Excerpted from 2025 Advent Guide: Lighting the Way Forward, an Advent Guide for Lectionary Year A from the North Carolina Council of Churches.
Matthew 2:13-23
Now after they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, “Out of Egypt I have called my son.”
When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the magi, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the magi. Then what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled:
“A voice was heard in Ramah,
wailing and loud lamentation,
Rachel weeping for her children;
she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.”
When Herod died, an angel of the Lord suddenly 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 seeking the child’s life are dead.” Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus was ruling Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. And after being warned in a dream, he went away to the district of Galilee. There he made his home in a town called Nazareth, so that what had been spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, “He will be called a Nazarene.”
It’s an old, old story. This world’s tyrants rage and innocent people die. Just as Jesus did, we live in a world where innocent people suffer and tyrants get away with murder.
It’s enough to make you long for God to throw out thunderbolts, or light some avenging fire, or send a few plagues in the direction of our enemies. Or at least, throw up an invisible shield, and protect innocent people.
But God doesn’t oppose violence with violence. And God doesn’t protect us from the consequences of human freedom. So innocent people suffer and die, as this world’s tyrants rage.
But terror is not the last word, not for Herod, not for us.
Terror will not have the last word. Sometimes, that is hard to believe. Sometimes it seems like there is no limit to the evil human beings will visit on one another, no end to the suffering of God’s holy innocents.
No, terror will not have the last word. God keeps bringing Jesus back to us, after the tyrants think he’s been destroyed. Herod rages, but Jesus comes back from Egypt to Galilee. The Roman authorities execute him, but God brings Jesus through death into new life.
Terror is not the last word for God and so it is not the last word for us.
Jesus goes into the darkness with us, enters the violence of our world. Christ is there with every parent afraid for their children’s safety; with every terrified woman fleeing a violent man; with every refugee seeking safe haven. God is at work in violent places, at work in the witness of peacemakers, in congregations that bring hope and light into troubled communities.
Today, God calls each one of us to join that work of love, to stand for peace in our world, our country, our neighborhoods, our households, and our own hearts.
Thanks be to God, terror is not the last word for us. The Word made flesh, the first and the last, Jesus the Christ, God with us.
