First Sunday after Christmas/25>>

Sermon read by Allan Bruhn
Sorry we missed the start.

Please read from the start and then listen.
Christmas is a time for celebrating. Christians celebrate by praising and thanking God for sending His Son as a baby to save us from sin. The unbelieving world also celebrates for it has a break from work, and embraces the tradition of gathering with family and friends to swap gifts and share time together with loved ones. Christmas is a time to step out of everyday life and live in holiday mode.

But the painful realities of life don’t take a break at Christmas time. Don’t we all keep an ear on the radio hoping the road toll this Christmas season will be zero, all the time knowing that some families will be shattered with bad news?

Imagine then, hearing the bad news of the death of all the boys under the age of two in a small town and its surrounding area. They did not die by accident. They were brutally murdered. Such were the events that took place in and around Bethlehem about two year after the birth of Christ.

The one responsible for the murders was King Herod. The visiting Magi searching for the exact location of the infant Christ went to Herod and asked him “where is He who has been born King of the Jews? … we have come to worship Him”. Herod had no idea that Jesus had been born, despite the Messiah being the hope of God’s people for thousands of years.

On hearing the news of Christ’s birth, Herod became concerned, because he saw Jesus as a threat to his throne. Herod was a paranoid man who would stop at nothing to keep his power. He didn’t want this child to be seen as his replacement. He planned to kill this rival, as he had done before by murdering his brother, some of his sons and even his wife.

Matthew tells us that all Jerusalem was troubled also, because they knew how ruthless Herod was in guarding his throne. The inhabitants of Jerusalem knew people would die because the Good News of the Messiah’s birth was heard as bad news by Herod.

Herod feared Jesus, not in ‘faith with love’, but in ‘unbelief with jealousy and rage’. He feared losing the kingdom he had worked so hard to obtain and hold onto. So, with hate and fear in his heart Herod had his men kill all the boys 2 years old and under in Bethlehem and in that entire region. This was a heartless and monstrous crime against innocent children and their families.

We look at what Herod did and we are repulsed by his cold-hearted brutality. Yet the same rebellion against God’s will that moved his hand to murder dwells in our hearts also. The Old Adam living within us rejects God’s will for us, and we think and we do evil. We plot revenge, we think about gaining or keeping power unethically, we speak unclean words,……….