"THE WORLD INTO WHICH THE PRINCE OF PEACE COMES"

12/30/01  The Rev. Ted Broadway

SERMON

I hope you each had a wonderful Christmas. We had a fine Christmas. After all of the folderol (great, fun folderol, mind you) we had a quiet home Christmas- just Sue and Jon and me. We got up really late (which will probably not happen for many years). We ate our traditional green eggs and ham [yes we like them Sam I Am]. Don't ask. We didn't start opening gifts until 11 AM. Jon is 2 1/3. Last year he didn't much care about the presents but the boxes and paper he was crazy about! Boxes for hiding and rolling around in and paper for chewing! We thought maybe we would fool him this year and just wrap up boxes with pretty paper. Then we thought better of it. This year Jon got nice gifts but he really went nuts over the bubble wrap that protected some of his gifts. With his Barney slippers on he did a fine new dance- the Bubble Wrap Stomp.
 
As I considered what text to preach on today I considered a couple of things: first, from a traditional and liturgical point of view Christmas is not over yet. The Christmas season this year lasts until January 6- Epiphany. Secondly, I looked for a text that does not get preached on so often as to be too familiar. And thirdly, I wanted to take a good look at the world into which Jesus comes. Why did he come and what difference does it make?
 
The text is not a popular one- the Massacre of the Innocents- Herod's killing of all little boys two and under in and around Bethlehem in order to be rid of his rival, Jesus, the toddler King. Maybe having a two-year-old boy in Barney slippers has made me sensitive to this text. In any case, I do not believe I have ever heard a sermon on it. We even tend not to sing the haunting, disturbing carol associated with it- the Coventry Carol- Mary's lullaby for Jesus just before Herod's monstrous act of murder.

"Lullay, thou little tiny child. By, by, lully lullay. O sisters too, how may we do, for to preserve this day, this poor youngling for whom we sing. By, by, lully, lullay. Herod the king in his raging, charged he hath this day, his men of might, in his own sight, all children young to slay. Lullay, thou little tiny child. By, by, lully lullay. Then woe is me, poor child for thee, and ever mourn and say, for thy parting not say nor sing, by, by, lully lullay."

It is a terrifying story- made all the more terrifying by events that have forced us to see the cheapness of human life many hold in our violent world.
 
One of the great Christmas movies is It's a Wonderful Life- the 1946 classic Frank Capra film. Jimmy Stewart stars as a depressed George Bailey- so depressed he is thinking of taking his own life. An Angel Second Class named Clarence gives George a chance to see what life would be like if he had never been born. What he sees gives him hope and zest for life. Pastor Dr. D. James Kennedy took this as a springboard for the question, "What if Jesus had never been born?" What difference did it make?
 
This is kind of a good news/bad news story. First the bad news. Herod is not the only one who wished Jesus had never been born. Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche coined the phrase "God is dead" and saw Christianity as a poison. Jozef Stalin and Mao Tse Tung each tried to eradicate Christianity and millions of professing Christians were slaughtered. Hitler wanted to be rid of Christianity after he had finished with the Jews. Another 16 million died. In the news today, Indonesian Muslims are calling for "holy war" against Christians. Thousands have already died. Persecution against Christ and His people has never been more intense. Wherever people want to be rid of Christ people become expendable. Theologian Dale Bruner put it this way- "Those who begin by hating the Child will end by hurting children. Hating revelation leads to hurting people. If people will be ungodly they will be inhumane. Herod is the Gospel's earliest evidence of this fact."
 
But the crux of the matter is far more than a story about "them" bad guys and "us" good guys. "All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God," Paul tells us in Romans. It is about what the Scripture calls "the mystery of iniquity". It is about why all human beings are fallen enough, bad enough to need a Savior. The bad news is bad.
 
