Joy Overcomes Pain
Matthew 2:13-23
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
St. Matthew 2:13 Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, “Arise, take the young Child and His mother, flee to Egypt, and stay there until I bring you word; for Herod will seek the young Child to destroy Him.”
Dear fellow redeemed in Christ our Lord… The hymn that some of us sang on New Year’s Eve, “O Blessed Day When First Was Poured,” (TLH 115) was about the circumcision of Christ which the church observes on the eighth day of Christmas, January 1st. Since we do not meet January 1st, we focused on this the night before, on the Eve of the Name of Jesus. This very important day in the church year recognizes the first blood shed by our Savior, and it reminds us that Jesus did not come to escape our pain and suffering, He came to embrace it as His own.
Even so, the pain that accompanied circumcision was minor compared to the joy and celebration that also accompanied it. They joy was that another son was added to Israel, another offspring of Abraham – in fact, THE prophesied offspring of Abraham who was the true heir to the throne of Israel and to the Old Testament itself. God had kept His promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Therefore, the holy family realized that joy overcame pain, and blood was mixed with hope – not unlike the birth of a child. This also reminds us that both cross and comfort accompany Christmas.
Well, that theme is pursued even further in today’s Gospel where we hear of the horrific and unthinkable massacre of the little boys of Bethlehem. That event is memorialized in the church year also; it is known as the Feast of the Holy Innocents on December 29. The Holy Innocents were the children slaughtered by that monster King Herod, not to mention the fear of the holy family as they traveled in the middle of the night and fled to Egypt to escape that massacre. All of this is tempered by the joy and comfort of seeing God’s hand guiding the events in this story, protecting the Christ-Child, and keeping Him safe from harm, at least for now. This was indeed God’s gracious hand making sure that the Christ Child could grow up and die a “proper” death – a death on a cross in order to pay for the sins of the world. We are confronted here with the stark reality of who God is and how He governs the affairs of man. He does not prevent Herod from carrying out his massacre. He does not always step in and spare the innocent from suffering. Sometimes He does, but not always. He is the God who sometimes allows wicked men to carry out their wicked plans, and who, more often than not, does not tell us the reason why.
Here is what we know about this case as it is laid out in today’s Gospel… First, we know that God foresaw this event, even as He foresees all that happens in our universe – every event, every decision, every act by every man everywhere. We are told specifically that the slaughter of the children of Bethlehem was prophesied by the prophet Jeremiah. God most certainly knew ahead of time what wicked Herod would do.
Second, we know that, although God knew what King Herod would do, the responsibility for the wicked slaughter of Bethlehem’s children belonged to King Herod and him alone. The wise men were not to blame. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph were not to blame. And God did not wish for it to happen, nor did God intervene in human history to cause it happen and make Herod do what he did. Wicked King Herod alone was responsible, spurred on by the devil, of course. Herod alone is to blame. He caused it to happen by his own wicked will, together with the soldiers who carried out his wicked orders.
And third, we know that God not only foresaw – not only allowed – but also caused the holy family’s flight to Egypt, and the preservation of His Son there, and the return to Israel, to the city of Nazareth after Herod’s death – all of which was prophesied in Holy Scripture. God foresaw the protection of His Son and He also intervened in human history to make it happen. He sent His angel to Joseph three times to warn him, to guide him, and to see to it that he, Joseph, would protect Jesus.
Not only that, but, as we know from the Epiphany readings, God saw to it that the star of Bethlehem would guide the wise men to where Jesus was. And God also saw to it that King Herod would die an excruciating death not long after the holy family fled to Egypt, therefore ensuring that Israel would again be a safe place for God’s Son to live. Those are the facts of the story.
Now, some people would say that since God is omnipotent and the sovereign Ruler over all things, He could have intervened to stop Herod from slaughtering those little children. Therefore, they surmise, God is ultimately to blame for Herod’s massacre; it is God’s fault.
