January 4 -- Second Sunday of Christmas

Sometimes there simply are no words.  

“A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled.”

One terrible question here:  Why was one child saved and so many others had to die?  What kind of a God is this, that in only chapter 2 of this Gospel so much violence breaks out?  I mean we still have the Christmas tree up, for God’s sake!!

We’re going to sing a hymn in a little bit, which was written in 1970, by a contemporary of ours, which tries to give some theological meaning to what’s happening in this story.  I’m struggling with this text though, and a quick, sung response may not be adequate, even while there might be wisdom there.

I’m really going in a different direction here, because I’m thinking:  Sometimes there simply are no words.  Sometimes the tearful cry of Rachel is too loud to sing.  

I heard a story this week actually, of a family who lost a child all too soon to a sudden and tragic death.  And they talked about how after this had happened, after the funeral, and the loving parade of meals and shower of sympathy cards and hugs, when they went anywhere in their small, Midwestern town people would literally turn and walk the other direction.  

I imagine some of you have been on one or both sides of that experience.  What can possibly be said?  “It’ll be OK”?  Pointing out the silver lining -- these always come up short, and can even be hurtful, even while there not intended that way...

The father in this story, goes on to talk about one experience in particular, however, where they came around a corner, and one of their neighbors saw them and turned away as usual.  [pause] But then he describes how suddenly that neighbor stopped, dropped his shoulders and his head, and slowly turned back to them.  

“Uh, you probably saw me turning to walk away,” he said.  “Yes, we did,” said nodded the bereaved.  “I, I know.  I’m sorry.  It’s just that I...I don’t...I don’t know what to say.”  A long embrace and some more tears follows this dialogue. 

Sometimes there simply are no words.  

Just last week, I stood here and read Jesus’ final words in the Gospel of Matthew, “Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the world.”  And here just verses later we see Jesus fleeing to Egypt, and Herod, hunting him down, decides he better play it safe and just murder every child in Bethlehem and the surrounding areas who were two years old or under.

It may be perhaps the most horrifying story in the Bible.  

Sometimes there simply are no words.

And yet this is a story with which we are all too familiar -- with tragedies of this caliber in our lives and in our world.  Children lost and even murdered, cries of mothers and fathers going up in the streets.  Herodian-style violence still today -- terrorism, school-mall-movie-theatre shootings...  

What happened to the Christmas carols and cozy, fireside gift exchanges?

I heard again this Christmas, somewhere--don’t even know where--that we need Christmas.  That there’s so much pain in our lives that we as Americans, we as humans, need the joy and the peace of Christmas -- the songs and the stories and the gifts and the family celebrations.  Almost like a drug that numbs the pain.  

But a drug wears off.  A Christmas buzz leaves us with a hangover.  I agree: we do need Christmas.  But it’s far more than a quick break.

That wonderful and famous story about the soldiers in Europe during World War II who stopped their fighting on Christmas Eve to sing Silent Night together in the trenches:  The thing is...they still went back to fighting.

The thing is...the Herods of this world -- the violence and the anger and the pride in this world -- still pounds on our doors and seems to prevail.

Sometimes there are no words.

But sisters and brothers, Jesus escapes the violence, the anger and the pride of this world.  And then, carried by his earthly mother and father, he returns.  That’s what Christmas is all about -- and this return doesn’t wear off.  Jesus returns to take on those forces of evil, and our suffering we see Christ’s suffering.  He returns to destroy those forces of evil -- both those forces of evil that we can see so plainly in our world and in the news headlines, and also those forces of evil that lay low, brooding in our own hearts and minds.  

Jesus escapes the violence, the anger and the pride of this world in a reverse-Exodus.  In the Old Testament the people, escape out of Egypt.  Here, Jesus escapes out of the the Promised Land.  This reversal is a signal to us that God is up to something unprecedented.  Holy reversals are taking place as Christ ushers in a new realm -- an immigrant family sneaking back across the border into Egypt and then back Israel [pic].  That’s the way this king comes.  These are the holy reversals.  Jesus names these reversals in a few chapters: “Blessed are -- not the rich -- but the poor.  Blessed are -- not the laughing and happy ones -- but those who mourn.  Blessed are -- not the powerful and the proud -- but the meek.  Blessed are -- not the fat and filled -- but those who hunger and thirst.”

Holy reversals are taking place in the midst of our silence.  Just as that sweet man who didn’t know what to say to the grieving family, turns around.  God turns around...and faces this world. And a long embrace (and maybe some more tears) follows.  

We receive that embrace, even today.  Even now...and for evermore.  All praise and glory to God, who in the end, never does leave us.  Jesus returns, thanks be to God.  AMEN.