Biblical Text: Matthew 2:13-18

The day on the church calendar is called Holy Innocents. The gospel lesson tells the simple story. Herod kills all two year old and younger boys in Bethlehem and the surround region. The Holy Family escapes to Egypt. But the text for me opens up a couple of lanes of pondering. The first is that we are simply powerless in front of so many things. I think you can summarize that powerlessness as in front of sin, death and the power of Satan. There are all kinds of specific pet sins. There are always Herods. And God remains mostly silent. He sends an angel to Jospeh and warns him, but not all those little boys. And there is a mystery to ponder there. The sermon does some of that. The second line is that we can only gain a form of mastery when we hand ourselves over to God. When we seek to align ourselves to His will and not to the will of the Devil, the world or our own flesh. Matthew sends us to Jeremiah 31 for a reason. Rachel weeps for her children, but the promise all around that line is the promise of joy, and life and return. “They shall come back from the land of the enemy. (Jer. 31:16 ESV)” Because of Christ, because of the Will of God carried out in his son, we shall come back from the land of our enemy death. There is no one who is “no more” to God.

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