The Cost of Christmas -- a Sermon

The Cost of Christmas

Christmas is over. The tree is down and the nativity scene is put away. Now we’re getting on with life as usual. The shepherds visited Jesus and then left him in the manger and went back to work, disappearing from the story. The wise men delivered their gifts and then went home to continue their studies. We’re just like them, aren’t we. We celebrate Jesus’ birth and then go back to life as usual. But the story continues with or without our participation.

The world hasn’t changed much either. At Jesus’ birth a world superpower was trying to impose peace in the middle east. Local radicals -- terrorists or patriots, depending upon your point of view -- killed the foreign soldiers and local government officials in an effort to destabilize things so that they could eventually take over the country.

When I think about what life must be like today for the average non-political Iraqi, I begin to understand better what life must have been like in Judah when Jesus was born. Visualize the scenes we’ve seen from the streets in Iraq, only something even worse than beheadings and bombings.

Let’s read Matthew 2:16-18.

It began with the sound of marching feet at the far end of the lane. The sound got louder and louder, nearer and nearer. Then you could hear the banging as doors were broken down followed by screams as soldiers entered houses. Suddenly, there was the loud crying of a baby accompanied by the screams of a mother and shouts of a father. Then the crying ended, and the wailing began. Wails of mourning. Mourning for the death of a child.

As the sounds come down the lane, closer and closer, you move deep within your one room house, trying to shield your children in the shadows. Suddenly, your door is broken down and soldiers swarm inside the house. One grabs your baby, rips off it’s clothes, then tosses your daughter back to you alive. Your prayers have been answered. God is merciful.

As the soldiers leave your house, you can see others coming out of the house of your neighbor across the lane. One is carrying an infant. He tears off its clothes, looks, then swings it by the feet exploding its head against the wall. The baby’s mother screams and rushes at the soldier. Your neighbor grabs his wife and holds her back. He couldn’t bear to loose his first born son and his wife on the same day. Other soldiers toss baby boys back and forth, laughing as they catch them upon their spears. The soldiers continue from house to house, killing all boy babies they can find under about two years of age. The whole town is filled with wails of pain and screams of anger. Then the wailing spreads to the countryside as the soldiers move out into the villages. It seems as if the whole God forsaken world were one loud cry of sorrow, pain, anger.

After the soldiers leave, people begin to gather, talking to one another, trying to figure out what was going on. Why had the soldiers suddenly appeared, killing only boys below a certain age? It was senseless. Were the deaths completely meaningless? Or could they serve some purpose? Where was God while this was going on? Why hadn’t God intervened?

Someone suggested that it might have something to do with that strange couple and their son who had disappeared just a few days before. Remember the ones who came for the census? That’s right, the ones that had a party with those drunken shepherds who kept telling some story of angels singing in the countryside.

Now that was a strange family. There was lots of gossip about whether they were even married or not. Most people thought that they were married, but that the baby was VERY early. Then there were those foreigners who were visiting them just before they disappeared. They claimed to be scholars. They kept talking about a king and a star. They had visited King Herod. Maybe they caused all this. Maybe the soldiers were really after that baby boy who had disappeared. Our innocent children have died because of one strange baby who escaped with his life before the soldiers came. Where is the God of justice? Cries of pain became tortured shouts of anger.

We usually skip over these verses when we tell the Christmas story. If we read them, we do it quickly and without comment. We don’t like to mar the joy of Christmas with the obscenity of the deaths of innocent children. It feels indecent and improper. It doesn’t make for a “merry” Christmas. But Matthew included this part of the story. He didn’t hide the difficult parts. Like Paul Harvey, he gives “the rest of the story.”

We know that the joy of Christmas leads to the grief of the cross and ultimately to the elation of the resurrection. I’ve often tried to make a Christmas card showing that idea. But I don’t have any artistic ability, so I’ve given up. However, maybe your imagination can produce what my hands cannot.

