Video Transcript:
Good afternoon, faithful eNews readers.
I just wanted to bring a short greeting to you here on Christmas week. We know it's a busy week, a joyous week, a week that's full of activity. And this particular year in Advent, I've been just kind of enamored with Matthew chapter 2.
It's one of the things I love about the church calendar is it takes us through these passages year after year that there are passages that perhaps we've read hundreds of times or perhaps even thousands of times. And yet scripture is this multifaceted diamond that there's always something new there to discover. There's always something maybe that we haven't seen in the same light that just comes through in fresh and new ways. And this year's been one of those experiences for me.
In Matthew chapter 2, beginning in verse 1 says,
"After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, magi from the east came to Jerusalem 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.’ When King Herod heard this, he was disturbed and all Jerusalem with him.”
Those last words have just hit me in the most profound of ways this advent as I've thought about Jesus coming into this world and the reaction of King Herod so different from the reaction of some of the other players in the nativity. The shepherds who come and worship and rejoice. The magi who will be overjoyed to find him and bow in worship. But it says that Herod was disturbed and all of Jerusalem with him.
Of course, we know that part of this disturbance is Jesus is a threat. He's a new king. He's a threat to Herod's own reign as king. And I would imagine that this provoked fear, maybe other emotions as well. And we know the tragic lengths that Herod's going to go to stop this threat that he's going to slaughter hundreds of young males to try to stop the threat of this new king. But this has had me think a lot about just what disturbs us, what causes fear for us, how we wield power, both appropriately and inappropriately. And you know when you think about our world today there's much that does disturb us.
We can look around our culture and see things that certainly are a threat to our faith, to the way we see things, and that disturbs us and rightfully so. We can talk about things that are going on around the world whether it's wars and rumors of wars or whether it's some of the trials and tribulations that our brothers and sisters around the world face.
That in places like Asia, it's just becoming more and more difficult to live out their faith without some sort of persecution or negative reaction. In places like Haiti, we have brothers and sisters living through incredibly just difficult times. And so, there's a lot that disturbs us. There's a lot that might provoke fear in us. And even in our own lives, even in our own circumstances, very personal things that may arise like that. And it's had me thinking about how do I react to the things that disturb me and how does my use of power compare to Herod's and to Jesus's because what a contrast you see.
That Herod seeks to control. He seeks to dominate. He seeks to eliminate threats. And yet God chose to send his son into this world uh weak, small, vulnerable, uh with the long arc of redemption in mind. And Jesus has promised us that He'll never leave us or forsake us, that He will build His church and the gates of hell won't prevail. And so, brothers and sisters, in this season when there's so much in our world that that should disturb us and often does and maybe leads us to fear, maybe leads us even to an unrighteous use of the power that we hold and wanting to control things or wanting to dominate even.
May we be reminded of the way of Jesus, of the work that He's doing in the long arc of redemption, of the hope that we have in Him, not in our own power, not in our own ability to control things or pull things back to where they should be, but trusting that Jesus will make good on His promise. That one day He will come and make all things new. And because of that, we can be people of great hope even in the midst of times that may disturb us.
So, I pray God's richest blessings on you this season. I pray that you're filled with hope and that all of us would be people that face disturbances and leverage power in a way that looks like Jesus, not the ways of this world. God bless and merry Christmas.
CGGC eNews—Vol. 19, No. 51
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