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Theme: Seeking in “King Herod’s Murderous Search” Sermon preached by Jeff Huber – based on a sermon series by Adam Hamilton November 30-December 1, 2013 at First United Methodist Church, Durango

Matthew 2: 1-8, 13-16 1 was born in in , during the reign of King Herod. About that time some wise men from eastern lands arrived in , asking, 2 “Where is the newborn king of the Jews? We saw his star as it rose, and we have come to worship him.” 3 King Herod was deeply disturbed when he heard this, as was everyone in Jerusalem. 4 He called a meeting of the leading priests and teachers of religious law and asked, “Where is the supposed to be born?” 5 “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they said, “for this is what the prophet wrote: 6 ‘And you, O Bethlehem in the land of Judah, are not least among the ruling cities of Judah, for a ruler will come from you who will be the shepherd for my people .’” 7 Then Herod called for a private meeting with the wise men, and he learned from them the time when the star first appeared. 8 Then he told them, “Go to Bethlehem and search carefully for the child. And when you find him, come back and tell me so that I can go and worship him, too!” 13 After the wise men were gone, an of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up! Flee to with the child and his mother,” the angel said. “Stay there until I tell you to return, because Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.” 14 That night Joseph left for Egypt with the child and Mary, his mother, 15 and they stayed there until Herod’s death. This fulfilled what the Lord had spoken through the prophet: “I called my Son out of Egypt.” 16 Herod was furious when he realized that the wise men had outwitted him. He sent soldiers to kill all the boys in and around Bethlehem who were two years old and under, based on the wise men’s report of the star’s first appearance.

VIDEO Seeking Christ in Christmas Week 1 Sermon Starter SLIDE King Herod’s Murderous Search

Jeff Huber’s Sermon – November 30-December 1, 2013 Page 1

Please take out of your bulletin your Message Notes and your Meditation Moments. You will notice the Scripture passage listed at the top and then below that a place for you to write down the things that you might want to remember from today's message. Following that you will find daily Scripture readings and you will have a chance to read the on your own during this week. Each day’s readings will tie back into today's message. I encourage you to take this home and use it. Especially during this season of , the four weeks that lead up to Christmas, I hope you will take some time to go deeper into the idea of seeking Christ at Christmas. If you're watching at home or online you can download this resource off of our website or you can just get out a piece of paper and pen takes notes. Today we begin a new four-week series of sermons for the season of Advent which will be a bit different than any of the other series of sermons we have done as we prepare for Christmas. Typically during this season we look at the stories leading up to the birth of Jesus. We might look at the prophecies of the coming of the Messiah or the stories of the to Mary the mother of Jesus, that she and Joseph would have a child. We might look at the story of Joseph as he learned in a dream that he was going to be the earthly father of this Messiah. Mary spends time with Elizabeth prior to the birth of Jesus and we often have looked at that story together and about how that story is something that can teach us about the coming of the birth of Christ. We sometimes have looked at the , Mary's song about being pregnant with the or about the journey from to Bethlehem that Joseph and Mary made in order for the child to be born. Then we would get to and we would celebrate the birth of Jesus. We then go out of town for a couple of weeks for Christmas and we often never get around to the stories in the that happen AFTER the birth of Jesus. Both Matthew and Luke have five different Christmas stories of things that happen after Jesus is born. Some of these Scriptures I have never preached on in 20+ years of being a pastor and I thought it would be great for us to really focus on those stories that happen after the birth of Jesus. In each of these stories you find there is some character or group of characters who were seeking Christ. Today we will start with the last of those stories and then we will work our way backwards chronologically until Christmas Eve when we will come once more to the birth of Jesus. We are going to start with a story that took place somewhere between 10

Jeff Huber’s Sermon – November 30-December 1, 2013 Page 2 days after Jesus was born and perhaps as long as two years after he was born. The story includes the wise men and we usually include the wise men as Christmas characters so it may have happened closer to Christmas than we think. But somewhere in that period of time, King Herod sends his troops to kill all of the boy children in Bethlehem in his hopes of killing the Messiah. Next week we will talk about the wise men and the following week we will talk about Anna and who were in the Temple when Jesus comes to be dedicated as a child. The last week we will talk about the shepherds who come searching for the Christ child after he was born. We will then return to the and look more deeply at those characters after Christmas Eve. The story we have today is a disturbing story and the truth is I don't know any Christmas carols written about this story because it is so depressing and difficult. It's not the story that you put on the cover of a or on a store window or on a church bulletin cover. Most of us, if we are honest, would rather forget about this story. It jerks us into realizing that the Christmas story isn't always what we think of it to be. We often think of it is a beautiful and silent night when all was calm and all is bright. We think about peace on earth and goodwill to all people. But in this story we find murder and slaughter as children are torn out of their mother's arms and put to death by King Herod. Today we are going to wrestle with this story and try to understand what it teaches us about ourselves and what it teaches us about God. Whenever we study the Gospels there are four questions that it is good to ask that can help us understand the text more deeply. The first question we might ask is this. What is the story’s historical setting? What do we know about the history behind what we are reading? The second question is: Why did the writers put this story in their recollection of the birth of Jesus? They had thousands of stories they could've included when they wrote about Jesus. Luke didn't tell this story, so why did Matthew choose to include it? The third question we might ask is: What does this story teach us about ourselves? The final question we might ask is: What does this story teach us about God? We are going to look at all of these questions as we look at this particular story in Matthew's Gospel which seems so disturbing. Let's begin where this text begins by looking at a bit of historical background. The text begins with these lines. Jeff Huber’s Sermon – November 30-December 1, 2013 Page 3

