Magazine for December 2011
Keeping Power
“Massacre in Middle East. Many children feared dead as country’s leader tries to destroy opposition to regime.”
We’ve seen many headlines like this from many of the world’s trouble spots over the years. Dictators try to hang on to power and the innocent suffer as a consequence. Fear and terror are weapons used to cow people into submission. What hope do people have against such evil in this world and why do the wicked seem to prosper?
But this problem isn’t new. As we read the Psalms, this question is asked time and time again: why do evil people prosper and the innocent suffer? At Christmas we celebrate the birth of Jesus. We have the joy of Mary and Joseph, the joy of the shepherds, the joy of the wise men…and the fear and anger of King Herod. Herod didn’t know which child in Bethlehem was the promised saviour and so he adopted a policy of mass slaughter. The solution was simple: if you kill all young boys then the problem has been dealt with. Like so many dictators, Herod seemed to prosper. He had free will and used it to try to impose his supremacy over man and God. But despite believing he had succeeded in removing a threat to his regime, Herod had actually failed because Jesus was no longer in Bethlehem.
One of the messages of Christmas is that however bad things might seem to be, God’s love cannot be extinguished. Whatever the situation we may face, God is with us. Just as Herod failed to kill Jesus, we find that at Calvary Jesus conquered sin and death. For those who trust in Jesus, God’s love is always close at hand and is inextinguishable.
David Bradshaw