around. Eventually their schemes will win out and they’ll put him to death. For the most part though, we don’t have open conflict. This particular passage makes clear a very important detail of Jesus’ life. His life will be all about conflict. It may not always be overt. There may be many schemes, secret, smoldering hatreds, and all kinds of evil perpetrated under cover of darkness, but the conflict will be very real. As he says later, he comes not to bring peace, but a sword. His very existence makes some uncomfortable truths apparent. We are not God. We are not righteous. We bring death and are subject to death.

Right from the beginning, the world is trying to remove this uncomfortable reminder. Herod seeks to destroy a baby who might possibly be a threat to his power somewhere down the line. He doesn’t really mind. He’s done this kind of thing before, but it still says something about the kind of paranoia he has going on. Herod slaughters all of the baby boys in town on nothing more than the possibility of a threat, but, for as terrible as it is, it is nothing more than sin put into action. This is Herod seeking to be his own master, just as the sinner in each of us would love to do.

Left to themselves, that’s all this story would be, a story of sin. Herod’s sin in his frantic clutching at power. Sin threatening the parents and townsfolks of Bethlehem as they watch this all happen, powerless to stop it. There would be no answers, no comfort, nothing to do but hide or attack.

But, these aching, grieving parents are not alone. Though they do little more than live in Bethlehem, Jesus has brought them into his story. Their sadness and grief are added to his. He carries all of that with him on his march to the cross. Rather than float overhead as some distant and unknowable entity who claims to love us, God has entered into our lives personally. He seeks out those who would hide in fear. He calmly absorbs the rage of those who don’t know what to do with their grief. He lovingly takes all of that emotion to the place where all sin goes, to die.

Being on the receiving end of this kind of tragedy, it can be hard to know where to even begin trying to deal with it. How do you handle it? What do you do next? Others around you can say anything they want about it, they can offer any kind of advice, but none of that really changes the circumstance. You’re still the one who really has to face the loss and learn to live with it somehow.

Jesus doesn’t just carry sin. He also carries everything that comes from sin. All of the sadness, all of the rage, all of the heartache, all of the grief, all of the death, all of it goes with him on the slow march to Calvary. All of it goes with him into the tomb. The tiny baby born in Bethlehem avoids Herod’s scheme. Herod’s sin is there for all to see. Those parents and children who suffer at the hands of Herod are not forgotten. Herod cannot stop him. Sin cannot stop him. Death cannot stop him. This tiny baby is greater than all of them together. Nothing will prevail against Jesus.

When that grief comes in your life, as it no doubt will. There will be all manner of temptations. There will all sorts of reasons you might come up with to lash out at those around you. There will be all sorts of reasons for hiding away from a world full of pain. Jesus doesn’t want you to give in to any of it. Jesus comes to you, laying his whole life before you, his birth, his life, his death, and his resurrection. He shows you who he was before his birth, who he is now after his resurrection, and who he will be when he returns once again.

You are a part of that whole story. In your connection to him through baptism, you share his death, and you share his resurrection. You share in the death of sin, and you share in the new life, free from sadness and grief. Even when you give in to the sinful temptations, he shoulders that burden for you.

The fact that there is sin in the world isn’t always a satisfactory answer when we deal with the terrible results of it, but whether we understand it or not, God is still present there. See his story as he carries every sin and every grief to the cross, even those you have committed and those you have suffered. He takes it all upon himself, so that the grief and sin that afflict you will only ever be temporary. One day, you will no longer see sin, but only righteousness. One day, you will no longer see grief, but only joy. All because of Christ and his love which brings us into his story of salvation and life.