SLIDE 1 Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the reign of King Herod. About that time some wise men from eastern lands arrived in Jerusalem, asking, 2 “Where is the newborn king of the Jews? We saw his star as it rose, and we have come to worship him.” This story, while it includes the wise men, which we will look at next week and also after Christmas, is really focusing on King Herod and his search for Jesus. So let's remember a bit about King Herod the great. King Herod ruled from 37 BC until 4 BC over the Kingdom of Israel. He was actually assigned by the Romans to govern over Jerusalem in 40 BC but he first had to conquer the throne from a sitting Jewish King. Once he conquered Jerusalem he became the ruling King. On the video screen you will see a bust of King Herod. SLIDE Bust of King Herod (Graphic) Herod ruled for those 33 years with power and might. Sometimes he ruled with compassion, but often it was with brutality. One thing you should know about King Herod is that he was intent on proving to the world that he was really important. He saw himself as the long awaited messianic King of the Jews. There was King David I000 years before him and the Jews were hoping for long awaited Messiah and he wanted to prove to the Jewish people that he was that King. He wanted to be the one who ruled over the people with justice and righteousness and be the greatest King since David, and even a bit greater than David. This was his mindset and the way that he ruled. The only problem was that the Jewish people look at King Herod and recognized that he was not truly a Jew. He was a Jew by faith and he was nominally Jewish by his religious practice and conviction, but he was born an Idumean or an Edomite. When the Jews looked at him they didn't believe that he was the Messiah because he wasn't even one of them. They thought he was sort of Jewish but he couldn't be the Messiah because he was not a full-blooded Jew. King Herod desperately wanted to be that King and the long-awaited Messiah and so we sought to prove himself to the Jewish people over whom he ruled. King Herod wasn't anointed by the high priest as the Messiah however and instead he was anointed by Rome. It was the Emperor Caesar who placed Herod on the throne and told him he could be King over this region. It was the Emperor of Rome who gave them the military might in order to install himself as King. He was supported by the Romans financially and there was always this conflict between the Jews who saw Herod trying to be King of the Jews and at the same time knowing he was a puppet of the Empire of Rome. Jeff Huber’s Sermon – November 30-December 1, 2013 Page 4

One of the things King Herod did to try to impress the Jews and to prove to them that he was the long-awaited Messiah and gain their favor was to rebuild the . It was a magnificent temple and the largest building project in the entire Roman world during that time. While the Temple itself was magnificent, when the Jews would enter the Temple courts they would see a large golden eagle on top of the entrance gates that represented the nation of Rome. On the one hand they were grateful for Herod rebuilding the Temple, but on the other hand he did something that repelled them; King Herod put Roman symbols throughout the Temple. This mixture of symbols represented the conflict that Herod had inside of himself and the conflict that the Jewish people saw when they looked at him as their leader. Even though Herod tried to win their favor by building the Temple, most of the buildings that he built were more about Herod than they were about God. He was about trying to prove how big he really was and so he constructed a beautiful port at the Mediterranean Sea. The port is called Maritima and if you ever go there you can see the ruins. It was fabulous and the most fabulous thing at the port was actually his Palace. He had great views of the ocean; it was still all about Herod. SLIDE Caesarea Maritma (Graphic) SLIDE Caesarea Arial (Graphic) SLIDE Colusium (Graphic) SLIDE (Graphic) Or perhaps you have heard of Masada which is overlooking the . There is a mountain plateau and on the top of the plateau he built a palace for himself. He built a swimming pool in the desert on the top of a mountain to prove what a big and important person that he was. Those of us who are going to Israel will have a chance to walk around Masada and see what a beautiful palace it was. Herod also built a palace across from Bethlehem that I have shown you before. Bethlehem was known as the city of David where King David was born. The Messiah was to come out of Bethlehem so Herod built a house on top of a man-made mountain overlooking Bethlehem. Can you see this idea: that Herod was going to be towering over Bethlehem? He has a mountain built from scratch to prove it and on the video screen you will see some of the clips from this palace called the .

