Good day dear friends.
As we being our time of devotion, let us do it in prayer.
PRAYER: God of all, we begin with silence and reflection. The majesty of yesterday's sunset is now the splendor of today's bright morning light. You are there and You are here. The joy of seeing loved ones is blended with images of those who are mourning the consequences of natural disasters. You are there and You are here. We praise You and we love You and we ask for Your blessing to be with us as we meditate upon Your word. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.
Here is our study guide for today:
Thursday: We can’t pretend that the birth of Jesus was not without pain. The sadness of that wonderful birth was that the insecurities of the ruthless ruler, Herod, resulted in the murder of all male children two and younger. Herod, according to tradition murdered even his own children, especially his sons because of his fear that someone could more effectively rule than he. God’s fulfillment of prophecy comes with this tragic price paid by the mothers and fathers of the children born in that area, not because of God’s heartlessness but because of what Herod was all about. God’s heart broke with each of those innocent’s death and God’s own heart would break later when His own son would die on the cross. What do you suppose the magi knew about Jesus that Herod didn’t (Clue: What gifts did they bring?)
Sunday I preached two different sermons. The one mentioned on Monday in this email devotional was basically the one from eleven o'clock. The one at 8:30 was more a study on the passage from Matthew and how the Gospel very honestly shares the truth of the consequences of Herod's anger. It was our music director who called me and asked me the truly hard question: Why did God allow these murders?
A very good question. To try to answer it is to try to answer those "God only knows" questions that we have a list already compiled. I believe this was Paul's struggle too as he said, "Now I know only in part; then I will know fully." (1 Cor. 13:12 NRSV). As we talked we agreed there were maybe three reasons: First, God did warn them, they chose not to listen. Or God did "allow" this as something that happened as a result of their relationship or lack of relationship with Him. Or lastly, God's heart, as happens in the unexplainable, was the first to break.
Herod, as tradition tells us, was so insecure, he had many, including his own children, murdered. One tradition said that he had preordered the murder of the leading Jewish officials on the day that he died so that there would be at least some mourning and crying on the day of his death. If true, we get a picture of someone really sick. And it was his sickness that led his order to murder all children under the age of two and under.
The Rev. William Sloan Coffin, when pastoring Riverside Church in New York, lost his son Alex, in a storm and because Alex had been drinking. He drove off a pier and drowned. As people tried to console him, one well-intentioned lady said, "I just don't understand the will of God..." And this angered Rev. Coffin for it was not the will of God, he went on to say, that his son should drink. It was not the will of God for Alex to drink past the limit of what makes someone unable to function fully and it was not the will of God to make Alex drive while drunk. What Rev. Coffin did understand was that God's heart was the first to break.
We will one day know the why of the tragedy of the murder of the innocents. But could we not also say it was precisely why Jesus came to the world with His message? For it not to bring everyone into a full relationship of love with God, with neighbor and self? Did Jesus not die because of our sin?
The magi brought the gifts worthy of a king (gold), a high priest (frankincense) and burial (myrrh). Jesus fulfilled each as we proclaim Him our King, our High Priest who intercedes for us as we pray and live our lives, and He who died to pay for our sinfulness.
PRAYER: God speak to our hearts again those words of love. Let us love You more today than ever before. Let us love one another more than ever before. And let us love ourselves more than ever before. Put to death our doubt and insecurity about ourselves, so that our lives reflect only that we've been in Your presence. Let it be so today and always. In Jesus' name. Amen.
Have a great day!
Blessings!
e.v.
