Sunday 18th December
Read Matthew 2:16-18
“When Herod realised 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. 17 Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled:
18 ‘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.’” (NIVUK)
The cosmic battle between the dragon and the woman takes no prisoners. It requires faith and courage to trust in the Son and not the dragon and yet…
“They triumphed over him
by the blood of the Lamb
and by the word of their testimony;
they did not love their lives so much
as to shrink from death.” (Revelation 12:11) (NIVUK)
Carson wrote a beautiful and poignant sonnet describing the personal consequences that follow from the fury of the dragon against the woman…that death followed immediately upon the miracle of the birth of Jesus.
“An empty, bitter farce, this “peace on earth,”
This angel shout a year or more ago,
A wretched taunt beside the recent blow:
Transformed to anguished wail that vanished mirth.
For why must Bethlehem assess the worth
Of one young child, an alien’s son, as though
He far outstrips the massacred? For so
The blood of many weighs against his birth.
The measured value of a life is not
The number of its years: if that could be,
Then Herod, Hitler, Pilate, Stalin, fought
And far outstripped the Christ of Calvary.
In thirty-three short years the blood of one
Would weigh against the death of many a son.”
(Holy Sonnets of the 20th Century #12 by DA Carson)