Do you believe that? Survey says that most people, even church people, believe people are basically good. Scripture and history say [X- wrong answer] otherwise. Not long ago a Norwegian statistician recorded every war that had ever been fought. His findings? During 5,560 years of recorded history there have been 14,531 wars- that is 2.6 per year! The statistics on child abuse are awful. There are also the thousands of acts of uncontrolled anger, words that leave wounds, some life long. People abandon their marriages at an alarming rate. People lie, cheat, steal, yell profanities at others while driving and spend so much time at work that they do not communicate with their own children. And it is not just what we do- it is also what we fail to do. Why is there hunger in the world? Because we permit it. Why are there children by the millions living in the streets of the world's cities. Because we permit it. The Scriptures say, "If we say we have no sin we are self-deluded and strangers to the truth." No, people are not basically good. They are basically fallen and need a Savior.
 
We learn from this text that if Jesus is Lord then we are not. Matthew intentionally shows us two rivals to kingship. Notice this: Matthew calls Herod "King Herod" until the Magi worship Jesus. Immediately after he is never again called king- he is symbolically dethroned. Jesus is the true King and King of our lives. His. Yours. Mine. Everyone's. Although Herod is a particularly graphic example, the human person is infected with a diseased self-centeredness. It shows itself in all people. Incurvatus in se is what Martin Luther called our condition- curved in on ourselves, which by definition bends us away from the Living God. We want to be king but we stink at being king. But if Jesus is king, then what we thought was our sovereignty is over. We are not here to get our way. We are not here to get ahead. We cannot live life any way we choose. We are here for the sake of the One King.
 
Ooooeee. Are you ready for some good news? About a century ago a French engineer asked his students, "What is the most important thing to come out of a mine?" After many guesses at this mineral and that precious stone the engineer said, "The most important thing to come out of the mine was the miner." Amen! Each human life is made in the image of God and important enough for God to send His Son to die for. You see, the innocent boys were killed in the beginning of the Gospel and the innocent Son of God at the end. He died for our sins and to gain for us salvation. You, I, the boys of Bethlehem, and our enemies and persecutors are that precious to God. What difference has it made? Is the world a better place because Jesus was born?
 
Here's the really exciting stuff. Before Jesus women had few if any rights and their lives were cheap. In ancient cultures, women were property of their husbands. Read Plato, Aristotle, texts from ancient China and India. Jesus deeply valued women and so do His people after Him. Over the centuries Christianity abolished slavery. In America 2/3 of the members of the abolition society in 1835 were ministers! There is still slavery in Communist and Muslim lands. When a slave is seen as a brother in Christ and the image of God slavery had to go- it took a while- but in Christian lands it went. Gladiatorial shows, with their fights to the death, were ended in the fifth century because a monk named Telemachus was killed when he jumped into an arena to stop two gladiators from killing each other. Because of the desire of Christians that every person have access to the Bible and be able to read it on their own literacy and education flourished. Almost every one of the first 125 colleges and universities was begun as a Christian institution. Harvard was begun with a grant of money and the library of Rev. John Harvard. Most secondary schools and colleges in countries like Egypt and Cameroon were started by Presbyterian missionaries. I could go on- hospitals, health care for missionaries, science human rights and much more.
 
But I want to get back to children. A Gallup poll in 1990 showed that Christians gave $19 billion to charitable causes, primarily those dealing with children and the elderly. World Vision, Samaritan's Purse, Christian Children's Fund, Compassion International, George Mueller's orphanages, the YMCA all founded to care for and reach children with the Good News of Christ. Right now, as we sit here in this sanctuary, a young man from this church and his two friends are living out a call from God on their lives. Walley Fipps came to youth group, a few years ago, kind of a wayward kid. God got hold of his life. In the last year or so the Lord showed Walley the thousands of children living on the bitter cold winter streets of Romania and told him to go do something about it. We met together weekly and prayed over this. As a venture of faith, today Walley, Seth and Syrus are finding and feeding and sharing the love of Jesus with the street children of the city of Constanta. Walley considers it an honor and a high calling. And so do I. He is making a real difference in this violent, lonely, loveless, devaluing world. He would blush if he heard this and say it was Jesus who is making the difference. And he would be right. Peace rules the day when Christ rules the heart.
 
I want Jesus to reign in this world. I want people to come to Him and accept Him as Lord and Savior. One of the reasons I want this is a selfish reason. Unlike Herod's world, a world that killed all the Bethlehem two year olds, I want a safe, beautiful, love filled world for my boy in his Barney slippers to grow up in. 
 

amen