Christmas - Joy or Despair
Matthew 2:1-18
Rev. John R. Hannem,
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Watch the screen or follow in your Bible as we read these familiar words from Matthew chapter 2 this morning: “When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. On coming to the house, they saw the child with His mother Mary, & they bowed down & worshiped Him. Then they opened their treasures & presented Him with gifts of gold & of incense & of myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.” (Matthew 2:10-12)
Christmas time can bring out very different reactions from different people. For many, it is a time of joy & giving. It is a time of parties & hearing from people we haven’t heard from for a long time - a very special time of the year.
But for others, Christmas is a time of sadness, loneliness, depression & despair.
A survey a few years ago asked people if they were looking forward to Christmas. While most answered "Yes," far too many said "No." When asked why, they gave a variety of answers, "Christmas reminds us of things that ought to be, but are not. Christmas is a time of love, but we feel very unloved."
"Christmas is a time of giving, but we don’t want to give, or can’t afford to give. Christmas is a family time, but there is anger & hostility within our family circles." You see, Christmas is a time of peace & good will, but too many are at war with themselves & with others. This caused someone to rewrite the words of a familiar Christmas carol:
"O little town of heartaches, how troubled we see thee lie.
Throughout thy deep & dream-tossed sleep our fears go marching by.
And in thy dark thoughts dwelleth our everlasting fright.
The dread & tears of all the years are visiting tonight."
The first Christmas wasn’t a happy time for King Herod, either. Listen to the words of Matthew 2:16-18, “When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, & he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem & its vicinity who were two years old & under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi.
“Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled: ‘A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping & great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children & refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.’”
Herod presents a very negative side to the Christmas story.
Everything else is so positive. Here are shepherds & Wiseman. Here are the angels who sing their joy. Here is the miracle of birth, the joy of God’s love, the radiance of His light. But in the midst of the whole Christmas story there is one negative person & one negative reaction.
Herod sees the birth of Jesus as a threat & a curse. So he issues an order that all little boys two years old & younger in
I. HEROD WAS SO WRAPPED UP IN HIMSELF THAT NOBODY ELSE MATTERED
The first reason seems to be that Herod was so wrapped up in himself that nobody else mattered.
When Herod looked in his mirror, what did he see? He saw a king with power, prestige, & wealth. He saw a king who wore designer robes & a crown, who held a scepter in his hand, seated upon a royal throne.
According to all the standards of the world, Herod was an immensely successful king. (47 BC – 4 BC. Built palaces & fortifications. Built the
Herod was very insecure. Why? The answer, of course, was given by Jesus long ago. "If you lay up your treasure only on this earth it won’t last very long. Moths eat it, or it rots away, or thieves break in & steal." It is yours but for a moment, then it slips from your grasp.
So here is Herod, the forerunner of all the Scrooges & the Grinches of Christmas, saying, "Bah, humbug," as he thinks about the Christ-child, because all of his treasure is right here.
Another problem with earthly treasure is that it never satisfies, it always cries out for more. It wants more of this & more of that.
That reminds me of a little boy who was being entertained by his sister at the Mall. They stopped at the video arcade, & in order to keep him quiet she gave him a handful of quarters & said, "Here, go play the video games."
So he began playing video games, but because his hand & eye coordination was not the best he quickly used up all his quarters. He came back to his sister & asked for more. She told him that she had no more quarters. "But I want more!" he said.
She said, "You need to learn that one of the rules of life is this, ’You don’t always get everything you want.’ The little boy clenched his fists, jumped up & down & said, ’I hate that rule!’" And so do most of us, too.
We are like the man who approached God & asked Him, "Lord, up in heaven how much time is a million years?" "Well," God said, "a million years is but a second in heaven."
"Oh!" said the man, "and up in heaven how much money is a million dollars?" "Well," said God, "a million dollars is only a penny in heaven." "Great!" said the man. "God, give me one of your pennies." "All right," said the heavenly Father. "Just wait a second."
Herod was like that man. Herod always wanted more power & more prestige. So when he heard that a king had been born, even though that new king was a helpless baby, he felt threatened because he was absorbed by the things of the world.
Fortunately, God doesn’t measure us by the standards of the world. There will always be someone who has a little more, or who is a little sharper, or who is better at what we try to do than we are.