Close your eyes and imagine a Christmas card. In the foreground, at the left bottom corner, is the manger with Joseph, Mary and Jesus. Then toward the center in the middle distance is a hill with three crosses on it. In the far background near the right top corner is a hillside tomb with the stone door rolled aside. Over it all is the star. A Christmas card that tells the whole story. Almost. It tells the parts of the story we can live with because we can see the reason for the cross. We know of the empty tomb.

Can you imagine the pain of the mothers of these boys in Bethlehem? They had no idea what was going on. They had no warning of trouble. Suddenly, soldiers appeared in town and went door to door killing all the boy children under two years of age. Why? What had they done? What could they do to protect them? What was the meaning of all this? Where was God? They had no vision of an empty tomb.

The families in Bethlehem and surroundings had no clue as to what was going on. And they never did learn the answers to their questions. What about us?

It was day two of the four day trip back to Pemba, Mozambique from the airport in Lilongwe, Malawi where we’d just sent our son back to school in Kenya. We had made the trip in the other direction just a few days before. We still ached all over from that trip. Now we’d left the paved roads of Malawi and were a few hours along the dirt torture track that masqueraded as the highway in Mozambique. Two more days and several more hours to look forward to. The Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland might be fun for the few minutes it lasts. But that kind of experience gets old after a few hours. Four days is no fun at all. You can’t even enjoy the scenery. We were listening to a tape of a sermon that a friend had sent us. The preacher was talking about what he called the “Law of the Harvest.” He said, “For there to be a blessing anywhere, there must be suffering somewhere.” Just then we hit another big bump and Kathy looked at me and said, “Someone somewhere must be getting a blessing.” I’m not sure if she was joking or not.

Does the blessing of Christmas require the suffering we’ve just described?


Do you have some idea of the pain felt by the parents? How is your stomach right now as you think of this story? Does anyone have dry eyes? It hurts doesn’t it? It makes me angry. How about you?

What do you think God felt?

God was acting to save His creation. He was acting to rescue His people. And the immediate result of His actions was great suffering. Innocent children were dying. The very ones God was seeking to rescue were paying the price for His actions. Was the cost of the blessing too great?

God loved His people so much that He was willing to sacrifice His own son in order to rescue them. He was willing to suffer to save His creation. But the result of sending His son into the world to save it was that innocent children were dying. Parents who had done nothing to deserve such pain were in agony over the murder of their children.

Can God feel guilty? Don’t you think God suffered even more than the families because of the price they were having to pay because God loves you and me so much?

Did God have second thoughts about the plan He had put into effect to save His creation? The Adversary was fighting back. He knew he couldn’t prevent God giving His son to save us. But maybe God would give up when He saw innocent children dying. The Adversary invoked the “Law of the Harvest.”

But God was undeterred.

We often trivialize the cost of salvation. We assume that because God loves us, it’s His job to sacrifice His son for us. Sure, Jesus suffered on the cross, but we assume he knew he would be raised from the dead, so it wasn’t REALLY such a big thing. Yes, God lost His son. But He knew He would raise him from the dead and all would be fine. Isn’t that the way we think?

“For there to be a blessing anywhere, there must be suffering somewhere.” It’s real suffering without a clear knowledge of the outcome. It’s the death of innocents. Those parents in Bethlehem thought that one innocent boy baby had escaped. But eventually he, too, was killed. Still innocent. There is no cheap grace.

I don’t know about you, but I find it hard to believe that God could love me so much that He would allow such suffering to take place just to save me. It’s hard to know how to respond. To reject such love would be to make all those deaths meaningless. But I know I don’t deserve such love. I don’t have the right to accept it. But can I really refuse it? Can you?

Maybe part of our problem is that we are afraid of the “Law of the Harvest.” We’re afraid that we will be called on to suffer.

