The Missing Nativity Piece

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​First Presbyterian Church of Blackwood                          
21 E. Church Street
Blackwood, NJ 08012                                                                              
Sermon Notes (Sunday ~ December 1 2024)
Sermon Title – The Missing Nativity Piece
Text – Matthew 2:1-20
Rev Cliff Jones
 
 
Do you have a manger scene that you put up for Christmas?  Maybe on a table or mantle or front yard?  One of our traditions is to take a night and drive around neighborhoods to look at the Christmas lights and lawn decorations.  We always go by one house that’s covered in lights with a sign stuck in the front yard that says: ‘tune your car radio to this Christmas music station’ which we do and the lights blink in time with the music!  Other yards have the manger scene with Mary and Joseph and baby Jesus. In another yard, there’s another manger with Mary and Joseph and baby Jesus and next to them Santa in a blue plastic helicopter.  Funny, I thought Santa came in a sleigh.  Oh, and there’s Mickey and Minnie Mouse. I must be getting forgetful, because I don’t remember Mickey and Minnie being there in the Bible with baby Jesus. 
 
In all our looking, and every manger that I’ve seen - I’ve never found a complete set.  Every nativity and indoor creche I’ve seen is missing one part of the manger scene.  It’s not another shepherd or camel or star that’s lacking.  It’s a piece that isn’t there, but should be there, because it’s in the Bible.  Curious?  Let’s see if we can find the missing piece as we read the Gospel of Matthew’s account of Jesus’ birth,  Matthew 2:1 - 12.
 
Familiar, isn’t it?  We can almost quote a part of this Christmas account.  We remember the start:  “Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the East came….”  And, we remember the gifts they brought:   “Gold and frankincense and… myrrh.”  Familiar stuff.
 
Underneath the familiarity, Matthew wants us to see some things.  He wants us to make the connection that Jesus is King, not only a king, but King of Creation, King of the Universe.  So, Matthew’s nativity starts out with a King, Herod, and his kingly court, with his kingly advisors, who receive Magi, whom we call Wise Men, who were themselves advisors and astrologers to kings and princes, part of the nobility.  And, these noble Wise Men, are themselves bowing down before Jesus, the King of our world and history.  This emphasis on Jesus’ kingship becomes even more obvious when we compare the nativity of Matthew with Luke.  It’s in Luke, not Matthew, that the angel accounts Jesus’ birth, not to a king, but to poor shepherds.  It’s Luke that gives us Mary’s exaltation, when she says, God “has put down the mighty from their throne and exalted those of low degree.”  (Luke 1:52)   It’s Luke that tells us about an 84 year old widow, Anna, who meets Mary and Joseph as they bring baby Jesus to the temple. Luke wants us to see God’s special concern for the poor and the marginalized, and the old.   Having these two different accounts gives us a wider perspective on who Jesus is, and that’s a good thing.
 
So, in our account this morning of Jesus’ birth, we find noble Wise Men who see a sign in the night-time sky.  They know enough of the Old Testament to travel to King Herod to find where a new-born king can be found.  That’s the logical place to ask.  Herod’s advisors quote a prophet from 600 years before, Micah, who gives Bethlehem as the location.  They find the child, worship him and present him with gifts, then go home another way.
 
But, before we close the curtain on the nativity, there’s a question left hanging in the air.  Why do the Wise Men go home another way?  Well, because they are warned in a dream.  But why? Well, because they are warned in a dream; but why?  There’s more to the Christmas story.  It doesn’t end here.  It keeps going.  Let’s keep reading, Matthew 2:13 - 20.
 
Can you imagine including this part in the annual Church Christmas pageant?  Can you imagine the calls the pastor would get from furious parents?  “My child had nightmares after seeing children dressed as soldiers stabbing other children with plastic swords!”  So, we drop this part of the story and forget about Herod.  But, we shouldn’t forget about Herod. 
 
Herod built the second temple in Jerusalem hundreds of years after the first temple was destroyed.  We can still see his massive limestone blocks of the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, but they are just the retaining wall for the hill where the big second temple was built.  But, beyond his buildings, Herod is also known for his brutality.  When he was named king, he needed the Roman army to put him on the throne.  He put down a revolt in Israel against his rule by laying siege to Jerusalem.  When it fell, he began slaughtering people.  Women and children fled the city and he ordered his soldiers to pursue and kill them.  Later, suspicious that his wife’s mother was plotting against him, he killed his mother-in-law.  Then, he killed his wife’s brother.  Later, out of his suspicion, he killed his Uncle, then his wife, then his two sons, and then the 300 soldiers who tried to intercede for his sons.  After that, another son. History tells us that when Herod was making plans for his funeral, he knew few of his subjects would mourn his death.  So he ordered – fortunately, it was not carried out – that one person in each family should be killed when he died, to make sure everyone would be crying at the time of his death.
 
