The nativity according to Matthew has none of the “we wish
you a merry Christmas” charm of Luke’s version. Joseph is visited by the angel
even though the Virgin Mary still does all the labor. There are no shepherds,
angel choirs or a no-room-in-the-inn manger Silent Night “cattle are lowing the
baby awakes.” Matthew did give us the star and the magi but the story of the princes
coming to visit the peasant just sets up Bethlehem for Rachel’s inconsolable weeping.
By that I mean without the Magi’s visit Herod would have been ignorant of the
baby born to be King of the Jews and the Bethlehem babies of the future King would
have been spared the consequence of his premature enthronement. Of course in the
world that Jesus comes to serve and save the slaughter of a few innocents in a small
village hardly registers on the atrocity scale. The chorus of loud lamentation
began when Eve found Abel’s bloodied body and has continued unabated to this
day. There is no “good news” in this story and no amount of exegetical gymnastics
will get us there. Rachel cannot be consoled. But the good news that comes
later in the Gospel is that the baby Jesus grown to be a man will not escape
the fate of his counterparts born in Bethlehem. He dies for them and for Rachel
and for the soldiers who following orders did the deed and I would suggest even
for the psychopath Herod. Jesus dies because the world God imagined in the beginning
became so familiar with atrocity it could only be saved by something it could
not ultimately destroy. So God in Jesus as the innocent victim met hatred and violence
face to face and for a day or two let it do what Herod hoped to accomplish but
on the third day broke the chains of death so that Rachel’s weeping might become
a song of exaltation. (Psalm 118) The good news is that Jesus escapes King
Herod as a baby in Bethlehem so he can die as a man in Jerusalem which means
you and I and everyone else can live to serve a different sort of King.
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