SPEAKER_00: The message text for tonight is Matthew chapter 2, verses 13 through 20.
SPEAKER_00: Please listen as I read God's word.
SPEAKER_00: When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream.
SPEAKER_00: Get up, he said, take the child and his mother, and escape to Egypt.
SPEAKER_00: Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.
SPEAKER_00: So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night, and left for Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Herod.
SPEAKER_00: And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet, Out of Egypt I called my son.
SPEAKER_00: When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity, who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi.
SPEAKER_00: Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled.
SPEAKER_00: A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted because they are no more.
SPEAKER_00: After Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, Get up, take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who were trying to take the child's life are dead.
SPEAKER_01: But that was the day that an F3 tornado touched down just about a mile from the store where I was working.
SPEAKER_01: In the weeks after that tornado, Festival donated uh food and water and other supplies to uh help those in the community, some of whom had quite literally lost everything in uh in that storm.
SPEAKER_01: And I remember having a conversation with one of our managers at the time who was uh moved actually to tears as she was telling me about uh the beauty of seeing people in the community come together after an event like that.
SPEAKER_01: How people responded to that tornado was a bright spot in the middle of what can only be described as a time of darkness.
SPEAKER_01: And stories like this, they move us deeply, don't they?
SPEAKER_01: Whether it's a community that comes together after a storm or natural disaster like this, or whether it's siblings who are able to make amends as one of their parents is dying, or a couple that becomes closer together relationally as the result of a miscarriage, or a church that rallies in supports when one of its members experiences some kind of tragedy, or a person who's able to be an inspiration to others who have the same disability that they do.
SPEAKER_01: Part of why these stories are so captivating for us is because they tug at the deep longing we have for our world and for our very selves to be made new.
SPEAKER_01: When we see a glimmer of light in what is darkness, when we catch even a small glimpse of what we think the world can be and what we know the world ought to be and should be, it leaves us longing for something or for someone to finally once and for all make it right.
SPEAKER_01: The story of Christmas tells us that we can know.
SPEAKER_01: We can know the one who is now today and who will finally one day make all things new.
SPEAKER_01: That's what we're gonna explore briefly in our time tonight.
SPEAKER_01: There's so much that we could take from these verses that you heard read just a moment ago, but uh.
SPEAKER_01: So as we look together at these verses briefly, the first thing we see is the darkness that exists in our world.
SPEAKER_01: The darkness that we all know exists in our world.
SPEAKER_01: Now, I understand that this aspect of the text and this aspect of the Christmas story is uh not particularly enjoyable to think about.
SPEAKER_01: But I also know that it does us no good to bury our head in the sands, bury our heads in the sand, rather, and to ignore this part of the Christmas story that we sometimes overlook, but is so central to the story, and that is just how dark this set of events actually is.
SPEAKER_01: So think about how we see the darkness in the Christmas story.
SPEAKER_01: Just before these verses that were read this morning, uh, we read about a group of astrologers.
SPEAKER_01: We call them magi or wise men, but this is a group of astrologers who had determined from the movement of stars that there was a new king who had been born to the Jewish people.
SPEAKER_01: And so what they did was they traveled to Jerusalem in order to pay honor to this new king and to offer gifts and to kneel before him.
SPEAKER_01: And what they did was that they went to the most obvious spot where you'd expect to find a king, which is the palace, because that's where kings are born.
SPEAKER_01: So they show up at the palace, and Herod was king over this region at the time.
SPEAKER_01: And Herod was, let's say, not pleased with their announcement that there was a new king who had been born to the Jewish people.
SPEAKER_01: He wasn't just surprised by this message, although he was surprised.
SPEAKER_01: He was infuriated to learn that other people thought that there was a king besides him over the Jewish people.
SPEAKER_01: And so what he did was he tried to deceive.
SPEAKER_01: He tried to deceive these magi, these wise men who had traveled, and he said, Hey, why don't you come back to me and tell me where this king is so that I can bow down and worship him too?
SPEAKER_01: But his plan all along, as we know from reading the story, is he wanted to find out where this baby was so we could have him killed.
SPEAKER_01: When he found out that the magi didn't come back to him but had gone a different way home, and didn't come to tell him where this baby was, he was enraged.
SPEAKER_01: He was so enraged that he decided to kill all the baby boys in that region who were age two years and younger.
SPEAKER_01: This is a horrific set of events.
SPEAKER_01: This is so dark.
SPEAKER_01: Imagine what it would have been like to be one of those parents.
SPEAKER_01: Imagine the shock and the helplessness that you would have felt as a paranoid government came into your house and killed your child.
SPEAKER_01: This is it's hard to wrap our minds around just how dark and how sickening and how evil this is.
SPEAKER_01: But think about this also from Mary and Joseph's perspective, from their family.
SPEAKER_01: Because of Herod's rage, they are forced into a life that they never asked for.
SPEAKER_01: They're forced to flee their home and to go somewhere else because of Herod's hatred.
SPEAKER_01: Joseph was told in a dream by God that he was to flee that region and to go to Egypt until Herod was dead.