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VIDEO Herodium (No audio – Jeff will narrate) As you look at what he called the Herodium, which he named after himself, you can see the man-made mountain. As you go up on top you can look down and see a pool that is the size of three Olympic swimming pools inside this palace in the middle of the desert. There was literally a home theater or an amphitheater so 900 of his closest friends could be entertained. You walk inside the tunnels through the mountain and you come up to this palace built 350 feet in the air. This palace was taller than the great pyramids in Egypt and that was important for him as well, to have a palace higher than those pyramids. As you walk around the upper portions you can look down upon the city of Bethlehem in the distance. It is very clear that Herod was trying to say to the entire world, "I'm a big deal. I'm King of this mountain. I tower over this city in which David was born. Look at me, the new King of the Jews!" SLIDE Herodium (Graphic) This graphic on the screen is an artist depiction of what it looked like based on the archeological remains. What kind of a person has to do these things? Usually someone who is a bit insecure has to lift themselves up and builds these kinds of monuments. They are trying to prove something to themselves and others. This is exactly who Herod was. He was insecure and he built his reputation and his kingdom on top of the backs of other people. One of the things that he did in order to ensure his place as King of the Jews was he married the appropriate people, including a woman named Miriam who was a descendant of the last Jewish King. Her great, great, great, great, great, great, grandfather was one of the who freed the land of Judah from the Greeks several hundred years earlier. He married into the family and she became his favorite wife of all of his 10 wives. He truly loved her, but there was a problem. All of her family members had Jewish blood and they were part of the Jewish royal line so they were a threat to him. First, Herod killed her uncle and then he killed her brother and then, even though he loved her very much, he killed Miriam herself. Then he killed Miriam's mother. Miriam inherited two sons from a sister and they were a threat to Herod as well and so we had them executed by the Romans. Finally, before he died he had one last son killed. Do you have the sense of the kind of person that King Herod was? Caesar in Rome knew Herod very well and so he once commented

Jeff Huber’s Sermon – November 30-December 1, 2013 Page 6 that it was safer and better to be a pig in Herod’s house than it was to be one of his own sons because he was so envious of them. Herod was never known during his lifetime for his great building projects but became known for his insecurity and as being a fearful King who did terrible things out of that fear and insecurity. That is the historical setting for the story we have before us today in the Scriptures. This story does not appear in any other historical works but only appears in Matthew’s gospel. However, it is very consistent with the person of King Herod and what he did to people who were a threat to them. In this story we find the wise men coming from the East and they knock on his door. They say to Herod, "O king, we have come to worship the newborn King. Where is he? Is he in the nursery? Where can we find the newborn King who was born to be King of the Jews? We have seen his star in the East and we have come to pay him tribute." Can you see how this sounded to Herod? Given the jealousy and insecurity we know about King Herod, can you see what is coming next? The text tells us that Herod was frightened and disturbed by this news. He didn't celebrate this news even though he was seventy years old and nearing his death and would die a year later. Yet he was still going to make sure that this newborn King never had a chance to live and see the light of day as earthly King. So he asks the wise men to go to Bethlehem where the child was to be born. He asked them to find the child and then come back and tell him so that he could go and worship that newborn King as well. The wise men go to Bethlehem and they do find the baby Jesus, but then in a dream they are warned to not go back to Herod but to go home by another way. After a period of time Herod discovers that they have not come back and they are not coming back. Herod is angered by this betrayal and he sends his troops to Bethlehem to slaughter the innocent children. That's why we call this story, "The Slaughter of the Innocents." In medieval times, church leaders blew this story out of proportion and some said there were 5,000 and some said there were even 15,000 children that were killed in Bethlehem. The truth is there were probably only about 5000 residents total in Bethlehem in the first century so there were probably more like two or three dozen little boys who were slaughtered by Herod. SLIDE Giotto - Massacre of the Innocents (Graphic) You can see in this painting Herod’s soldiers were pulling these children away from their mothers. At the bottom of the picture you see the little ones who

Jeff Huber’s Sermon – November 30-December 1, 2013 Page 7 have been killed. I wanted to show you this in the film "Jesus of Nazareth" but it was so disturbing I decided I couldn't even show it in worship. The thought of watching small children taken and killed was too difficult for me to stomach, even though this is part of the Christmas story. SLIDE What is the meaning of this story? This story points to the evil and the brokenness and the messed up world in which we live. This story has been re-lived throughout time, over and over again, as we find rulers ruling out of fear. They are not opposed to killing children and their families because they are threatened. One of the reasons Matthew includes this story is because his audience is primarily Jewish and he wants to point to a parallel story that we find in the Old Testament. 1300 years before Jesus was born, Moses was born. Do you remember when Moses was born and the story around his birth? He was born in Egypt when the Israelites were slaves. Maybe you remember that Pharaoh was the King and King Pharaoh decided they were too many Jews and so he instructed all of the midwives to take all of the newborn baby boys from their Jewish mothers and throw them into the Nile River. Matthew wants the Jewish readers of his gospel to understand that one like Moses has come but he will be even greater than Moses. While Moses was saved by his courageous parents from certain death at the hands of the Pharaoh, Jesus was also saved by his parents courageous act as they fled Bethlehem and avoided death at the hands of an evil king. Moses was in Egypt and Jesus ends up in Egypt. Both of them come out of Egypt and they end up in the Promised Land. These are just a few of the many parallels in the between Moses and Jesus. What Matthew is trying to say is that while Moses was the great lawgiver, Jesus would be the one who would flesh out the law and live it out in person. Jesus comes from that same tradition and that is Matthew's main point as he writes his gospel. If you are ever in Bethlehem there is a church called the which is built over the cave which is said to be the place where Jesus was born. If you go down below the cave of the Nativity you will find a passageway that most Christians never get to see. Even if you visit the Holy Land you are not guaranteed to visit this place and so I thought you might want to see a video clip of that place. VIDEO Slaughter of the Innocents (no audio – narrated by Jeff)

