Matthew 2:13-23
December 26, 2004
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.
It was hard waiting for Christmas. Right after Halloween, for the past two months, stores rushed to sell Yuletide stuff. Everywhere you turned; there have been Christmas tunes, holiday sales, and season’s greetings leading us to wait for Christmas to come. On Friday night, we gathered in this same place waiting for Christmas Day as we sang “Silent Night, Holy Night” with lit candles in our hands. But when we woke up the next day, the waiting was over.
When I was growing up in Boston, I knew when the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus came to town. It was always in May around my birthday and my parents would take us all to the circus. There were billboards above the buildings and on the side of the busses. On the TV, there would be exciting clips of the lion tamer’s head in the mouth of a scary lion and a dare devil being shot from a cannon. The circus was coming!
“Ten more days until the circus,” we would say. Then eight, seven, six, finally the wait was over. The circus is here! We went to the circus thinking that the excitement and danger depicted on the billboards would be the greatest show on earth. But when we got to the circus, the elephants looked old and sluggish, the lions looked tame. The guy on the trapeze had a safety net. And the clowns were not that funny at all. Was this all there was to a circus?
As a worship leader, one of the most difficult tasks of Christmas is waiting in the long, four weeks of Advent. While poinsettias were already at Home Depot way before Thanksgiving, it wasn’t time yet to bring them into the sanctuary. While we should be singing Advent carols like “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” for 4 weeks, there are far more Christmas carols than Advent carols. We just can’t wait to sing “Joy to the World” as soon as we can. While the Christmas presents were piling up under the tree, it was not yet time to unwrap them. But now that it’s December 26th, is this all there is to Christmas?
Think about the excitement and nervousness of waiting for a new baby. Its nine months of anticipation joy! But then the wait is over and there’s the baby. There’s a big gap between expectation and delivery, between a baby shower and a baby diaper. There’s a big difference from, “We’re going to have a baby!” to “It’s your turn to change the diaper!” You have moved from the hope to the reality, from anticipation joy to an assignment.
When the wait is over, the yearning is ended, and a promise fulfilled, we come face to face to what we have desired. Today the wait is over and we are about to meet the truth, truth that has a face and a name that would lead us into danger. It’s Jesus.
King Herod
Less than 48 hours ago, we were singing “Away in a Manger” and “Silent Night.” But today’s Scripture is like a sudden nightmare. When wise men from the east came to Jerusalem looking for the child who has been born king of the Jews, King Herod and all of Jerusalem were frightened about this news. Herod told the wise men that after they have found this child, come back to tell him so that he too might go and worship him. But King Herod’s motive was not innocent. He wanted to kill the child because he knew that his throne and power would be overthrown.
After arriving in Bethlehem and presenting the child with gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, the wise men dreamt that they should not return to Herod but to take another road home. Then an angel came to Joseph in a dream to warn him that the child is in danger and for him to flee to Egypt and remain there until it was safe.
Tricked by the wise men, Herod was so mad that he sent soldiers in and around Bethlehem to kill all the children who were two-years old or younger. This was known as the “Massacre or Slaughter of the Innocents.” There was much weeping and mourning for the children. Jesus was born into a world of violence that cared little for innocence or justice.
When Herod finally died, an angel told Joseph in a dream that it was safe now to return to Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus, son of Herod was in charge over Judah, Joseph and Mary took Jesus to Galilee because Archelaus was more brutal and violent than his father, Herod.
The first Christmas consisted of soldiers and swords in the streets, mothers clutching their babies, hiding in the closet, trying not to breathe too loudly, and begging their infants not to cry. For Joseph, Mary and Jesus, they fled in the night as refugees to a foreign land. There was no more quiet, peaceful and calm manger scene anymore. So we ask, “Why couldn’t the angel have warned all of the other fathers and mothers about Herod too?” Even the birth of the new king didn’t stop the suffering. It actually led to more.
Christmas Suffering
I suspect that almost all of you came to worship this morning assuming that the first Sunday after Christmas will still be on “Silent Night, Holy Night.” It’s not surprising that we often skip this part of the Christmas story. This was a dangerous and violent time. It’s easy to understand why there’s no carol in our hymnal about the slaughter of the innocents. But perhaps there should be, because we need to understand that suffering and Christmas do belong together. Christmas is God’s response to our sorrows.
Christmas is not good news of a great joy that will make everything easy. Joseph is the father of a son who is not quite his. Mary isn’t old enough to be married under the best of circumstances. Now she’s far away from home with a newborn and a man she hardly knows.
Christmas is not about a king born to luxury but an infant born to peasants in a rundown section of an obscure Roman province in a drafty manger among cattle and sheep. At Christmas, God comes into the noise and storms, wind and wailing, dying children, raging soldiers and devastated parents.
The idea that Christmas is only smiles and laughter has led many to spend December pretending to smile and laugh. This season is the loneliest time of the year for lots of people. Christmas can bring despair to people who don’t fit into our culture’s celebrations of family gatherings and expensive gifts. Christmas is especially hard for those who have experienced a tragedy. People who have lost someone they loved often hurt the most at Christmas. People still have surgery around Christmas time and that phone call in the night still rings.
