Word of Salvation – Vol. 42 No. 46 – December 1997

The Slaughter Of The Innocents

An Advent Sermon by Rev. R. M. Brenton on Matthew 2:16-18

Scripture Readings: Matthew 2:1-32

Brothers and Sisters.

Here we have the story of the wise men from the East who followed the rising star to Judah, and then led by God's Word to the little city of Bethlehem.  There they found the one who had been born King of the Jews.  And they worshipped him.

This story, as Evangelist Matthew tells it, says very little about the people of Bethlehem, among whom Joseph and Mary and the infant child Jesus lived.  We know from Luke's Christmas story that the Bethlehem shepherds were led to the manger where the newborn baby Jesus lay.  And finding him there, they went out and spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child.  All who heard their report were amazed.

We do not know, however, whether the people of Bethlehem held the amazingly Good News of their Saviour's birth close to their hearts.  All we know for sure is that Jesus and his parents remained in Bethlehem after the birth.  They had a house of their own, and settled into that community.

The amazing news of the Saviour's birth apparently made little impact on the royal city Jerusalem (just 8 miles up the road) because the wise men, when they arrived in the capital, found no one who knew about the baby king being alive.  All that was known by the teachers of the law, anyway – was Micah's prophecy of the Christ to be born in Bethlehem.  But there was seemingly no knowledge of the birth having already taken place.  We can only wonder at how quickly the initial amazement surrounding the Saviour's birth faded as people got on with their everyday living.

But now, a year or so after the birth, a band of strange looking scholars from far away show up in Bethlehem.  They are seeking the one who was born King of the Jews in order to worship His Majesty with gifts of gold and incense.  If the exuberant tidings spread by Bethlehem's uncouth shepherds were soon forgotten so that baby Jesus could grow up without public acclaim, then surely the wise men's visit awakened Bethlehem's slumbering hopes once again.  Can it really be that Mary and Joseph's son is Him – the long expected Jesus Messiah – our comfort and joy?  Surely the wise men's visit raised the hopes of the people.

Those hopes were short-lived, however, because the wise men, warned in a dream to steer clear of the hateful King Herod, made haste to go back to their homeland.  Also warned in a dream to run from Herod's wrath, Joseph fled with Mary and Jesus way down to Egypt land.  Then Herod, having got wind that he was out-foxed by the wise men, flew into a murderous rage and ordered his soldiers to kill all the boys of Bethlehem who were two years and younger.  Instead of seeking out the Christ to find him so that he could destroy him, he slaughtered hundreds of innocents who were not the Christ.

What is the meaning of this seemingly senseless slaughter?  Or is there no meaning?  Was it simply a case of an evil heart run wild – like the recent Port Arthur slaughterer?  Was Bethlehem for some reason deserving this as a punishment for their indifference to the Saviour living in their midst?  Such questions as these have been asked by people long before our time.  Maybe you have wondered why with the same kind of questions.  We need to be careful of the questions we ask and the answers we accept.  It is dangerous to entertain questions whose answers lie beyond the bounds of revelation.

My brothers and sisters, all we know from divine revelation is that the Slaughter of the Innocents fulfilled what God's prophet Jeremiah had spoken long before.  Jeremiah said: "A voice is heard - weeping and great mourning; it is the voice of Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted because they are no more.”

We learn from Jeremiah that Rachel's weeping was first heard in the Day of Captivity when her children were taken from her, forcibly removed from the Promised Land.  Rachel, you recall, was Jacob's favourite wife; so she stands for the mother of God's chosen people Israel.  Surely we can understand – and sympathise with the great grief a nation feels when her children are taken from her.  It happens in war time.  We have our own memorial days like ANZAC Day to remember the loss of our children.

Matthew sees Herod's slaughter as a day of great grief for the Mother of Israel.  But to the Evangelist the slaughter is not merely a repeat of past losses; it is rather the fulfilment of prophecy.  This time Rachel weeping is the ultimate grief anticipated by the prophet Jeremiah.