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As you get to the end of the passageway underneath the cave of the Nativity, you will find the bones of children. Dozens of children's bones are kept in this place and it is said that these are the bones of the innocent who were slaughtered by King Herod. Whether or not these truly are the bones and the remains of those children killed in Bethlehem, you get a sense of how horrifying it was for the people of Bethlehem and how their people remembered this story from the gospel. SLIDE What does this terrible story mean for us today? How do we take any meaning from this story? As people of faith living 2000 years later who read the stories of the birth of Jesus, we are meant to wrestle with this story and what it means? Let me mention at least one thing that I think this story speaks to me. As I look at this story of someone whose insecurities and fears lead them to do things which are inconsistent with the faith they profess, it reminds me that there is a little bit of Herod in all of us. Herod and his character are meant to be a mirror for us. He is the most awful picture, almost a dramatic caricature of what it looks like when our insecurities and fears get the best of us. If we are honest, there is a shadow of this in every single one of us. We all struggle with insecurities. We all struggle with our fears and our failures. I remember when I was in high school and had my first job at Taco Bell. This was before the value menu and we would literally arrive every morning at 7 AM to cook the beans and the meat and to slice the tomatoes and shred the cheese. Nothing came prepackaged except for the olives and the sour cream. We even took corn tortillas and deep-fried them every morning so they would be fresh for tacos that we sold. I remember learning a lot at that job and working really hard and pretty soon I worked my way up to an assistant manager and I was in charge of the store during several shifts each week. Then one day a new person was hired and they worked even harder than I did. They were a couple of years older and pretty soon they were getting those shifts that I used to be getting which probably made sense as I look back on it because they were older and at least a legal adult. When this began to happen, myself and the other employees would sit around when he wasn't there and we would talk badly about him and say all of the reasons why he wasn't really deserving of the affirmations and responsibility. None of that was really true but this is what we do as humans as we try to pull people down sometimes when our own insecurity gets the best of us. This is how gossip and backbiting starts because we feel those insecurities rising up inside of us. We can’t celebrate the

Jeff Huber’s Sermon – November 30-December 1, 2013 Page 9 good things that are happening for them and we can't affirm them, instead we find ways to bring them down. I would hope over the last 30 years I have learned something about that and I don't do those things anymore, but every once in a while I feel those same insecurities welling up inside of me. We all have them and it is what leads us to sometimes be the worst kind of Christians who profess Christ with our lips but instead say hurtful things once we begin to struggle inside of our hearts. God built a fear mechanism inside of us and mostly that is a good thing because it protects us when there is some danger. That fear can give us the strength and encourage us to run when we need to get to safety or to fight when we need to protect ourselves or our family or friends. The problem happens when our fear mechanism connects with our sin mechanism and we end up with something that's a problem. We blow that danger out of proportion and we make it bigger than it really is. Instead of acting out ways that are meant to save us, we act out in ways that hurt other people. This is exactly what Herod did when he did the unthinkable and killed first his uncle and then his brother-in-law and then his wife and then his mother-in-law and then finally his own children. There is something deeply disturbing and wrong about that, that we can see from the outside in King Herod and we can see it manifest in our own lives on a smaller scale if we are not careful. I can remember listening to another pastor tell this story about her church when I was at a conference a few years ago. There was an organization in her community which built a special house and ministry for adults with Down’s syndrome. Those adults and others with mental challenges are invited to live in these homes and so they can be partially independent. They were getting ready to put a house like this in the community around her church and the neighbors began to protest. They were afraid it would bring down their property values. This is called the NIMBY syndrome or "Not In My Back Yard." Neighbors began to magnify the fears people had about this kind of house coming into their community. They put up posters and sent out fliers with misinformation. It led to some people in her own church even saying they didn't want "these people" living by them. I read a story this last week about a young man who was sentenced to 21 years in prison for a crime he committed when he was 14 years old. Another 14-year-old boy at his school was openly gay and he would sometimes flirt with