If we have to stand at a graveside on Christmas, we need to remember the hope that comes with Christmas. Christmas is about the God who suffered in Auschwitz, the God who survived the collapse of the World Trade Center or the God who were also eating in the mess hall in Mosul, Iraq. God comes for everyone who has lost a job, whose family is breaking up, whose relationship with each other has gone cold, who wants to have a child and can’t, who has a child and doesn’t want it, or whose spirit has been crushed in whatever way. God shares the pain of every one whose life is falling apart.
This part of the Christmas story that we see in Matthew that we are so used to leaving out—the sadness, suffering, death, and danger—is the most important. It’s the hard part that explains why this child is the holy child.
Waiting for Danger
The presents, the shopping and the returns today, the food, the parties, Frosty the Snowman and Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer are the holidays. That’s why we say, “Happy Holidays!” But that’s now Christmas.
After waiting for four weeks, Christmas comes with danger. Like the wise men, we may have to take a detour around the dangers of oppressive laws like those of a ruthless Herod. Like Joseph and Mary, we may have to flee from the dangers of persecution of the innocents like the brutality of Herod’s soldiers. Like Joseph and Mary, we may have to change our plans to avoid the dangers of other possible threats like Archelaus who was said to be worst than his father, Herod.
Christmas is a dangerous business. It is dangerous because it evokes dreams and hopes. When we put all of our “hopes and fears of all the years” to work, we are called to give all that we are to making our hopes and dreams come true. Imagine what this might look like. There would be peace in the world. There would be enough food for everyone to eat. Everyone would have the opportunity to live up to their potential and use their gifts. There would be no borders. TSA employees would have to find new jobs. Every child would have a family.
Christmas is dangerous business because we would shatter the false gods of materialism, and the idols of ambition, and the demons of self-importance, and set up the Christ child as the promise and priority of our lives. It’s dangerous to come up against these gods, idols, and demons that have a grip over our lives. They control us by running up our credit cards. They confuse us by telling us that being Number 1 is all that matters. They flatter us by telling us that the world revolves around us. When Christ is the center of our daily living, then these gods, idols and demons will fade away.
Christmas is dangerous business because it may lead us to a foreign land. Joseph, Mary, and Jesus had to flee to Egypt. When we follow Jesus, he often leads us into unknown territories. We find ourselves in uncharted and dangerous waters. But that’s what Christmas is all about—letting Jesus take our hand and lead us along our journey that may be filled with danger of the unknown.
There’s a story about a deacon who just didn’t do what he was supposed to do as a deacon. One day the pastor said to the deacon, “I have a group of young people who go to the old folk’s home and put on a worship service once a month. Would you at least drive them to the old folk’s home? The deacon agreed.
The first Sunday the deacon was at the old folk’s home, he was in the back with his arms folded as the youth were doing their thing up front. All of a sudden, someone was tugging at his arm. He looked down, and here was this old man in a wheelchair. He took hold of the old man’s hand and the old man held his hand all during the service. The next month that was repeated. The man in the wheelchair came and held the hand of the deacon.
The next month, the next month, and the next month.
Then the old man wasn’t there. The deacon inquired and he was told, “Oh, he’s down the hall, right hand side, third door. He’s dying. He’s unconscious, but if you want to go down and pray over his body that’s all right.”
The deacon went and there were tubes and wires hanging all over the place. The deacon took the man’s hand and prayed that God would receive the man, that God would bring this man from this life into the next and give him eternal blessings.
As soon as he finished the prayer, the old man squeezed the deacon’s hand and the deacon knew that he had been heard. He was so moved by this that tears began to run down his cheeks.
He stumbled out of the door and as he did so, he bumped into a woman. She said, “He’s been waiting for you. He said that he didn’t want to die until he had the chance to hold the hand of Jesus one more time.”
The deacon was amazed at this. He said, “What do you mean?”
She said, “Well, my father would say that once a month Jesus came to this place. ‘He would take my hand and he would hold my hand for a whole hour. I don’t want to die until I have a chance to hold the hand of Jesus one more time…”’
I know that in this past week, there was a newspaper article that suggests that dying people can’t will themselves to stay alive until they have fulfilled their dreams. But when it comes to God and Christmas, nothing is impossible.
After four weeks of Advent and more weeks before that of waiting for Christmas to come, it is now here. We may have thought that we were waiting for just a baby in a manger. But all along, we have been waiting for danger too.
Just like the first Christmas was filled with violence, flights, threats, deaths and danger, Christmas today is filled with suffering and danger too. It takes us into the dangerous business of living for our hopes and dreams. It’s the dangerous business of shattering our gods, idols, and demons. It leads us into unfamiliar and dangerous new territories in the world, like an old folk’s home so that we may be like Jesus.
Christmas is even more dangerous than a lion tamer putting his head in a lion’s mouth or a dare devil being shot from a cannon. We have waited this long for Christmas; now let’s get down to doing the dangerous business of Christ.
Let us pray.
Lord God, now that the waiting is over, we pray that you would guide us out of the comfort of the manger and into the world that is badly in need of peace and salvation. Even in the face of danger, we seek your power and strength to transform the kingdoms of this world to become your kingdom. May your promise of peace in Christ be ours. Amen.