After they were gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, “Get up! Take the child and his mother, flee to Egypt, and stay there until I tell you. For Herod is about to search for the child to kill him.” So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night, and escaped to Egypt. He stayed there until Herod’s death, so that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet might be fulfilled: Out of Egypt I called my Son.
Then Herod, when he realized that he had been outwitted by the wise men, flew into a rage. He gave orders to massacre all the boys in and around Bethlehem who were two years old and under, in keeping with the time he had learned from the wise men.
Matthew 2:13-16
Christmas doesn’t always feel good.
For many of us, Christmas is the hardest time of year.
Christmas can make us all the more lonely. Christmas can bring back age old, painful memories. Christmas can make us weep, while it feels like everyone else is having fun. Christmas can burden us with insane pressure to juggle everything.
Illness doesn’t take a break at Christmas. Crime, abuse, addictions and conflict all keep marching. Death doesn’t pause in respect for the season.
For many, mental health can become an even bigger issue. For some, suicide becomes an attractive solution.
How can Christmas be good with all of that going on?
In Matthew’s Gospel, just after we read about the joy of the wise men visiting Jesus we read these horrible verses.
‘Herod is about to search for the child to kill him.’ V13
‘Then Herod, when he realized that he had been outwitted by the wise men, flew into a rage. He gave orders to massacre all the boys in and around.’ V16
It’s not the kind of stuff that gets mentioned in kids’ nativity plays.
Bethlehem was a small town. This massacre would have devastated the community.
How can God be good when such evils exist? How can this brutal darkness be part of the Christmas story?
This was the dark world Jesus entered. This is the dark world we still live in.
This is the brutal reality of the depths of sin and it’s effects on the world and our lives.
Here and now, life is painful.
We face other people sinning against us.
We face the brokenness of the world when accidents and illness hit us.
We battle our own hearts and struggle with our own sin.
And it’s right that it all feels wrong. It is wrong. God made the world good, but sin has ruined God’s good world.
It’s right to feel the burn of this world. It’s right to feel uncomfortable in the face of evil.
It is right to cry out to God, to express our grief, to mourn our pain.
This Christmas might hold nothing but pain for us. It’s right to lament that pain. Perhaps the only way we can relate to God is to unload all our emotion to Him. Perhaps taking our pain to Him is the only way we can show we trust Him today.
All pain, suffering or evil that we face serves to remind us that this world is broken.
But God is not.
He is still good. There is no evil in Him. He is not tainted by sin. And He sent His only Son in to the world to rescue His people.
O Come Let Us Adore Him.
A thought to remember: The world is painful, but God is still good.
A question to ask: What pain are you enduring that can cause you to cry out to God today?
A bit more to read: Matthew 2:13-23
A song to sing: O Lord, My Rock & My Redeemer