Jeff Huber’s Sermon – November 30-December 1, 2013 Page 10 some of the straight kids. He flirted with this young man and he was afraid that other people would think that he was gay so one day he brought a gun to class with him. Sitting behind this young man who was openly gay he took out his gun during computer class and he shot him twice in the back of the head. Why did he do that? This is what fear can do to us. Fear can also do this on a national scale. Most of the wars throughout human history were fought because of insecurities and fears that were blown out of proportion. I think about the Cold War when we were afraid of the Soviets. We were taught that they were going to try to take over America and maybe they were, you never know. There are fears which are real and we respond to them appropriately and there are times when we blow things out of proportion. During the Cold War we found ourselves asking, “How many nuclear weapons do we really need to deal with the threat of the Soviet Union?” We thought that we needed around 70,000 warheads which would destroy every square inch of the Soviet Union probably 20 or 30 times over without a single living human being surviving. Today we think it's about 5000 warheads and in today's dollars we spent $8.1 trillion for those 70,000 warheads and their delivery systems. I find it interesting that we talk about the current national debt and how you want to cut $1 trillion when we still have a legacy debt for things that we thought needed 50 years ago. We developed all those nuclear weapons in many ways out of fear. Fear rose up inside of us as a nation and now we have a deal with the consequences. I'm not saying there was no real danger, but I am pretty certain that this fear is something that we magnified into a much greater issue than really was present. We have to decide how we act when we have such weapons of mass destruction at our disposal so we are not just responding to our fears. When we act out of fear we usually make bad decisions. Jesus tells us in the Gospels that perfect love casts out fear. We overcome those dangers with love and not with anger and rage. We could name numerous examples of times we have let our fears overcome us as human beings in our community, but here is the question we each are meant to grapple with as we read the story of Herod and his murderous search. SLIDE What are my insecurities? What are my fears? What are your fears? How do you act upon those fears in a way that can bring life and not death, hope and not despair? When I read this story of Herod I

Jeff Huber’s Sermon – November 30-December 1, 2013 Page 11 am compelled to begin thinking about those people I am afraid of and then find ways to love them. When I feel insecure it will be a call for me to demonstrate love and not hate. This is what I learned from Herod and his murderous search and when I read this story. The truth is that there are two groups of people which are excellent at using fear to lead people to do what they want them to do. Both groups begin with the letter “P” and I am in one of them. Can you guess the first group? The first group of people is preachers and pastors. Can you guess the second category of people that also begins with the letter “P?" Politicians are great at getting us to respond to fear. Whenever we come to an election I recognize that on both sides. Both Democrats and Republicans are going to have these commercials with that scary voice that comes on and warns you in 60 seconds about all the terrible things that will happen if you vote for the other guy. As thinking people I want to encourage us not to allow our religion or our politics to be ruled by fear, but instead be ruled by the intellect and the heart and in the light of the gospel. I'm not telling you who to vote for because that's not my job. My job is to encourage you to think deeply before you simply react. Let's not be people who are ruled by fear. That's part of this story and what it means for our life today. That leads us to the second part of the story. After the wise men come and present their gifts to Jesus, Joseph is sleeping with his family. That night he is awakened in his sleep by a dream that is so real he can’t sleep through it. Maybe you have had a dream like this that wakes you up and you wonder if it really happened or if you're just dreaming. Joseph has come to know that God speaks to him in this way. He wakes up and what he heard God say in the dream was, "You have to get up now Joseph. Herod is coming to kill this child and there is no time to waste. Get up now and head to Egypt." There was not even time to have breakfast because Jerusalem was a two hour walk from Bethlehem. By morning, Herod’s soldiers would already be in Bethlehem and so Joseph needed to get up right away with his family in the middle of the night and leave. He awakens Mary and they bundle up the Christ child. They fled because there were soldiers from the most powerful man in the region who are coming to kill them. Can you imagine how terrifying this would be to be a 14 or 15-year-old mother? Remember that women had their first children when they were 14 or 15 years old in the first century and so Mary was very young. Joseph and Mary had to get up and flee in the middle of the night and go Jeff Huber’s Sermon – November 30-December 1, 2013 Page 12 to Egypt. Tradition tells us that Mary and Joseph took Jesus to Cairo, Egypt which was about a 250 mile walk through the desert from Bethlehem. SLIDE Flight to Egypt (graphic) We have this image on the video screen of what we often think the flight to Egypt looked like as Mary and Joseph rode a donkey through the desert. We don't know if they had a donkey or not but everything they would have owned would have gone with them either on foot or on the donkey. Away they went to a foreign land where they probably knew nobody in order be safe from the grasp of King Herod. I wanted you to get a sense of the journey they took and used Google Earth, where you use satellite imagery to see the places that people go. On the video screen you will see what it might've looked like for one afternoon of the journey as Mary and Joseph and Jesus went from Bethlehem to Egypt. Take a look and you will see the desert regions on this video image. VIDEO Flight to Egypt (no audio – Pastor Jeff will narrate.) On the right-hand side of the video you will see the highway which is built on the ancient roadway that went from Bethlehem to Egypt. It is likely that they took this pathway. You will occasionally come to an oasis and small cities in the desert, but much of the path they would've taken was desert just like you see in the video. They most likely walked for 30 days on this journey through the desert terrain. This would take them from Bethlehem to Cairo so that their child would not be killed. SLIDE Flight to Egypt (graphic) I tried to think of a parallel to this journey in today's world. The first thing I thought of was today's refugees who have to flee by night from one part of the world to another. They often need to flee at the last minute because of wars between different factions in their own country. They are a part of the wrong tribe or the wrong ethnic group and so they are forced to leave their homeland or risk being killed in the middle of a revolution or ethnic cleansing. According to the United Nations and the Commission on Refugees, there are 15 million people around the world who have had to flee their home countries because of violence and acts of war. They also have had to leave because of famine and they have moved into other countries to find refuge. There are an additional 27 million people who have had to flee their villages to another part of their own country to find safety.

