Kill the Christ
Rev. Richard A. Bolland

Matthew 2:13-15; 19-23
(December 26, 2004 Sermon Transcript)

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        Please be seated.

        Just for the record, the people of God have sung the hymn you have just sung for 1600 years. It was written somewhere in the neighborhood of the year 400, and has been one of those great hymns of the faith, although perhaps not the catchiest tune, ever since that time.

        God’s peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

        A rather unusual thing happened on Christmas Day in the year 1914. Perhaps some of you are familiar with the story. But it’s such a good one it bears retelling. On that day, that Christmas Day of 1914, German, French, Belgian and British troops were caught in violent fighting along the western front of that particular war, locked in pitched and bloody battle, during the firing of who knows how many rounds of artillery and ammunition. Also in the midst of poison gas clouds that killed and blinded many in that terrible war, were the soldiers.

        But somewhere, in the middle of Christmas Eve, Christmas carols broke out. And from one side of the trenches, sometimes, with no man’s land between only yards apart, the Germans would sing Stille Nacht and the British would answer with Silent Night. Lobs of different kinds!

        And so, the hymn-singing continued until the next morning, and then, strangely enough, it was the Germans who seem to have taken the first step. They got up and held up a flag of truce, and began approaching the forces on the other side of no man’s land. And to their credit, I suppose, the British and the French (and this happened, by the way, quite spontaneously along the lines and accross nationalities) returned the favor, and came out also under a flag of truce. And they decided that they just weren’t going to fight on that particular Christmas Day.

        And so they took the time to exchange cigarettes and cigars, and perhaps a bottle of liquor, and played a football game or two, and took the time to bury the dead who had been left in the land in between.

        And then, of course, Christmas was over.

        Some of the legends about that particular unauthorized fraternization with the enemy say that immediately the fighting resumed. But in actuality, that isn’t really the case. Indeed, it usually lasted quite some time after that, sometime all the way to the New Year’s Day. In fact, it had such an effect on the men that after that they decided, those who were in command, that we had to have artillery barrages on Christmas Eve to assure that this sort of thing didn’t quite happen again. And in some places they actually had to relieve the troops to get them away from the lines. For, after all, the war had to prosecuted.

        I would suggest, in a much more mild way, we might find ourselves somewhat in the same circumstance, as does the Christchild’s family, as we look at the lesson of the Gospel this day.

        Christmas was over. The shepherds had gone back to the fields. And, for you, Christmas is over. And right now, if you look at the bareness under your Christmas tree, you’ll probably find that the festive wrappings are laying about all over the floor, if they have not yet been picked up or already stowed in the trash. And some of the toys that have been given are probably already damaged, if not broken. And what’s more, all that company that came, probably if it hasn’t already left, is thinking about leaving. And so the relative peace and quiet of Christmas and the celebrations of Christmas are just about over. And oh yes. Then there’s those bills! They are going to be coming, and they must be paid.

        That’s the damage that we survey at this Christmas Day 2004. No Christmas makes the concerns of life go away. At best, they just postpone them for a little while. And it would seem, in this text, this Gospel lesson, that the family of Jesus also ended up with some rather harsh realities to deal with.

        For the infant Jesus and His family the quiet of Christmas did give way to the beginning of hardship. Please notice that this tiny baby had come for the express purpose of conducting mortal combat with Satan, and those minions of his kingdom with our souls at stake. This battle was fought on the enemies own territory. This evil one is, after all, the prince of this world. It was territory he had been granted when he lost the war in heaven to the superior forces of Michael the Archangel. It was territory he solidified when, indeed, our first parents fell into sin in the Garden of Eden, throwing the world into chaos, and the creation being made less than what God intended it to be.

        From the book of Romans, St. Paul writes, The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.