SPEAKER_01: Try and picture this.
SPEAKER_01: It says that the angel said to them, get up and go.
SPEAKER_01: And it says that in the night.
SPEAKER_01: It's the middle of the night.
SPEAKER_01: And picture this middle of the night chaotic thing that's happening inside of their household.
SPEAKER_01: They're told, leave now.
SPEAKER_01: They know that there's no way they can wait until the morning.
SPEAKER_01: Imagine the sense of urgency they felt to leave right now in this moment.
SPEAKER_01: And so they get up, and there they are in the middle of the night, and their adrenaline at this point is now pumping full strength.
SPEAKER_01: And what they're doing is they are frantically packing whatever they can pack.
SPEAKER_01: And you just have to imagine them making split-second decisions about do we take it with us or do we leave it behind?
SPEAKER_01: Which of our possessions can we take?
SPEAKER_01: Which of our life, which part of our life do we have to leave behind?
SPEAKER_01: And so they're packing all this stuff up in the middle of the night, gathering what they needed.
SPEAKER_01: They left their home, went to a place that they never wanted to live because of circumstances beyond their control, and they didn't know when they were going to be able to return.
SPEAKER_01: They had no idea if it would be a year or two years or ten years.
SPEAKER_01: All they knew was they had to go.
SPEAKER_01: And so there they are, living this life they never wanted to live in the first place because of someone else's hatred.
SPEAKER_01: All these events in the story of Jesus' birth give us a window into the darkness and the brokenness and the pain that we all know exists in our world.
SPEAKER_01: And obviously, we live in a very different time and in a very different place than they did.
SPEAKER_01: But I think it's fair to say that there's probably not many of us who would be all that surprised if a story just like this came across our newsfeed.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, you've probably read news stories in the last few years that might be worse than what we read here.
SPEAKER_01: Our world is a dark place today, it was a dark place back then.
SPEAKER_01: Allowing ourselves to be immersed in this story and to just like face, to stare in the face of the difficult darkness of these verses, it's a painful reminder of what our world actually is.
SPEAKER_01: It's a painful reminder that we experience the same exact kinds of things we see happening in the Christmas story, don't we?
SPEAKER_01: We see leaders or people in positions of power with a staggering amount of self-interest who use their power to hurt other people.
SPEAKER_01: That might be in business, that might be in politics, that might be in our own homes, in our in our own relationships, where there's people who are in positions of power who use that power to hurt other people.
SPEAKER_01: That's what Herod did, and we see and we experience that same exact kind of thing even today.
SPEAKER_01: Similarly, we see people whose lives are uprooted and whose lives are completely upended by circumstances that are beyond their control.
SPEAKER_01: That's what happened to Mary and Joseph.
SPEAKER_01: You may be here tonight feeling like your life has been upended.
SPEAKER_01: By a diagnosis that you never saw coming, by a phone call you hoped that you would never receive, by a relationship that is unraveling or has completely unraveled and fell apart.
SPEAKER_01: Or maybe your parents have said, I'm sorry, but we're moving, and you're transferring schools, and you're leaving all those relationships that you've spent years building.
SPEAKER_01: Our world is just as dark as it was back then.
SPEAKER_01: And if I stopped here, all I would have accomplished tonight was ruining your Christmas.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: But the good news is there is more here in this passage than just the darkness that exists in our world.
SPEAKER_01: Yes, we see that in these verses, but we also see the sovereign goodness of God that is at work in that darkness.
SPEAKER_01: As you look at these verses in the Christmas story, you see that God's rescuing hand is all over the place.
SPEAKER_01: We see God intervening all over the place.
SPEAKER_01: In the midst of all the darkness that we see in the Christmas story, God is constantly intervening in order to protect Jesus and to protect his family and ultimately to bring about his saving plans.
SPEAKER_01: To bring those saving plans to fruition.
SPEAKER_01: So he protected Jesus by warning Joseph that they should flee the country and go somewhere else.
SPEAKER_01: He protected Jesus by warning the Magi, saying, don't go back to Herod and tell him where Jesus is.
SPEAKER_01: He protected Jesus by letting Joseph know when it was safe to return home, and not a moment sooner than that.
SPEAKER_01: In all these ways, God intervened in order to protect his son.
SPEAKER_01: And what I think is good for us to remember tonight is this.
SPEAKER_01: Is that God is protecting and preserving and intervening in the life of his son in order to protect and to preserve the life of his people.
SPEAKER_01: Those two things.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus, our representative, and God's people are very, very closely linked together.
SPEAKER_01: See, the Bible tells a story that God has set in motion a plan to rescue people.
SPEAKER_01: And not just from things that are out there in the world, quote unquote.
SPEAKER_01: He set in motion a plan to rescue us from ourselves.
SPEAKER_01: First and foremost, we need to be rescued from ourselves.
SPEAKER_01: This is exactly what the angel said when he first came to Joseph and announced to him that Mary was going to have a son.
SPEAKER_01: The angel said to him about Mary, he says, She will give birth to a son, and you were to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.
