Life Can Be Hard and Cruel
Matthew 2:13-18
We in our secure, loving homes need to be reminded from time to time that we do not live in a world of sugar plums dancing in children's heads. We live in a violent world, a life where life can be hard and cruel.
During the winter of 1962, Dr. Robert Middleton was vacationing in Florida and happened to see the Christmas Day edition of the St. Petersburg Times. The thing that attracted his attention to this particular paper was its unusual format. For this one day, there were two front pages, one containing only good news; the other containing more serious matters of world affairs, like the rioting in the Congo and a bank robbery in Chicago. The editors explained that they were arranging the news in this fashion out of deference to "the spirit of the season."
It was a noble sentiment. Nevertheless, the way our Bibles describe the first Christmas stands in marked contrast. The Gospel writers do not tell about the the birth of Christ with 'two front pages. When you turn to the New Testament there is no separation of the good news and the bad news. In fact the two are inseparably intertwined. In Luke's Gospel. the story of the manger scene appears side-by-side with that of universal taxation by the occupation forces of Rome (Luke 2:1). In Matthew's account, there is no attempt to hide the fact that Jesus was born at the same time that a paranoid tyrant named Herod was on the throne, a tyrant who would slaughter tiny infants. And always across the manger falls the shadow of the cross. Simeon saw it first. Mary and Joseph brought young Jesus to the temple to be dedicated. There they encountered a righteous and devout man named Simeon. The Holy Spirit had promised Simeon that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ. When he saw the child Jesus, he took him up in his arms and blessed God and said, "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation which thou hast prepared in the presence of of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to thy people Israel." (Luke 2:29-32). Then he made a strange and disturbing prophecy to Mary:"...a sword will pierce through your soul," he said(2:35). Luke does not record whether a shudder went through Mary' heart at Simeon's words.
The real story of Christmas is one in which good and evil are both shown for what they are. That is the kind of world we live in -- a cruel world where crime, poverty, drug-addiction, gangs, hunger, discrimination and a host of evils threaten to overwhelm society and whose evil even impinges upon the kind of secure, happy life that we would provide for those we love.
It has always been so. John spoke of the light that shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. But the darkness keeps trying! Why? It has something to do with the very nature of humanity and I will say more about this tomorrow.
Questions to Ponder
Do you find life hard and difficult at times?
Do you see the shadow of the cross in the Christmas story?
Have you ever had a sword to pierce through your heart?
In His Service,
Terry Phillips