        Even the creation had fallen. And now, we live with the results of the fall. And so we come to this text and we read of the very first engagement of this war. The true engagement of evil against good, of the forces of Satan against that of God and His son. King Herod, simply put, wanted Jesus dead. He wanted to kill the Christ. Make no bones about it. He proved his resolve in this matter in a most terrible and awful way, as we are, I guess, privileged to read in the Gospel of St. Matthew. Matthew writes, When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled: "A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more."

        And so the slaughter of innocents was conducted, and the battle was engaged.

        I might point out that God will not, under any circumstance, permit His will for the salvation of mankind be thwarted. There’s too much at stake. For He loves us, you see, even though we are sinners. And He determined that He would wrest us from the grasp, the eternal grasp, of Satan, and make us His own, once again. And so the will of the Father was determined to help the Son survive. And with His survival came our own as well.

        As it was in centuries past, the salvation for all men found exile in Egypt. You’ll recall that, in the midst of a great famine, God used another Joseph to bring Jacob [Israel] to a place of safety and plenty, when people were dying all around him.

        And so, the words of Hosea the prophet ring true also for the Son of God, when he writes, When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.

        Mary and Joseph and her child are not the only ones who are helpless. Consider the odds with which they must have dealt. They are but a poor family, a working family, a blue-collar family (if indeed there was such classification of people at such time). And they are arrayed against whom? Well, the king! Herod! With his armies, and with his might, and with his weapons. This doesn’t seem like much of a contest.

        If we looked at it from the way the world looks at things, it was a done deal. Jesus, Joseph, and Mary would simply be destroyed. But I would suggest to you, that is a parody, an analogy if you will, of our own situation. For indeed, we are as helpless as any newborn infant in the face of the onslaught of Satan and his accusations about our sin. We have absolutely no way to win this war on our own. We cannot by our own reason or strength survive such a war. Like the baby Jesus, we too need protection, and we too cannot survive, because we really are guilty of every last one of Satans’ accusations about our sin. It seem this is the only time that the old evil one actually tells the truth, is when He declares to us the reality of our own sin.

        Satan, the name itself, means the accusing one. And so, day by day, year by year, he stands in front of us wagging his crooked finger and issuing his words of condemnation, that we might believe it and despair.

        However, we do not. Each and every one of us has demonstrated over and over again that, were it left to ourselves, our real loyalty is to ourselves and to our own appetites, rather than to conforming to the will of God.

        Therefore, thanks be to God that the Father is willing to bring us back home, just as He brought His own son back from Egypt, to His home. There was, you see, a homecoming for Jesus in the midst of all the danger. We find it when we find that Herod had died, and an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, and said, "Get up! Take the child and His mother and go to the land of Israel. For those who were trying to take the child’s life are dead." So he got up, took the child and His mother, and went to the land of Israel.

        But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning in Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there, and I might add, with very good reason. There had been a power struggle between the sons of Herod after the king’s death. And Archelaus wanted it all. And he fought against some of the others, and finally he prevailed. But at an expensive price. For those who were supporting the other sons got in his way. And one day, at the might of his army three thousand innocent of his nation, and of his people, were slaughtered. No wonder. No wonder that Joseph sought refuge, not in Egypt this time, but in Nazareth. Nicely out of the way. And so the prophecy is fulfilled that He shall be called a Nazarene.

        It seems this precious child, in the midst of the conflict in which He’d come to engage, was a perfectly obedient man. Would that it could be said of any of us, that we were. Would that it be said of any of us that we had kept the law, but we cannot say it. For try as hard as we might, we are sinners. And we continually succumb to the temptation to serve our own interests. And so we need outside help in this business of law-keeping.

        And so, God sent His Son, who, among other things, was the perfect keeper of the law. And so, He keeps the law without flaw, without mistake, without sin. And as a precious free gift, He extends to you and to me the perfection of His own sinlessness. His own lawkeeping.

        To be a perfectly obedient man, keeping the law of God without mistake, is one of His gifts to us. And God, being God, is just.