In May 1844 Dr. Ludwig von Krapf with his wife from Germany landed in Mombasa, Kenya as C.M.S missionaries. Two years later, Krapf's wife and child died. He was joined by Rev. Johann Rebmann, a fellow countryman. In September 1853 Krapf returned to Europe. His health had been destroyed. He had come to Africa to spread the gospel. He had sacrificed the lives of his wife and child as well as his own health. He suffered greatly, but saw no sign of blessing. He saw no results of his evangelistic efforts. In fact, the only claim to fame he and Rebmann had was that they were the first europeans to see Mount Kilimanjaro. And that just caused people to think they were crazy. No one believed there could be an ice capped mountain so near the equator.

For over a hundred years more missionaries watered the seeds Krapf and Rebmann had planted. They, too, suffered so that others might be blessed, even though they, themselves, would not participate in the blessing. Finally, in the late 1980’s the spiritual harvest was ripe in coastal Kenya. Not only were many Kenyans blessed with God’s salvation, but hundreds of Baptists from the USA who participated in evangelistic outreaches there returned home blessed. The “Law of the Harvest” holds.

William Carey is famous as the father of modern missions. But few know of his wife. She didn’t want to go to India. She never adjusted to life in India. She developed severe mental and emotional problems and spent her final days locked in a padded room for her own protection. She suffered so that others might receive a blessing. Like those families in Bethlehem, she did not choose her suffering. She probably never understood what was going on.

Whenever God and evil contest each other, innocents suffer. We know about Job’s suffering because of his faithfulness, but we usually forget that his servants lost their lives because of Job’s righteousness and that their families endured great suffering as well as did Job.

There’s a well known African proverb that says, “When elephants fight, the grass suffers.” The list could go on. The gift of salvation is not cheap. Who has suffered so that you could be offered this gift? Have you ever given anyone a gift that you knew was very valuable and they either refused it or didn’t seem to value it when they took it? How did you feel?

I remember when I was in my first year at seminary in Kentucky. I was a single fellow then. Kathy was working in Hilo and sending me goodies from Hawaii on occasion as part of our long distance courtship. A church invited me to speak to their GA group about Hawaii for their Annie Armstrong emphasis. Kathy had just sent me some rock salt plum as a special treat. I thought I’d be generous and share with this group of girls. I passed the bag around the group and each girl took a piece and put it into her mouth. Suddenly, there was a mad rush of girls to the bathroom. They all ran and spit out the rock salt plum!

I wasn’t overjoyed by that response. I had given them something very special to me. They treated my gift with contempt. I promised myself never again to share my rock salt plum except with other Hawaii folks.

God has offered you a very special gift. Have you accepted it? Or have you refused to receive this gift? Have you chosen to remain outside God’s love?

How do you think God feels about your response?

Maybe you have accepted the gift, tasted it and then run to the bathroom to spit it out? You want the blessing, but you don’t want to pay the price of being obedient to God. It tastes bad to you.

Maybe you have only partially received God’s love. You’ve taken the seed into your mouth without spitting it out, but you haven’t swallowed anything. Your mind knows that God loves you but you continue to live as though you were unloved.

If God has paid such a high price for the blessing of salvation, how can we refuse it? How can our way of thinking and living not be changed?

Which one of us will tell the families of Bethlehem that their sons died for nothing?

Who will tell God that His son died in vain?

“For there to be a blessing anywhere, there must be suffering somewhere.” What will you do if God calls you to suffer?

Do you know that old hymn, “Make Me a Blessing”? Listen to these words of the hymn:

Give as ‘twas given to you in your need, Love as the Master loved you; Be to the helpless a helper indeed, Unto you mission be true.
Make me a blessing, Make me a blessing, Out of my life May Jesus shine; Make me a blessing, O Savior I pray, Make me a blessing to someone today.

Will you “give as ‘twas given to you in your need?”

Can you “love as the Master loved you?”
“For there to be a blessing anywhere, there must be suffering somewhere.”
Are you contributing to anyone’s blessing?

We’re going to sing our final song. It’s a time for you to reflect on your response to the story you’ve heard. You can’t avoid a response.

Either you accept God’s gift and give meaning to the deaths in Bethlehem and the death of God’s own son on the cross, or you proclaim them all meaningless and worthless by rejecting the blessing.

Can you refuse such a gift?