Jeremiah 31: 15-17; 1 Corinthians 1:26-29; Matthew 2:13-18

I hope you’ve had a good time this week. It makes me smile each year that the church starts to celebrates the birth of Jesus on 25th December, while for the first 50 years of my life it was all over by Boxing Day.

I love the wonderful Christmas story, don’t you? Our gospel story today is Matthew’s continuation of the event. It highlights Herod as a man who intended to hold on to power, whatever the cost. The possibility of a threat to his throne was stamped out by the murder of innocent infants. He wouldn’t do this himself of course, he would send others to do it - people who couldn’t refuse to follow his orders, who may well be haunted by the memory of what they’ve done for the rest of their lives, and perhaps into eternity. The families of the innocent babies had their own wellbeing turned upside down too, as with our heroes who needed to flee to a strange country for the safety of the infant Jesus. Everyone is harmed - not least Herod, who will have had the consequences of his decisions piled upon his own soul, even though he might try to shrug it off. When we cause others to sin, we surely pick up the responsibility alongside them.

Evil exists in today’s world too, as we’ve been made very aware over the last year. I’ve been deeply troubled by its conflicts, especially so with what has been happening in the Holy Land, being more familiar with the area thanks to having been there with its Biblical connections, but also in Russia and Ukraine. I read a very sad comment on social media, purportedly from a conscript, who said that he was living with the nightmare memory of having shot unarmed people under orders, having no choice but to follow them. He lamented that those above him in rank didn’t care about his soul. I’ll leave you to ponder this, as I do.

There are some people who struggle to believe in the goodness of a God who created a world and populated it with human beings, who are not only capable of evil but who continue to perpetrate it. Some scientists and thinkers hypothesise that we’ve evolved to become kind and caring, but the evidence of real life seems to contradict this. Rather, I see no difference between the way people were as recorded in the Old Testament thousands of years ago and the way we are today. While we’re all influenced by our culture and the politics of the day, we have the same tendencies of jealousy, power struggles, a desire for personal gain at the expense of others, of making excuses for ourselves, of passing off the blame, of telling lies - of sin, tendencies which we need to overcome. None of us is all bad or all good - we can all do better. New Year’s resolutions are a good thing.

This is where the love of God comes in. We need Jesus to show us the way.

I believe in the goodness of God - that God is love itself, that we’re constantly being invited to stand against the evils which beset us and to allow God to bring some good out from them, through our willingness to accept and act upon his guidance. I believe that God holds us spiritually and refills us when the evils of the world empty us. His healing power works from the inside out. God really does restore our souls. The burden of our past sin can be shed - we can always change our ways and start again, not only at New Year.

I think that God sent us his Son in human form as this is the way we’re most likely to engage with his teaching rather than in tablets of stone - Youtube videos as opposed to workshop manuals being the modern equivalent.

God’s teaching is for our sake. If everybody embraced it all people would be kind, caring and compassionate - but none of us is perfect, and we all need to learn by what we and others do wrong.

Like a rose bush which needs to be pruned back so that it flourishes, perhaps through life’s knock-backs whether by our own hand or that of others we may grow stronger in spirit, especially so as the Holy Spirit of God will flow through our spiritual veins for as long as we invite him in. The fruit of the spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control can grow in every single one of us.

Whatever happens, God is with us. We can hold on tight to that positive message as we enter into the brand new year, however bumpy the ride.

Christmas was celebrated in Bethlehem this year as a sign of hope, after cancelling the festivities for the last two years. We too can hold on to the hope of a better world as we continue to trust in God, remembering that his love is the most powerful force of all.

Amen.

Julie Rubidge, Lay Minister