Slices
Prepare
It’s tempting to avoid this passage today – preferring the familiar birth stories of Jesus. Yet scripture brings us face to face with the challenge of pain, suffering and evil intent. Ask God to speak through this tough passage.
Bible passage
The escape to Egypt
13 When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. ‘Get up,’ he said, ‘take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.’
14 So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, 15 where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: ‘Out of Egypt I called my son.’
16 When Herod realised 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.’
The return to Nazareth
19 After Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt 20 and said, ‘Get up, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who were trying to take the child’s life are dead.’
21 So he got up, took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. 22 But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning in Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. Having been warned in a dream, he withdrew to the district of Galilee, 23 and he went and lived in a town called Nazareth. So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets, that he would be called a Nazarene.
Explore
For the second time in biblical history we read of the slaughter of young children (v 16). In the days of both Moses and Jesus, a generation is wiped out in a localised area. Imagine the grief, the agony, the refusal of any comfort. Yet we face the reality of genocide in some areas of the world, children’s hospitals being bombed, news of appalling horrors we would rather not acknowledge. Parents would do anything to protect and shield their children, and grief in the loss of a child is a terrible thing.
Not the stuff of Christmas Day, we think. Matthew’s use of Jeremiah’s prophecy about Rachel weeping is stark (v 18), and yet the original is part of a promise of restoration, salvation and hope. In the depths of our human despair, it is the same God who comes alongside us, as the one who comforts and holds us in everlasting arms. ‘Was it always going to be like this?’ asked a friend facing the loss of their child.
Perhaps Matthew’s account gives us a long-term view that God was working out a salvation plan – enabling links to be made as we look back and wonder.
Respond
Pray for those who currently struggle with the agony of human suffering across our world.
Bible in a year
Read the Bible in a year: Zechariah 5,6; Revelation 18
Pray for Scripture Union
Today, as we rejoice in God’s wonderful gift of love, make some time to pray for children and young people who haven’t yet had the opportunity to hear the good news. Pray for those who are exploring ways of reaching them.