But God says, "I love you so much that I send my only Son into the world to live with you & talk with you, walk with you & finally die for you. You are My children & I love you."
II. HEROD’S SINS HAD SO HARDENED HIS HEART THAT HE COULDN’T RESPOND TO OTHERS
The second reason seems to be that Herod’s heart had become so hardened that he couldn’t respond to others.
Every time I read this scripture I find myself wondering. "How could anyone do what Herod did? How could anyone issue an order to murder innocent children?"
The only answer is that Herod was so callused by his sin & so wrapped up in himself that he didn’t care about others any more. Sin does that. If you continue in your sin, it just gets easier and easier to sin each time.
We classify our sins. We speak of little sins & greater sins. I don’t think that God does that, but we do. Herod started out with little lies & little acts of dishonesty, & soon it was easy for him to issue the decree, "Murder innocent children."
There was not a bit of guilt, no tears of remorse, no repentance in his heart because sin had callused & hardened him. No longer was there any sensitivity in his life that would respond to the working of God’s Holy Spirit.
Christmas is a time of memories for most of us. We remember our homes & times with our parents & family.
I remember little gifts that communicated love & acceptance. I remember moments of inspiration during Christmas programs. I remember songs that moved me & caused a tingling up & down my spine. I remember being sensitive to God.
But years have come & gone. It has been easy for us to get so involved in the world & become less & less sensitive to God. So Christmas comes & we’re not even sure what it means to us anymore. We’re becoming callused.
But Christmas comes as a light in a darkened world, & it helps us see how unloving we have become, how insensitive we have become to God’s Spirit. It shows us how ungiving & greedy we are. It shows us how we really are.
God doesn’t want to punish anybody. He ultimately will have to, of course, but He is anxious, so anxious to forgive.
I came across a few sentences that I think communicates that truth so well. Written by Ann Weems, here is what she wrote:
"It was a family treasure. That golden vase, the priceless vase that had belonged to my great-grandmother & my grandmother & now to my mother. The vase sat on the mantle, out of reach of little fingers. However, I managed to reach it. I climbed to reach it, & I broke it. I broke the family treasure.
"Then I began to cry in loud sobs that brought my mother running. I could hardly get it out. ’I broke the vase,’ I said. ’I broke the treasure.’
"A look of relief came over her face, & she said, ’Oh, I thought that you had been hurt.’ She hugged me, & made it very clear that I was her priceless treasure."
You see, the message of Christmas is that God is our Father, a forgiving Father who stands ready & anxious to take us to Himself because we are His treasures, created in His image, & loved by His Son.
III. HEROD NEVER LEARNED THAT THE ONLY SATISFYING WAY TO LIVE IS TO LOVE
Christmas was a curse for Herod for a third reason. Herod had never learned that the only satisfying way to live is to live a life of love.
He had been taught that the only way to live is to exercise power, rule over others, manipulate lives, control situations, always be in charge. If anything gets in your way, then take care of it, even if it means chopping heads off baby boys. You take care of whatever gets in your way.
(Examples: Mariamne, Alexandra, Antipater, Alexander, Aristobulus, 3,000 men. Caesar Augustus said, “It is safer to be Herod’s pig than to be Herod’s son.”)
But Jesus came, saying, "That is not the way at all. The way to live successfully is to live a life of love."
Thirty-three years later there was a great showdown in the streets of
We can almost hear their voices, even today, "Take down His body & bury it in a tomb. Roll a stone in front of it, seal it with the insignia of Rome & put guards there & say, ’We have won! Might is right! Power has triumphed!’"
But has it? Nearly 2,000 years have come & gone. Today, the soldiers of
I know that there are empty lives. I know that there are hurts & pains. We all have them. But you see, Christmas comes to help us deal with those things.
A little hand reaches out of the manger & says, "Grab hold, I’ll lead you to the throne. I’ll lead you to the Father. I’ll lead you to the one who is anxious to show you the way of life if you’ll only follow me."
The Savior invites this morning. He offers His life & His blood for your sins, & He waits to see if you will accept His great gift.
The invitation of our Lord is extended this morning, & we pray that you will respond to it as we stand & as we sing together.