Towards Sunday, January 8, 2016 (Epiphany Sunday)

Reading: Matthew 2:1-18
(When Jesus is born in Herod's kingdom -- or, rather, the kingdom that Herod precariously manages for the newly centralized Roman Empire, magi come from another country to pay homage to Jesus as newborn king of God's people, and they come to Herod to ask where the new king is.  A new king to rouse and rally the people is the last thing Herod needs right now, so he shares the prophecies of the king's emergence with the magi and tells them when they find the little king to let him know where he is.  The magi find Jesus, pay him due homage, and at the urging of an angel they avoid Herod on their way home.  Knowing he has been tricked, and still wanting to be rid of the new king, Herod orders a massacre of all boys under the age of two in the general area in which Jesus was to be born.  Fortunately, an angel also nudges Joseph to take Mary and Jesus to a safe place in Egypt before Herod's soldiers arrive.)

Massacre of the Innocents by Leon Cogniet (French painter, 1794-1880)

And some people think the Bible is boring.  And out of touch with reality.

Maybe it's because we usually we stop the reading at verse 12. We let the magi visit Herod's court to get directions, find Jesus in Bethlehem where they pay him homage and give him their gifts, and then "having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road."  

Except that's not the end of the story.  That's only the Disney version.  The nightly-news and morning-paper version goes on to report that what follows is a top-down-directed massacre by government troops of all boys under two years of age in and around Bethlehem, to do away with any threat to Herod as king and to the way he and Rome define law and order.

And with stories of Bosnia and Rwanda in our recent memory, and of Aleppo and other places of massacre, terrorism and genocide in our daily news, how can we not tell the whole of the story as Matthew tells it?  2016 alone was such a dark and fearful year -- a year of such division, rancour, conflict and despair throughout the world, that to ignore the darkness into which Jesus was born seems somehow disingenuous.  It would suggest that perhaps we can find light and hope -- good news of God's kingdom, only by ignoring the darker realities of the world and leaving them out of the story that we tell.

If ever there was a time to face and enter in to the darkness in our quest to find God and God's kingdom, this is it.

But how do we do that, and what do we find?  

Is it enough to be able to say that one desperate couple was able to save their son by fleeing to another country?  Is this sign enough of God's kingdom in the world?

Does it mean something to be able to point to the death of Herod, and the eventual undoing of the evil of his kingdom, and of all tyrants' reigns?  Does this reassure, and give us hope and strength in the struggle?

Can we maybe say with confident hope that God always is a God of death and resurrection, that with God there is no final end, and that from the ashes of 2016 like from the graves of Bethlehem, God brings life from death and good even from evil -- in some way turns disaster and tragedy to some good end, somehow redeems all things even if only through great suffering and death?

Do any of these "answers" appeal to you?  Or is there some other hopeful way yet of looking at things that fits with your faith in God and experience of the world?

One thing for sure, though.  In these times we are not unlike the magis in this painting below that will be part of our worship this Sunday. 

Adoration of the Magi by Abraham Bloemart (Dutch painter, 1564-1651)

 

 

There we are -- coming to see Jesus and pay him homage as our Lord, with dark and ominous clouds overhead, soldiers perhaps in sight in the background, shadows engulfing some of us, and some of us feeling a need to be looking over our shoulder and behind us at the threats that are out there.  And still, at the heart of it all, the little child vulnerable and open -- reaching out to us, and a star to call us and show us the way no matter what darkness comes.