SPEAKER_01: That's the whole reason.
SPEAKER_01: That's the mission, is to rescue us from our sin, to rescue us from our idolatry and from ourselves.
SPEAKER_01: We need to be rescued from our sin.
SPEAKER_01: We need to be rescued from the ways that we have looked to other things or to other people to provide for us, but only God can provide for us.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible calls that idolatry.
SPEAKER_01: We need to be rescued from that.
SPEAKER_01: We need to be rescued from our sin.
SPEAKER_01: And we know from reading the book of Matthew, that God's counterintuitive plan to rescue us is this thing called the cross.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus didn't come to be killed by Herod.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus came to willingly offer up his life for us on the cross.
SPEAKER_01: And so for that reason, all throughout the Christmas story, and as you read about the life and ministry of Jesus, you see at other points in his life as well.
SPEAKER_01: You see the Father is intervening to sovereignly preserve the life of his son until the time when Jesus could go to the cross.
SPEAKER_01: He's protecting the life of his son because he knows that without the cross, we will remain spiritually dead, locked up under the power of sin.
SPEAKER_01: And so it's in the midst of the darkness that we see here in the Christmas story that we see God preserving and protecting the life of his son.
SPEAKER_01: And he's doing it because he loves us.
SPEAKER_01: He's doing it for us.
SPEAKER_01: God is intervening so that an arrogant bully named Herod would not have the last word.
SPEAKER_01: God is intervening so that the darkness that is both out there in our world and also inside of each one of our hearts, he's intervening so that that darkness will not have the last word.
SPEAKER_01: The good news of Christmas is that in Jesus, God Himself stepped into the darkness of our world.
SPEAKER_01: He did not remain distant from us.
SPEAKER_01: He didn't stand off far away.
SPEAKER_01: He came near to us in the darkness and in the brokenness of our world.
SPEAKER_01: He stepped into the mess that we've created.
SPEAKER_01: He stepped into the mess that we have created and he allowed himself to be overcome by the darkness.
SPEAKER_01: If a person were to take a screenshot of Jesus' lifeless body hanging on the cross, the only conclusion is that the darkness had won.
SPEAKER_01: But the mind-bending and brain-breaking message of Christmas is that in being overwhelmed by the darkness, Jesus defeated it.
SPEAKER_01: That's why Jesus came.
SPEAKER_01: He came into the darkness, went to the cross, was overwhelmed by that darkness, and in doing so, defeated the darkness.
SPEAKER_01: And he defeated it on our behalf.
SPEAKER_01: And the message of Jesus is that now, through trust in Jesus, that is, through nothing more than offering our lives to him in faith and giving our trust and our allegiance to him, we can receive a new life.
SPEAKER_01: Our hearts can be made alive again.
SPEAKER_01: We can experience a relationship with our Creator.
SPEAKER_01: We can come to know the One.
SPEAKER_01: We can come to experientially and personally know the One who is now today and who one day will make all things new.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know what darkness you're facing today.
SPEAKER_01: But I do know this.
SPEAKER_01: Number one, he knows what it's like.
SPEAKER_01: He understands the darkness more than you can possibly imagine.
SPEAKER_01: He lived in darkness just as we do.
SPEAKER_01: He was overcome by darkness in a way that none of us ever will be.
SPEAKER_01: He understands, he knows what it's like to live and to walk in darkness, and so he knows.
SPEAKER_01: Secondly, what we can know is this God is sovereignly at work in the darkness.
SPEAKER_01: We see that all throughout the story of Jesus' birth, that when when things are at their darkest, God is orchestrating things behind the scenes to bring about his plans to save and to rescue people from their sin.
SPEAKER_01: So in that darkness, God is sovereignly at work, even if it doesn't look like it on the surface.
SPEAKER_01: And we can be certain that if God is doing that in the story of Christmas, we can be certain he's doing that in our own lives today as well, in all the darkness that we face.
SPEAKER_01: And third, we can know he's promised that if you are united to him, that the darkness you see and experience will not have the last word in your life.
SPEAKER_01: In Jesus, the darkness has been overcome.
SPEAKER_01: And this is the good news that we celebrate this Christmas and every Christmas.
SPEAKER_01: We are now going to come to the communion table.
SPEAKER_01: And as we come forward to receive the broken body and the shed blood of Jesus, we are reminded of what was the darkest moment in history.
SPEAKER_01: We are reminded of the time when the sinless Son of God was tortured and executed as a criminal.
SPEAKER_01: And this Christmas, we remember that he has overcome the darkness.
SPEAKER_01: And you can know that he has overcome the darkness for you so that you could live with hope.
SPEAKER_01: That one day he will return to once and for all make all things new.
SPEAKER_01: As we come to the communion table, let me invite you to take just a few moments of silence for confession and reflection.
SPEAKER_01: And then we are going to uh do a prayer of confession together.
SPEAKER_01: That's a responsive reading, and so you'll see those words up on the screen behind me in just a moment.
SPEAKER_01: But take a moment for silence and confession as we come to the communion table.