        Now normally we like justice. Especially when it’s inflicted on someone else. But this justice is for all men. This justice embraces all sin. This justice will make sure that there is payment for every last sin that you and I have ever committed, along with every other person on the face of this globe.

        God does not take sin lightly, but punishes it completely. And the only question is, on whom will the punishment fall? For those who insist on taking God on on their own terms, it will fall on them. And they will be judged according to the law. And, as all sinners are, in the face of God’s perfection, that judgment will find us wanting. And we will be condemned.

        But for those who bear the name of Jesus Christ, for those who have received the cleansing of the washing of regeneration of Holy Baptism, at which time God graciously placed His name on us, there is no fear of the justice of God. For that justice has been meted out. For indeed, thus the fulfilling of God’s righteous demand for justice has been carried out! Not on us! But on His Son. ON this precious, innocent, Holy Son.

        All the punishment that was due to us, He received. Indeed, on the cross for us, Christ became the greatest sinner, the worst adulterer, the most terrible thief, and every other kind of sin you can imagine, for us. He became sin for us, that we might be cleansed of our own. And knowing that this great victory could not come from our hearts, nor from our hands, Jesus rose from the dead on Easter Sunday, and that way He establishes for us that death will not have the last word in our life. The grave is not the end. But there is more. There is life through Christ. Who lives, who suffers, and who rises from the dead, so that we might live, and not suffer, and rise from the dead as well.

        In Christ, then, we are brought home to our maker. A homecoming for us, too. Thank God! It is a measure of God’s grace, and only God’s grace, for not a bit of it did we deserve. Such a precious homecoming, dear friends, is recognized by those who bear the name of Jesus with loving and grateful obedience to the will of God. Behold the faith which leads to obedience for Mary and Joseph in this text! First remember that it is not within our power to obey God. It is not of human work that this obedience happens, but rather, it is as the scriptures rightly say of it, this is the work of Christ who lives in us.

        In Phillipians, the second chapter, it makes it very clear. Paul writes, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.

        Christ in us is the reason for our obedience.

        In the midst of all the uncertainty and evil of our times, let if be known that God has provided a place of sanctuary for us as He did for His Son. It is not perfect. Imagine what was required of Mary and Joseph, a people of few means. Thank God for the gifts of the three magi, that undoubtably sustained them at the time. They had to go to a foreign land, second class citizens, non-Egyptians, if you will, in the land of Egypt. And to stay there, and make a living there, and keep body and soul together there in a place where they probably didn’t have the most respect.

        And then, to move back, and to avoid the enemy. In all the trials of life, whether it be illness or accident, or betrayal or broken relationships, or aging or whatever the battle is that we are cumulatively or individually engaged, let it be known that our Egypt is the church. The church is the sanctuary. That’s why we call this room by that name! This is a place where God protects us in this world. And He does so with fine weapons. Weapons of word and sacrament! Weapons of His spoken will, given to us in the holy, inspired, and inerrant word of God, which we may trust, when nothing else seems trustworthy. And we may come to the altar and there kneel and there receive within our own lips the very body and blood of Jesus Christ. That is a sanctuary beyond compare on this globe.

        Egypt wasn’t perfect. Neither is the church. Egypt was full of sinners. So is the church. We have a pretty good collection of us right here this morning. I want you to know that here sin continues to live, but forgiveness continues to reign. And what’s more, here too unkindness can be known. But here too grace overwhelms it.

        Yes, the peace and quiet of Christmas is now rather a thing of the past already. But now, life will faced with all of its difficulties and with all of its demands. But remember this. We are on the way home. God has not left us. We continue sailing through the difficulties of this life in the ship of the church, there receiving the gracious gifts of life and forgiveness. Oh yes, and that most wonderful word, peace. Peace. Even in the midst of strife. Even in the midst of doubt. Even in the valley of the shadow of death. Peace.

        And when the time is fully come, we will get home. We will get home and we will be home forever with Christ.

        And so, there you have it. A blessed Christmas to you. In the name of the Prince of Peace, Amen.