In the birth of Jesus, we come face to face with Herod, with a force that threatens to overwhelm what is good and pure and right and holy.  In the story of the nativity, the force of evil comes rushing towards the baby Jesus with gleaming, sharp teeth and open jaw to devour him.  Only by God’s intervention is the child saved.
 
When we keep Herod in the birth account, we acknowledge that there is suffering and cruelty and war and brutality and inhumanity and evil.  They live alongside Jesus, and us as well.  We know it, no matter how hard we try to cover it up.  My daughter was driving on I-76 last week in traffic.  The car in the lane next to her moved slightly ahead of her and then cut sharply into her lane without getting fully in front of her.  To this day she doesn’t know why that car didn’t crash into her.  There was no space, but she slammed on the brakes and somehow, they did not collide. How irresponsible to drive in such a crazy way!  She could have been killed.
 
There’s bad stuff going on:  one person develops cancer, another’s medically necessary test is denied by insurance, there’s job lay-offs, pensions are cut, relationships are split open, dreams are deferred and die, there are financial worries, political worries, wars, loss of innocent lives, an empty seat at this year’s Christmas dinner table.  Evil is a part of our world, just as there was evil in Jesus’ world.  We must be realistic, so include Herod in the nativity; Herod trying to destroy Jesus, like a crocodile with gleaming sharp teeth and wide-open jaws.  And, sometimes, all the bad stuff gets to us.  Sometimes, it’s hard, it’s hard to be optimistic.  Sometimes, it’s hard to hold on to hope.
 
The Christmas story is a story of hope.  The child does not die.  Herod’s plans are foiled.  The child survives, not by luck or chance or his parents’ intuition.  He survives because God rescues him.  It is God’s act, and God’s power.  It is the intention of God to save the child and He does. Matthew places Jesus within the overarching plan of God for the world.  Notice how he does this.
 
Five times, five times in chapters 1 and 2, Matthew quotes Scripture.  The Scriptures are ancient. They go back 5 - 600 years.  He quotes five. Quote one answers:
What is the child’s name?  Emmanuel, meaning God with us, from  prophet Isaiah.
Where is the child to be born?  In Bethlehem of Judea, from the prophet Mica.
What is the child to do?  Flee to Egypt, from the ancient prophet, which we read.
What almost happened to the child?   Death, fulfilling Jeremiah’s prophecy of 700 years before.
Where should the child relocate to?  To Nazareth, Micah’s words from 600 years before, ch. 2
 
God purposes and God brings about, as Peter says in Acts 2:23:  “This Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified…  But God raised him up….”  This horrible evil, this death, this crucifixion is part of God’s plan created before the beginning of time.  God brings from death, life.  God brings from evil, good.  God snatches the child Jesus from the crocodile’s jaws, and works to bring his plan to full bloom in our world and in our lives, and in your life.  The day is coming when there will be neither crying or pain or sorrow anymore, where all things will be joined together into the perfection of heaven.
 
God is bringing about his eternal purposes, shown in the resurrection of Jesus over the powers of evil, and He is bringing about his eternal purposes right now, in our world, in our time, in our lives.  Hope exists because of Jesus.  Hope that we can hold onto, because of Jesus.  Hope that pushes us forward, even in the midst of sorrow and pain and the evil we see in this world.
 
Herod needs to be part of the telling of the Christmas story.  Without Herod, Christmas is a thin veneer of pleasantness, a pretend calm and bright that can’t quite cover up the heartache of our world and lives.  Evil hovers, threatens to overwhelm us, but in Jesus Christ, God’s power is
greater.  God’s power is greater. So, maybe we should add a crocodile to the manger scene, just to be as realistic as the Bible, but know this, God’s power is greater.
 
This summer, my wife and I took 3 of our grandchildren to Disney; quite a trip.  One of our nights there, at 9:30 at night, we got on a ride, Tron.  You get on a futuristic motorcycle, in line, and wait, not quite knowing what’s going to happen, but you can hear the screams of the riders who are already going on the ride, somewhere ahead of you.  Then, suddenly (CLAP), it starts.  I have never accelerated in a ride, a car, a plane, as fast as this ride.  We just shot forward.  We were going so fast that my mind and my body screamed on the inside, “We’re going too fast;  we can’t slow down!”  My body melted into panic mode.  But, at the same time, deeper within my mind, I knew that it would be okay.  Other riders survived.  I would, too.
 
That’s why we have crosses that are empty.  Jesus died, but He rose!  He is fulfilling the eternal purpose of bringing all things into harmony with God’s plan.  When you put the crocodile in your nativity scene, remember to put the child Jesus as well at the very end, because God’s power is greater.  We have hope.  God’s power is greater.