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A number of us in this congregation have been to Kenya and one of the drivers we have every time that we go is a man named Philip. When I was sitting in the front seat talking with Philip on one of our drives to and from the orphanage from our hotel room, he told me about how his family was forced to leave their home and how their house was burned down by a rival faction after the elections in Kenya in 2008. They were part of the wrong tribe and they lost literally everything, in part because they were Christians and in part because they were members of the wrong tribal community. Many people were killed during those mob movements in Kenya and I couldn't help but think about this story that we read today about King Herod as I heard Philip telling me about his story and having to move his family literally in the middle of the night. I found myself this week looking up images of children who are refugees in today's world. Here are a few of them I found. Slide Pakistani Refugee Children (graphic) Slide Refugees in the Congo (graphic) Slide Refugee girl and child in Kenya with UMCOR (graphic) I came across this picture of the young woman who seems to be about Mary's age with a small child and I couldn't help but think that this must've been what Mary looked like holding her son as she escaped as a refugee. These are real people walking through circumstances very similar to what Jesus experienced with Mary and Joseph. Part of what this story does is point out to us the messiness and brokenness of the world in which we live. We don't feel it necessarily here but in lots of the world they live in this kind of violence on a daily basis. The power of this particular story may not be so evident to us in this part of America because this is not our life experience. SLIDE Bethlehem Bible College (graphic) I was reading an article where the president of Bethlehem Bible College in the West Bank was interviewed. They prepare Palestinian Christians to be pastors and to start churches in the West Bank. They are actually in Bethlehem where the story takes place. I have found that each of us experience Scripture in a different way depending on where we live and our circumstances. SLIDE Bethlehem Bible College Students (graphic) As the president was interviewed he shared that for his people, this is the

Jeff Huber’s Sermon – November 30-December 1, 2013 Page 14 most powerful of the Christmas stories. Many of his people lived in refugee camps as did their parents and their grandparents. This story tells them that Jesus walked in their shoes and when God came to earth he knew their pain and experienced their fear and the darkness of what it means to be a refugee. As they pray to God at Christmas they are acutely aware of a God who understands and continues to walk with them. This is the power of these stories now some 2000 years later. SLIDE The Power of this Story for Our Lives Part of our mindset as American Christians is that we come to God and we want God to fix all of our problems and all of the problems in the world. I meet people all the time who tell me something like this, "Well, I tried Christianity, but it didn't work." They approach the Christian faith like it was some sort of program that is supposed to fix something or have some kind of magic, thinking, “If you come to Jesus and you trust in him then everything will be okay in your life.” The truth is that most of us have lived long enough to know that this is not how it works in the Christian faith. We live in a world where there is pain and suffering and hurt and heartache. We have the capacity to do terrible things to each other and sometimes bad things just happen through no fault of anybody. God does not exempt us from that because we are followers of Jesus Christ. You have heard me say this before, but I think it is a mistake to think of the gospel as a promise; that if you become a Christian everything will be great with you, when the founder of our faith was sought after by King Herod to be killed when he was a baby? When he finally died at age 33 it was on a Roman cross so why would we think that our life is going to somehow get magically better when we seek to follow him? Does that sound like a faith that promises everything will be okay if you just trust in Jesus? That's not . What the Christian faith recognizes is that if God were to force all of you to do the right thing all the time, then you wouldn't be free. You are willing to fight for your freedom and God made you to be people with the capacity to make decisions. Every single one of us has this awesome and terrifying potential to do the right thing or the wrong thing, or hurt other people or to bless other people. We all have that and it is what makes us human. God is then talking us through the Scriptures to do the right thing. He says to us through this story and through this holy word, “I am begging you to do this good thing and to follow my way. Please don't just go off and do your own thing and think about the consequences." Jeff Huber’s Sermon – November 30-December 1, 2013 Page 15

