MATTHEW 2:13-18

THE MESSAGE OF THE HOLY INNOCENTS: MATTHEW’S PERSPECTIVE

It is always difficult to deliver bad news. A week ago a very famous NFL Athlete learned of his Father’s sudden death. It fell to his best friend on the team to relay that news to him.

Matthew had to speak of a loved one’s death, but not just one–there could have been 10 or more innocent children, 2 years old and under, who were slaughtered in Herod’s mad attempt to kill the Christ child.

I’ll let Matthew himself tell you the whole story:

A blessed Christmas tide to you and yours! I am Matthew, formerly known as Levi; my previous occupation was Tax Collector. Now I am an Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ and the Author of what you call “The First Gospel.” I alone told you the story of the Magi, those spiritual descendants of Daniel and other Eastern Jews who were so earnestly waiting for the Messiah. The tragic trouble began when the Magi came to Jerusalem seeking the new-born King. One of your Authors devotes a chapter to Herod the King. It is entitled The Monster of the First Christmas.”

When Herod learned from his Bible experts that the birthplace was Bethlehem, he sent the Magi there, with his phony promise to follow them with a worshipful heart. Murder, not worship, was in the paranoid old King’s heart. When the Magi were warned by the Lord not to return to Herod, his murderous fury struck like a Viper.

By the time the camels of the Wise Men had crossed the Jordan on their way back to their Eastern home, the monstrous order had been given–kill every male child in Bethlehem 2 years old and under.

Your ever-ingenious Bible critics think I invented this story. No one’s evil imagination, even so dark as your E.A. Poe or Stephen King, could have a mind as dark as Herod. So incredibly brutal was this slaughter that some of your “scholars” have superimposed a great question mark over this part of the story.

But such a crime was very much in character for Herod in his last years, when illness and suspicion had deranged him. He was a great builder and Administrator in his earlier years, but now his mind was unhinged and extremely dangerous.

You may not know that he married 10 wives, who spawned a wriggling, ambitious brood of sons. They turned the palace into a human can of worms in their scheming to succeed him. Herod even killed his favorite wife, as well as her grandfather, her mother, his brother-in-law and three of their sons.

So monstrous was he, that on his deathbed he ordered government leaders to be imprisoned and killed at his death, so that there we would be mourning in Judea.

Don’t try to tell me that this monstrous crime was beyond Herod; I have seen way too many blood stains to believe that.

Your age has a favorite question: WHY? We all asked that too, but we didn’ t obsess upon it the way you do. Your Counselors have it right–You cry “It shouldn’t be this way!” But if all the ingredients are present for an explosion, it will happen, whether or not you think it should happen. We had no trouble understanding WHY? Sin was in our world as strongly as it is in yours. These children were innocent bystanders, “collateral damage” your Military people call it. They died because of a violent enemy attack against the infant Savior. The evil foe who had made Herod a Monster launched this campaign against Christ and he still wages war against Christ’s Kingdom, the Church.

The Savior even had to seek refuge in the large community of Jews in Alexandria, Egypt until Hurricane Herod had blown over. I wrote in my Gospel: (Mat 2:13 ) When the (wise men) had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up,” he said, “take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.” 14) So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, 15) where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: “Out of Egypt I called my son.”

Your Psychology writer Carl Jung had an oft-quoted saying: The death of a child is a period before the end of the sentence. It is bad enough to lose a child to illness. You can spend thousands of dollars and stay for months at the McDonald house and the child can still die, despite the best medical care you could find anywhere. But to have a child killed by a soldier’s sword is a sword through the heart, an ache that never goes away.

We need not ask WHY? We know how many die because of man’s lust for power. Innocent children die in your world from terrorist bombings; one moment they are playing in the Federal Building Day Care Center; the next the whole building collapses upon them. They can clutch their stuffed animals on an airplane and it is hijacked and flown into a building, killing thousands more.

It was the lust for power, no different than the terrorism in your time, that caused Herod to kill these children. Listen again to what I wrote about that: (Mat 2:16) 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.

I walked with Jesus for 3 years. There were misconceptions about him. Your people have some of them too. He did not come here to set things right as the Ruler of an earthly Kingdom; much less will He rule in Jerusalem for a 1 000 years as some prophesy today. Just as his coming didn’t bring earthly peace in my day, so he will not bring it in yours. In fact, he made it clear that he will often be the cause of division. One time he said: (Mat 10:34) Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35) For I have come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter_in_law against her mother_in_law–36) a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household. When I heard of those dead infants, it reminded me of an O.T. story, from the only Bible that I knew. Rachel, the mother of Joseph & Benjamin, died while giving birth to Benjamin. The image haunts me and sometimes I cannot evade it: (Mat 2:18) “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.”

Your writer Albert Barnes understood it well: By a beautiful figure of speech, the prophet introduces the mother weeping over the tribe, her children… Few images could be more striking than this– to introduce a mother, long dead, whose tomb was near, weeping bitterly over the terrible calamities that befell her descendants. The language and the image also aptly and beautifully expressed the sorrows of the mothers in Bethlehem when Herod killed their infant children.

The Savior came to dry tears in his own way and time. We asked the WHY QUESTION too while Jesus hung on the cross. We later learned that his death conquered Satan, that old evil foe, and conquered sin and death. So many of our questions were answered when he rose from the dead on Sunday morning. Some of you have lost children and you still have no answer to your WHY question. So many others are angry with God that one of your authors has written a book entitled THE HIDDEN RIFT WITH GOD. Do not continue to ask this question now; ask it of Jesus when you see him face to face. He will dry your tears and you will never taste their salt again. My fellow Evangelist John wrote in the last Book of the Bible: (Rev 21:4 ) He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” 5) He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”

I bid you farewell in the name of Jesus, the Word made flesh, Son of God and Son of Man. Amen.

Grateful acknowledgment is given to Dr. Paul Meier for insights gained from his book First Christmas: The True and Unfamiliar Story

Wayne Dobratz