What Kind of World Is This? The killing of children

What kind of world is this?

Matthew 2.

¹⁶ When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. ¹⁷ Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled:

¹⁸ “A voice is heard in Ramah,
weeping and great mourning,
Rachel weeping for her children
and refusing to be comforted,
because they are no more.”^[d]

God had a plan for this world which was evil and violent. A king could and did kill numerous children just to make sure no one challenged his claim to power. What kind of world is this?

It is a world that is loved by God. This part of the Christmas story is often overlooked. Children being killed. Mothers and fathers weeping for their children. What kind of world is this?

Into this kind of world God loves so much that He sent from heaven His one and only Son. At the end He would face the cruel cross and sweat drops of blood. He would be beaten with a whip laced with metal shards. He would be stripped naked and stuck on a pole between two thieves. He would die the cruelest kind of death to save the world. He was born to lay down His life. What kind of world is this?

Matthew 2.

2 After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi^[a] from the east came to Jerusalem ² and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”

³ When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. ⁴ When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born. ⁵“In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written:

⁶ “‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for out of you will come a ruler
who will shepherd my people Israel.’^[b]”

⁷ Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. ⁸ He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and search carefully for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.”

⁹ After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was.¹⁰ When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. ¹¹On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. ¹² And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.

Our hearts go out to the parents in New Town CT who have had their children murdered today, 12/14/12. Our prayers will be for them and the families of the adults killed and the people of the community there. The impact will be felt throughout our nation. What kind of world is this?

Christmas is a time when we celebrate the reality that God has not left this lost world lost. He sent His Son Jesus to teach a new kind of love. Love even for a world that wicked and lost.

This is the essence of the Christmas story. Great sorrow and loss matched by God’s great love. Let us comfort and carry and support those who grieve and get their hands into the hands of the Savior.

Merry Christmas!

Larry Wishard