Today we find ourselves on the brink of a new year. And it’s very exciting in so many ways! It’s a clean slate with new possibilities and growth potential. But we are also filled with the reality that looking back on the previous year, things may not have gone the way we had planned. In fact, there was a mix of good and bad times that accompanied us along the way, successes and failures marked 2017, and we need to accept both of these things, make sense of them and move forward. And as we move forward, we are also filled with a renewed sense of hope and confidence, a determination that this year things are going to be different, things are going to change for the better. It's our year! And for a brief moment, everyone will look like a Cubs fan. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay We are also in a rather short season of the Church, lasting only 12 days, the Christmas season. It is meant to celebrate the birth of Christ, and in much the same way as the anticipation we feel for a new calendar year, Christians should live in the joy and hope we feel for what God might do among us one day. times. once again through the Messiah who is Jesus. Yet the story we read today in Matthew's Gospel doesn't fit very well with our cultural assumptions about Christmas joy and a renewed determination to make things happen. On the contrary, the story makes us feel disturbed and unstable, it makes us wonder why? Why are innocent children murdered? And what does this have to do with the Christmas story? Regarding this story, one of my seminary professors once said: "Perhaps no event in the Gospel more decisively challenges the sentimental representation of Christmas than the deaths of these children . » This is why we are rightly appalled by what we read in today's story. And yet we still have to accept it. This story, traditionally called the Slaughter of the Innocents, occurs just 13 verses after the traditional Advent story we read describing the birth of Christ. From there, things start to move quickly. If you imagine it, Jesus has literally just been born. Mary feeds him. He's an innocent little baby. Do everything babies do. And then, suddenly, Joseph has a dream in which it is told that King Herod, a king known for his irrational suspicions, his lust for power and violent episodes in which he killed even his own wife and son , this king Herod is looking for this new King of Kings, to kill him. The wise men told him that a new “king of the Jews” would be born in Bethlehem and of course he was afraid. He expects his rule to be usurped, his power seized. So, such a person easily makes the decision: to protect his power, to remain firmly in control, an innocent child must die. And so Joseph and Mary flee during the night as the angel commands them to do. They flee not as a family of power or status, but as refugees to Egypt; as terrified parents simply trying to keep their son alive in the face of a violent regime. This does not make it seem like they are God's chosen family through whom all Israel will be redeemed. But now this story is starting to sound an awful lot like something we've heard before. You must remember that Matthew is writing to a Jewish audience, a people who are very familiar with his stories ofthe Torah. He is referring to another story. We have an echo of another time in history when God acted to save his people. I’m sure you can guess by now…this is the story of Moses. Formerly there was another ruler, at that time his name was Pharaoh. Who once killed little Hebrew boys, demanding that innocent blood be shed to maintain power and quell irrational fear, and yet one little boy survived. Jesus is saved just as Moses was rescued from the Nile. Jesus comes from the land of Egypt, as a refugee, he enters in the manner of Moses, to free the people from the slavery of sin and death. It’s a great echo of Exodus. Matthew tells the story in such a way that we are meant to pick up on all these references and clues, he is trying to show that through Jesus, through this toddler, God is fulfilling the Old Testament promises. That Jesus is in fact the Messiah who will redeem Israel and even the whole world! Matthew tells the story to help us connect the dots about what God is doing in the world and how Scripture is fulfilled. So where does this leave us? What are we supposed to think of this story as we enter 2018? The first thing is this: Jesus comes into a world where innocent children are still dying. The birth of our Messiah King does not instantly remove violence, greed and unspeakable horror. I wish this were the case, but unfortunately it is not. God does not simply erase all human misery at the birth of Jesus; Rather, the history of the early Church shows us that those who came closer to Jesus experienced the greatest suffering. Just look at Joseph and Mary: they suffer persecution, displacement, and exile because of Jesus! They live in a world that is strikingly similar to ours. A world full of innocent refugees, just like Jesus lived as a refugee. In fact, according to the UN Global Refugee Agency, we have 65 million refugees worldwide today, at the end of 2016. That's more than the entire population of the UK. Joseph and Mary were fleeing the violence and rushing to Egypt for safety. And today people are rushing to Europe and the United States. People are still fleeing violence. At my last church, I organized a regular trip to El Salvador where we spent time with many of the residents of the village where we lived and worked. They shared their lives with us and told us their stories. I have had the opportunity to hear many harrowing stories from people who fled to the United States during the civil war of the 1980s and today due to extreme gang violence. Their stories were difficult to hear, like today's, they always included that people were directly threatened. Do this…or else! Staying in their country was certain death; leaving was just the possibility of life. In the stories I heard, no one wanted to leave their family, their community, and everything they had known. After all, who would willingly make this choice? The people I met were fleeing violence! Look, I know immigration is a hot-button political issue these days, and I don't want to make a big deal out of it, but if we can't agree that we should support people in seeking safety and fleeing violence, regardless of their political opinions. By persuasion, if we cannot see Jesus in the face of an innocent refugee, then we have missed the point. We need to look harder. Because this year that presents itself to us, 2018, cannot be summed up only by us. It must be something more. If it is only a matter of.