Today we stand on the precipice of a new year. And this in many ways is very exciting! It's a clean slate with new possibilities and growth potential. But we are also filled with the reality that, after reviewing our previous year, things perhaps didn't go as we planned. There was, in fact, a mix of good and bad moments that accompanied us along the way, successes and failures marked 2017, and we have to deal with both, to make sense of it and move forward. And going forward, we are also filled with a renewed sense of hope and confidence, a determination that this year things will be different, things will change for the better. This is our year! And for a very brief moment everyone will look like a Cubs fan. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay We are also in a rather short season of the Church, lasting only 12 days, the Christmas season. It is supposed to be about celebrating the birth of Christ, and similar to the anticipation we feel for a new calendar year, Christians are to abide in the joy and hope we feel for what God might do among us once . again through the Messiah who is Jesus. Yet the story we read today from the Gospel of Matthew does not fit very well with our cultural assumptions about the joy of Christmas and a renewed determination to make things happen. If anything, the story makes us feel disturbed and restless, leaves us wondering why? Why are innocent children killed? And what does this have to do with the story of Christmas? Regarding this story, one of my seminary professors once said, “Perhaps no event in the Gospel challenges the sentimental depiction of Christmas more fundamentally than the deaths of these children.” And so we are rightly horrified by what we read in today's story. Yet we still have to figure it out. This story, traditionally called the Massacre of the Innocents, takes place just 13 verses after the traditional Advent story that we read describing the birth of Christ. From there things start to happen quickly. If you imagine, Jesus was literally just born. Maria is feeding him. He is an innocent child. Do all the things kids do. And then suddenly Joseph has a dream, and in it it is said that King Herod, a king known for his irrational suspicions, lust for power, and violent episodes in which he even killed his wife and son, this king Herod is looking for this new King of Kings, to kill him. The wise men told him that a new "King of the Jews" will be born in Bethlehem and he is obviously afraid. He expects his kingdom to be usurped, his power to be taken. And so such a person easily makes the decision: to protect his power, to firmly maintain control, an innocent child must die. And so Joseph and Mary flee into the night as the angel commands them. They flee not as a family of power or status, but as refugees, to Egypt; like terrified parents just trying to keep their child alive from a violent regime. This does not sound like they are God's chosen family through which all Israel will be redeemed. But now this story is starting to sound a lot like something we've heard before. It must be remembered that Matthew is writing to a Jewish audience, a people who are very familiar with the stories of the Torah. It alludes to another story. We have an echo of another historical moment when God acted to save his people. I'm sure you've guessed it by now... it's the story of Moses. Once upon a time there was another ruler, then his name was Pharaoh. Who once killed Jewish children, calling for the shedding of innocent blood to maintain power and suffocatethe irrational fear, and yet one child survived. Jesus is saved just as Moses was taken from the Nile River. Jesus comes from the land of Egypt, as a refugee, he enters in the manner of Moses, to free the people from the slavery of sin and death. It is a great echo of the Exodus. Matthew is telling the story in such a way that we get all these references and suggestions, he is trying to show that through Jesus, through this child, God is fulfilling the promises of the Old Testament. That Jesus is indeed the Messiah who will redeem Israel and even the whole world! Matthew tells the story to help us connect things about what God is doing in the world and how the Scriptures are fulfilled. So where does this leave us? What should we make of this story as we enter 2018? The first thing is this: Jesus comes to a world where innocent children are still dying. The birth of our Messiah King does not instantly eliminate violence, greed, and unspeakable horror. I wish it would, unfortunately it doesn't. God does not simply erase all human misery in the birth of Jesus, if anything the history of the early Church shows us that those who came closest to Jesus experienced the greatest suffering. Just look at Joseph and Mary: they experience persecution, displacement, and exile because of Jesus! They live in a world that is surprisingly similar to our world. A world full of innocent refugees just like Jesus lived as a refugee. In fact, according to the United Nations World Refugee Agency, as of the end of 2016 there are currently 65 million refugees worldwide. That's more than the entire population of the UK. Joseph and Mary were fleeing violence and running to Egypt to seek safety. And today people are running in Europe and the United States. People are still fleeing violence. At my last church, I regularly organized a trip to El Salvador, where we spent time with many local people in the village where we lived and worked. They would share their lives with us and tell us their stories. I had the opportunity to hear many powerful stories from people who had fled to the United States during the Civil War of the 1980s and today because of extreme gang violence. Their stories were difficult to hear, like today's, they always included that people were directly threatened. Do this…or else! Remaining in the homeland meant certain death; leaving was just the chance of a lifetime. In the stories I heard, no one wanted to leave their family, community, and everything they had ever known. Who after all would willingly make this choice? The people I met were fleeing violence! Look, I know immigration is a hot political issue these days, and I don't want to make it a complicated issue, but if we can't agree that we should support people seeking safety and fleeing violence, regardless by political persuasion, if we cannot see Jesus in the face of an innocent refugee, then we have missed the mark. We need to look more carefully. Because this year ahead of us, 2018, cannot just concern us. It has to be something more. If it's just about us, then we've wasted the year and we've missed what God is doing in our world. Which brings me to the second point. The second thing to note about today's story is that God's power enters the world in the same way that God entered the time of Christ. God enters the same vulnerable way into the life of a young child, and you may not see it. Many did this in the time of Christ, they missed the most significant thing they would ever experience and it was staring them in the face. We might even lose it; because even God doesn't work the way he does.