That was a terribly sad time in the lives of a lot of
people.
The most significant event of all time had happened. We know
the event as Emmanuel – God with us.
Christ had been born. God had come down from heaven in the form of his only
begotten son. Incarnate. Born of the Virgin Mary. To ever after be known as the
King of kings and Lord of lords.
The personal history of King Herod is an interesting one to
read. The idea of a King being born in Israel who would rise up to usurp his
position of authority was more than he could accept.
“When Herod saw that
he had been tricked by the wisemen, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed
all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old and under,
according to the time that he had learned from the wisemen.”[1]
Herod did not know that the wisemen had been warned in a
dream not to return to him to report on the location of the one that he
considered a personal threat. He also did not know that Joseph, too, had experienced
an angelic visitation where he was told to flee to Egypt with Jesus and Mary
where they were to remain until they were told to return to Jerusalem.[2]
The image of parents weeping and wailing as Herod’s soldiers
snatched their babies and toddlers from them provokes feelings of both sadness
and anger.
Both of these emotions are justifiable. What happened was
horrific.
The sadness and anger evoked by the story are not, however,
the complete picture.
I have to remember that Christ was not an afterthought in
the mind of God. He knew beforehand, before he spoke creation into existence,
before he created the couple in the Garden, that sin would corrupt their hearts
and that their corruption would be passed on to their offspring throughout
every generation. God had a plan for the salvation of humankind even before
Adam and Eve succumbed to the temptation that corrupted their created beings.
God told the tempter in the Garden, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your
offspring and hers; he will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.”[3]
God began, in these few words, to unveil his foreordained
plan for the salvation of humankind. Though the tempter would indeed bring pain
and suffering to the Offspring of the one that would be known as the New Eve
(Mary), the Offspring of the New Eve would be completely victorious in crushing
the tempter and all his evil plans to corrupt, degrade, and destroy the created
children of God.
I have to remind myself that suffering for the sake of
Christ is a very real part of God’s greater plan of salvation for humankind. I
also have to remind myself that the reason the tempter has not already been
consigned to the final judgment against him – the reason he is still tempting
and deluding – is that, without his diabolical work in the world, we would have
no temptations or evil actions to prove ourselves against.[4]
Suffering for Christ is not a popular topic in this modern
age where the pop-Christian airwaves are filled with prosperity
and other teachings. Modern ears would rather hear that God wants to make
them rich rather than hearing that suffering for the sake of Christ is a normal element of
what it means to be Christian.
I cannot help but to think of the Holy Innocents who died in
Jerusalem because of the ill-will of Herod. They did absolutely nothing to deserve
death as infants and toddlers. Yet they suffered and died.
Christ suffered and died a brutal death before being
resurrected on the third day.
I cannot help but to think of all the Holy Martyrs, Saints, and saints over the ages. Men, women, youth, and children that suffered and died for
one simple reason – they loved Christ and were hated by those filled with
ill-will. Beginning with the very earliest ones, and continuing into this
modern age, Christians have suffered some terrible sufferings.
I cannot help but to think about what Saint Paul wrote while he awaited his own trial and death for the Gospel. “I am now rejoicing in my
sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am completing what is lacking in
Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church.”[5]
Am I to believe that the sufferings and death of the Lamb of
God, and all the sufferings and deaths of the lambs of God throughout the ages,
are meant to make me a millionaire? I hardly think so.
I have to remember, too, that we are still completing the
picture that portrays the salvation of humankind through Christ. This portrait
will not be complete – come what may - until that day when the trumpet sounds, Christ appears again, and all of us are
caught up together to meet Christ in the air.[6]
[1]
Matthew 2:16
[2]
Matthew 2:12-15
[3]
Genesis 3:18
[4]
Ephesians 6:12
[5]
Colossians 1:24
[6] 1
Corinthians 15:52
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