Two Powers in Conflict

Six days ago we celebrated the birth of our Savior. The angels were singing; Mary and Joseph were beaming with pride; the shepherds had come to kneel at his manger - it was all so warm and wonderful; so glorious and filled with hope. There were smiles on our faces, and happy greetings of "Merry Christmas" filled the air.

Today is another thing altogether. Today we read of the murder of preschool children around Bethlehem.   It’s called the Slaughter of Innocents, a horrible and grotesque story.  Think of the conflict we are caught in today.  We are still singing the beautiful Christmas carols that speak of his tender birth, yet we are reading about shrieking cries of madness, violence, and death! 

These two opposite realities represent, to me, the greatest POWER STRUGGLE in all of history!   Every other power struggle is dwarfed by this power struggle. This power struggle of the ages is Human power vs. God's power!   Humanity against God; God against humanity!

Monday evening we celebrated the tender birth of our Lord. It's the story of an astounding miracle. It's the love story of God taking off kingly robes, shedding Godly status, discarding royal power, and expressing all of who God is into the very fragile and vulnerable life of this little baby and the man he grew to be. It is the beginning of the story about the Power of God.

The story about Herod in our gospel for today is about the power of humanity. It can be summed up very easily:  "When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem."

That's a story about the power of humanity as it is sometimes expressed in ignorance, fear, violence and hatred.  

God's power!   Human power!  When you place them side by side tremendous heat is generated from the friction between them. They conflict, clash and repel one another. Something has to give.

·        In a short period of time the children around Bethlehem were dead – and a great wailing and lamentation was heard in the land.  

·        Think of Jesus on the cross. In a few hours the beautiful tiny infant hands that grew into the hands of the man who healed the sick, touched the lepers, and raised the dead were as mutilated as any hands have ever been!

The power of God is vulnerable to anyone who choose to oppose it; defenseless against anyone who wishes to crush it!

I think a good question to ask this first Sunday after Christmas is, “Does God really have any power?”  If God does, then what is God's power like?  How does it work?  And by power I mean a force that can do a lot more than merely make us feel cozy and inspired for a little while on Christmas, and then the next day the whole business evaporates like the morning fog.  I mean power that lasts and makes difference!

You see, this is a huge dilemma for many people.  There are many agnostics who have pretty much given up on the idea of God because they don't perceive that God has any real power. They might say, “If God has real power, then why is there so much suffering and injustice in the world? Why doesn't God use God’s power?”  It's a valid question!

Let's talk about human power for a moment.   Human power is expressed in primarily two ways: the power to create and the power to destroy.  Everyday, you and I have opportunities to create or tear down.  In most situations that make up the mundane moments of our days, we have the power: to affirm or to condescend;  to give love or withhold love;  to listen or close our ears;  to seek truth or blind our eyes;  to be magnanimous or to be petty;  to be kind or to be callous;  to give or withhold forgiveness.  Ever day and every hour we make choices and we exert power over people and situations.

The fundamental characteristic of human power is that it is primarily external.  It's the power to move things and people around from the outside in.  We have the power to push, pull, prod, force, manipulate, to shape people and situations to our liking, according to our values, our desires, and our wills - mainly from the outside in.  Human power is coercive, authoritarian and hierarchical.

But God's power is so much different. It's an altogether different thing - and this is precisely where we misunderstand it.  We define power as force, coercion, exertion of the will!  When God doesn't live up to our expectation of power, and force things, it seems to us that God has no power!  When evil wins the day, or the one we pray for dies, or bad things happen to good people, we ask, “Where is God?”  We might conclude that God has no power!

But I stand before you today and I say, “God has power!”  God has power, but it's altogether different than your power and mine!  It is so totally different it is invisible to our blind eyes.   

Think of the child of Bethlehem dying on the cross.  Think of what he said as he hung there dying.  Luke 23:33 says, “When they came to the place that is called The Skull, they crucified Jesus there… then Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them…’”

That's it!  That's the power of God!  As Jesus was dying at the hand of human hatred, the power of God flowed out of him in his appeal to God for the forgiveness of his executioners!

God's power is expressed, not through coercion, force, pressure, or intimidation, but through suffering, sacrificial love!  That's the place to see God's power at work – suffering, sacrificial, self-giving love! God gives us the freedom to beat him up and nail him to a cross. But the one thing all the human power in history combined cannot do, is destroy God's love for you, for me, for the whole human family!  "God so loved the world..."

Imagine a person invested with every form of human power you can think of: the totalitarian power of a Hitler; the analytic power of a Stephen Hawking; the creative power a Shakespeare; the economic power of a Warren Buffet; the moral power of a Schweitzer, and so on!  Then try to imagine what that person could or could not do. That person could very likely conquer the world - but could that person satisfy the deepest longing of his own soul, or satisfy the deepest longing of your soul. Could that person satisfy the deepest longing of just one single human being anywhere on the planet?  And by deepest longing I mean, the longing for unconditional love; the longing for a sense of peace deep in one's soul; the longing for an eternal hope and purpose that transcends time and experience.  I believe this is something that no person has the power to do for themselves or for anyone else.  In terms of what every person needs the most, all human power is powerless because the deepest longings of our souls are a longing for God;  and all the human power in the world is powerless to satisfy this deepest longing of all. This is the place where the power of humanity becomes impotent, and the power of God becomes operative.

God's power is not external and coercive like human power. God never forces his will - and of course, this is what we often fail to understand.  Rather, God's power is internal; works from the inside out. God's power transforms us into the persons God wants us to be, not with coercion, not with force, not with manipulation, but with suffering, sacrificial love – the love of His very own Son dying for us!

The power of God and the power of Humanity - two realities forever in conflict.  Today we see the power of humanity expressed in its worst way in the Slaughter of Innocents.  We also see the power of God at work in all its mysterious and wondrous glory in the life of the child of Bethlehem until His dying breath pumping love, forgiveness, grace and reconciliation into a world of conflict, hatred, estrangement and violence.

These same two realities are operative in our lives, and we feel their conflict inside of us as well. I pray that as you and I face the minutes and moments of our days, especially the worst and most difficult times, we will have the courage to let the alternate reality of God's power of suffering love take over and flow through us, through His Son, the child of Bethlehem, Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.  Amen.