There is something about Rachel's grief that is most revealing, and that must be told if we are to fathom Herod's slaughter.  It is that Rachel is heard not just weeping as we would expect – but refusing to be comforted.  Most of the time when people grieve they are willing to receive comfort from those who sit with them to share in their sorrow.

We go to the funerals of our loved ones and of our brothers and sisters in order to share in their grief and to minister comfort if we can.  To give comfort to another in her grief is the gracious thing to do.  But it takes just as much grace to receive comfort as it does to give it.  Yes, it truly takes grace to let a comforter into your life.  Sometimes, though, the mourner does not want to be comforted, does not want the grace being offered in the grief.

The Slaughter of the Innocents stands out as one of those instances in which comfort is refused.  Here the God of all comfort had sent his greatest Comfort to live in the heart of Bethlehem.  God's Comfort was truly in their midst.  But now Herod, in order to ensure that the one born King of the Jews be killed, kills all who might possibly be that one!  In losing so many of her children, Rachel loses all hope in the one God had sent for her comfort and everlasting joy.  The name of Jesus – once so full of hope for blessing – was now a name to be cursed.

Look at what Jesus' presence brought about!  Wasn't it for Christ's sake that her many children were taken from her?  Yes, it was because of Jesus that Herod's soldiers swooped down with their swords.  How could Rachel ever forget!  Bethlehem's hopes were smothered in blood!  May the name of Jesus never be heard by us again in this place!  In effect, that is what happened.  And that is why Rachel wept and refused to be comforted.  What comfort can possibly be left after dying for Christ's sake?  If we die and Christ lives – well, we know of course that Christ doesn't deserve to die – but where does that leave us?  God may be just, but who can bear that kind of justice?

Under circumstances such as these we can understand how the Mother of Israel might naturally be inclined to refuse any more of God's so-called grace in her now seemingly graceless world.  Our hearts go out to her.  And all the more so because the slaughter seems so senseless.  What meaning, what purpose could there possibly be?  What has God got to do with it?

Matthew doesn't say it in so many words – but in light of the whole story of God and His People, the Evangelist may be suggesting that the Lord would bring great good out of this grossest evil.  Perhaps God would find a way through this to prepare Rachel in the end to receive her true Son.

Consider this: when God called Jesus out of Egypt back to the land of comfortless Rachel, there was no homecoming for him.  The Saviour had been all but forgotten.  Under such circumstances God could easily conceal his Son (keep Jesus hidden) until the Day he was ready to reveal his Christ to the people.

Well, the Good News – the Good News that we preach – is this: the Lord's Day has come, the Day on which God had long planned to reveal his Christ.  On that Day the one whose Name the people had come to curse became the source of untold blessing – for Christ Jesus himself bore the curse that Day in his own body, even the curse of the most hateful and murderous sins.

Jesus took the curse of all the people's sins – yes, all the world's sins – upon himself.  And he let his body be nailed to a cross in order that all the sins and the curse that went with them might be crossed out forever – atoned and forgiven.

One Day, my brothers and sisters, the Christ child was pierced with the enemy sword.  On that Day the one true Innocent – innocent of your sins and mine and Bethlehem's – went to the death, bearing the sins of the world in order to bring the comfort and joy of salvation to all who will receive this grace through faith.

Doesn't this News compel each one of us to finally confess that Jesus was slaughtered for our sakes?  Israel's high priest unwittingly spoke the truth as he calculated the destiny of Jesus.  He said: it is expedient that one person die for all the people.  And so it was.  The one Jesus Christ had to be slaughtered to save the lives of all God's people.

Since he died in the Slaughter, there is now comfort for us whose whole lives were held in forfeit on account of our sins.  This means that there is comfort, too, for Rachel.  God has since (after Jesus died) raised her one true Son – the only true Son she ever had – from the dead.  God did it so that her many children might have life and hope.

May the Lord keep us from cringing in horror at the Slaughter of the Innocents.  May he instead open our eyes in awesome wonder as we see that his purpose was not overcome by Herod's evil, but that Herod's evil was overcome by the goodness of God's Innocent Lamb: our Saviour and Lord, Jesus Christ.

Praise His Name!

Amen.