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Of course, it is very easy to blame God for everything that goes wrong in this world, isn’t it? He could step in and prevent horrible things from happening, right? That’s what so many unbelievers and not a few Christians say. But God’s sovereignty is really just a convenient excuse for the real cause of human pain and suffering and death. That cause is human beings – including you and me – and our sinful nature.
God didn’t intervene to stop Herod, just as He practically never intervenes to stop people from dying of any number of causes. But why? Couldn’t God stop it? Couldn’t God give us a fountain of youth and a cure for every disease? Of course He could. In fact, He did; it grew in the Garden of Eden, and it was called “the Tree of Life.” But God took it away when our first parents, Adam and Eve, sinned, just as He warned them ahead of time He would do. But they sinned anyway. So, God’s reason for allowing death by old age is the same reason for which He allows all the pain and suffering that men endure, including wicked men who carry out their wicked will and bring harm to others, even to God’s believing children: sinful mankind is under a curse.
All people deserve this curse, even little children, because all are conceived and born in sin; thank you very much Adam and Eve. Couldn’t God remove the curse from mankind? Well, yes, He could, and He did – by sending His Son into this world and making Him a curse for us. As St. Paul writes to the Galatians, “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”), that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith” (Gal 3:13-14). The blessing of Abraham was when God said to him: “In your Seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen 22:18). That, dear fellow redeemed, is what we celebrate at Christmas, and at the circumcision of Christ, and in the flight of the holy family to Egypt. We celebrate the unfolding of God’s plan to send His Son into the world to remove our curse from us and to bring the blessing of salvation through Christ’s death on the cross.
Our dear Lord Jesus Christ suffered for our sins; He died for our sins, taking into Himself the full-bore punishment for our sins that we deserved. And by doing that for us and in our place, Jesus removed God’s curse from all who believe in Him. Now, He hasn’t yet removed us from this world with its curse, nor has He freed us from the outward effects of that curse: that will come later. But Christ has atoned for our sins and given us eternal life through faith in Him, so that no matter what horrible things happen to us in this life, they are to be seen and received as only temporary hardships and crosses for us to bear. They are not permanent, and they are not punishments from an angry God.
Soon, dear fellow redeemed, soon God will completely and permanently remove the curse of sin and death from all who believe in Christ. Soon God will intervene and stop all the wicked men who seek to bring us harm. And not only will they be stopped, they will be judged and condemned. Soon… not yet, but soon. That is the comfort that accompanies the cross. That undeniable and divine truth is what keeps us going as we await the final Day of our Lord.
Take comfort that, even now, God reigns over human history. He preserves and protects us. He directs and defends us. And sometimes He even intervenes by not always allowing wicked men to get away with their schemes. Sometimes He intervenes with punishment for the wicked and with miraculous deliverance for the godly, and there are plenty of Scriptural examples of that. You and I have the sure and certain comfort from Holy Scripture that all things will work together for our good, and that God will not allow anything or anyone to harm us beyond the limits set by His fatherly will. He demonstrated that very clearly in the deliverance of the Christ-Child from Herod’s wicked hand.
The Christian celebration of Christmas is neither shallow nor cutesy, like the world’s pretend celebration of Christmas. We don’t ignore the reality of pain and sorrow and suffering in this season when we celebrate the birth of Christ. On the contrary, we know very well that the cross accompanies Christmas: Christ, after all, was born to die.
But we also know and believe that joy overcomes pain. Our God absolutely guarantees that. It is as St. Peter says: we “rejoice to the extent that we partake of Christ’s sufferings, that when His glory is revealed, we may also be glad with exceeding joy (I Pet 4:13).
That exceeding joy will be ours. Soon… not yet, but soon. And then everything we will have suffered and endured in this life will be gone forever as we rejoice forever in that glorious life of the world to come.
Come now to the altar to receive the true joy of Jesus’ body and blood for the forgiveness of your sins and the strengthening of your faith in all of God’s promises for you.
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