God sent the Holy Spirit to nudge us and to prod us and to be a conscience that speaks to us and to our hearts when we are reacting out of fear or trying to make decisions. Finally, God sent his son Jesus Christ to show us the way, the truth and the life. But God also sends his Son to show us that while he doesn't fix everything on this side of eternity, he understands and he is with us. God shows us by his presence in Jesus Christ, "I walk with you through the trials of life. I walked with Mary and Joseph to the refugee camp in Cairo. I am with you when you are facing the darkest moments of your life. I will not leave you nor forsake you." This makes all the difference in the world. When I was a youth pastor I took our youth group on a camping trip one time in the mountains above Colorado Springs. We were settling in for the night and one of the young men in the youth group said that he wanted to go sit by himself just outside the camp and think about some things we had talked about during the day. I said that was fine and then after about 30 minutes, when he had not come back, I went out to find in. I found him sitting by himself on a log and we could hear some coyotes howling off in the distance. He told me he was really glad I came to find him because he was getting a bit scared about how dark it was and about the noisy coyotes off in the distance, and he was not sure how to find his way back since we had turned off the outside lights! We didn't talk at all after he said those words, but I just sat there with him. I didn't bring a flashlight and I didn't have anything to chase the coyotes off with, but that young man felt better just because I sat next to him in the dark. It was still pitch black and we still didn't have a flashlight and the outside lights were still off at our camp and we could still hear the coyotes, but there is something about knowing that someone was with you that made it all right. It was not so frightening because we were not alone. This is what the Scriptures promise in Isaiah when God says through the prophet, "WHEN you walk through the fire and the floods, I will be with you." In the Psalms, God speaks through David when he says, "WHEN you walk to the Valley of the shadow of death, I will be with you." Jesus said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you." Because of all of those promises and because of what we see in the Gospels, we know we don't have to be afraid when we walk through the hell and the dark night in the tough places in life. We find comfort that somehow God is carrying us and sustaining us, and then redeeming the pain and bringing

Jeff Huber’s Sermon – November 30-December 1, 2013 Page 16 something beautiful from it. This is what the Christmas story is about. That is why in the Christmas story Jesus is called, "Emmanuel, God with us." His very presence gives us hope. I think back to an old hymn that we saying: When darkness veils His lovely face, I rest on His unchanging grace; In every high and stormy gale, My anchor holds within the veil. On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand, All other ground is sinking sand. What is the ground you are standing on? So as we read this story of King Herod's murderous search, we remember that there is a little bit of Herod in all of us. When we read this story let's be horrified about what can happen when we let our insecurities and our fears get the best of us. Let's invite the Holy Spirit to overcome our insecurities and our fears with what is good and right and beautiful in God's eyes. Finally, let's remember that the gospel is not a promise that nothing bad will ever happen in our lives. The gospel is the promise that God walks with us. God understands and Jesus walked through hell itself when he was alive here on Earth, and his promise is that he will never leave us nor forsake us. These I think are the messages of this story for us today. Let's pray. SLIDE Prayer Oh God we give you thanks and praise, that when you came to this Earth, you came not in a Palace fit for a King, but you instead were born to a peasant couple. They would flee to Egypt as refugees because the most powerful man in their region sought to kill them and their son. Oh God, we thank you that you promised to never leave us nor forsake us. For those who at this very moment are walking through very dark places, Lord I pray that you would help them not to be afraid. Help them to sense your presence and your love, holding and carrying them through these dark moments. Help them to know that you are able to take the painful and horrible things that we experience in this world, even the death of children, and bring something from them that is redemptive and good.

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We thank you for the hope that one day we will see you face-to-face and there will be no more sorrow or suffering or pain. But until then we thank you for the hope we have that you will walk with us and we are never alone. Help us to trust you and not to let our fears and insecurities get the best of us. Be with us this Christmas season as your people and help us to follow the light that is Christ every single day. In your holy name we pray. Amen.

“King Herod’s Murderous Search” Theme: Seeking Christ in Christmas Scripture: :1-8, 13-16

Things I’d like to remember from today’s sermon:

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Meditation Moments for Monday, December 2 - Read :18-25 - Joseph and Mary’s marriage was likely an arranged one. Joseph may not have known Mary well at all when he learned that she was pregnant. Still, he sought the kindest way possible to break the engagement—and then trusted God’s message, and lived out his pledge as husband to Mary and father to Jesus. • Joseph was an often-unsung hero. Matthew said Mary “became pregnant by the Holy Spirit,” but apparently to others her unique pregnancy looked like all other pregnancies. What feelings and fears do you imagine Joseph went through? Have you ever had to “do what was right because it was right,” even though it was hard or painful? • “Jesus” was the Greek form of the Hebrew name “Joshua,” which means “God saves.” Quoting Isaiah, Matthew also connected Jesus with the name “Immanuel,” which means “God with us.” When did you accept Jesus as your Savior? What difference has that made in your life? In what ways do you sense “God with you” each day?

Tuesday, December 3 - Read Genesis 37:5-11, 41:8-32 - Mary’s husband bore a great name from Israel’s history. The story of the patriarch Joseph, Jacob’s favorite son, fills Genesis chapters 37-50. Known for integrity and reliability, he rose to be first minister of Egypt. He saved Egypt (and Jacob’s family, who became the nation of Israel) from a great famine. Like the later Joseph, at times he heard from God in dreams.

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• Both Matthew and Luke traced Jesus’ human ancestry back to Jacob and his son Judah (Matthew 1:2, :33-34). Through the first Joseph, God worked to keep Abraham’s descendants alive. They were the keepers of the promise and the hope that Jesus, their descendant, made a saving reality. Have you ever seen God’s actions in your life or your family’s “ripple” into greater results than human eyes might have expected? • At times, God used dreams to guide both Josephs. shows us a God who wants to be known, who reaches out in many ways. How can you tell if a dream or other inner “nudge” is from God? Are you open to God’s loving direction, however God sends it?

Wednesday, December 4 - Read Matthew 2:13-15 - God warned Joseph of danger in a dream, and sent him to Egypt, where Israelites had been slaves, and where God brought freedom through Moses. Matthew quoted Hosea 11:1—we’ll read that passage tomorrow. By applying verses written about Israel to Jesus, Matthew pointed to his belief that in Jesus, God fulfilled Israel’s history, and brought full liberation. • From the beginning, Jesus was not only loved and worshipped, but also in mortal danger. At this point, God protected the infant Jesus by sending Joseph and Mary, with their son, to Egypt. Throughout our life’s journey, we come to many decision points, and we may face dangers we don’t fully perceive. How has God guided and protected you? • God seems usually to work through people who are open—willing, like Joseph, to move as God leads them. Has God ever called you, as God’s son or daughter, “out of Egypt” in your life? Is God calling you “out of” certain lifestyles or ways of thinking that hold you back from the freedom God offers you in Christ?

Thursday, December 5 - Read Hosea 11:1-8 - Hosea the prophet pictured God struggling like a human parent. God had delivered his chosen people Israel (“my son”), from slavery in Egypt, taught them his ways, and provided for them. Yet they continued to turn away. Israel’s behavior deserved punishment. But God’s love for his children was so great that it hurt the divine heart to see them suffer. • As we listen in on Hosea’s picture of God’s conversation with himself, we hear the sweet compassion and rising frustration of a loving parent. Israel was the “child” whom God had fed, clothed, taught to walk, healed, and held gently in his arms. You’re God’s child, too. In what ways have you experienced God doing any of these things for you? • God was hurt by Israel’s fickleness. But he did not give up on his “child.” God, “the God of second chances,” came in person in Jesus to offer salvation anew. Has anyone ever given up on you? Have you ever had to give up on someone you cared about? How have you felt the struggle to honor another’s freedom, yet care about their pain?

Friday, December 6 - Read Matthew 2:16-18 - King Herod “the Great” was a complex, disturbing man. Many of his huge buildings still stand today. He yearned for the love of his Jewish subjects. But he was paranoid and vicious—he killed three of his own sons, afraid they might take his throne. His violent rage foreshadowed, in the Christmas story, the rage of the religious leaders that would send Jesus to the cross. • Even at his birth, Jesus was in danger. Later, in :9-19, he told a story of vineyard tenants who killed the owner’s son, wanting to claim the vineyard as their own. Jesus knew what faced him, and chose the dangerous mission of salvation anyway. In what ways does that deepen your gratitude for the love that risked all to save you? • Herod didn’t know which child the wise men found, so he sent troops to kill all boys two and under in Bethlehem and “all the surrounding territory.” Jesus came to set up a new kind of kingdom where self-sacrificing love replaced brute force. How is Jesus’ love setting you free, day-to-day, from the dark side of human power structures?

Saturday, December 7 - Read Matthew 2:19-23, :51-52 - This map of Israel in Jesus’ day (found at www.cor.org/nazareth) helps us see the importance of how God guided Joseph. Bethlehem, Joseph’s hometown Jeff Huber’s Sermon – November 30-December 1, 2013 Page 19 and Jesus’ birthplace, was only five miles from Jerusalem—and Herod’s fortress/palace, the Herodium, literally overlooked all of Bethlehem. Nazareth, an obscure hill village far to the north, was much safer. There Jesus grew up and “matured in wisdom and years, and in favor with God and with people.” • The name Archelaus (verse 22) doesn’t say much to us. But Herod named him to rule the southern part (including Bethlehem) of Herod’s kingdom, and Archelaus began his reign by killing 3,000 people. The peaceful tone of Luke’s account of life in Nazareth contrasts sharply with Herod’s and Archelaus’ violence. Did you grow up in a peaceful setting, or not? If not, what can help you heal the wounds that may have left? How can you make room for peace, rest and connecting with God even during a hectic holiday season?

Family Activity: Jesus is the Light of the World and he calls us to share His light with others! Be sure to pick up a Family Devotional book in the Atrium if you did not get one already. You might also want to create luminaries to share Christ’s light. Use a decorative hole punch (such as a star or snowflake) to punch numerous holes in several brown paper lunch sacks. Fill the bottom of each bag with an inch of sand. Place a votive candle firmly and securely in the sand in each bag and light the candle. Place the bags on your driveway or sidewalk for others to see. Discuss ways your family can share Jesus’ light this season.

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