Last week, despite all the choices for readings and themes, we went with the familiar Christmas story from Luke 2. That's because Christmas just is not Christmas without the Christmas story from Luke 2. But our reading today from Matthew highlights some elements we take for granted. We simply think they make the Christmas story quaint. We consider them as adding to the charm of the account, but when seen in light of today's reading, we see them as downright dangerous.

Perhaps, it is the way that Luke so matter-of-factly reports it. "And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger because there was no place for them in the inn." Ahh, isn't that nice?

No, it's not. We should be practically outraged. Swaddling cloths? Doesn't He at least have a blanket? This "poor" thing, which helps us to see He presents Himself as not untouchable, but comes to the lowest of the lows, this "poor" thing seems to take it too far. Not even a blanket! This is a newborn. Strips, probably from Mary's clothes, is hardly the way to cover a newborn and keep Him warm!

A manger! An animal feeding trough! This is so unbelievably unsanitary! Nowadays babies are delivered in sanitized hospital rooms, where fathers even have to wear a gown. Mary is delivering a baby in a barn! I mean, think about it! "Honey, it's coming. The baby is coming." "Alright then, let's go out to the barn." I don't think so.

And who is there to deliver it? A carpenter. Where's the midwife? "Sorry, Mary. Joseph is all you got." If it's a normal delivery, she could have died. The baby could have died. The conditions are far from ideal.

This is a very precious package you have here, Mary. Be extra careful. As the hymn says, "The hopes and fears of all the years, are met in Him tonight." We lose Him, and all of creation perishes. The soul of every faithful person, is completely lost. Nothing must happen to Him.

Then Joseph gets a dire warning in a dream. "Escape down to Egypt now. Your son is in grave danger. The king wants to kill Him." And then you realize, Jesus is a marked man. His life is going to be threatened for His entire life. Satan wants to kill Him or do whatever he can to keep Him from going to the cross.

At this point, though, it is an all-out effort to just kill Him. The Wisemen had let it slip. Where is this child, born King of the Jews? King of the Jews? That's Herod's title, at least the earthly title belonged to him, and he wanted to keep it for himself.

Herod was already in fear of losing it. His whole palace was filled with intrigue, as he suspected his sons of trying to take his throne. He had asked the emperor for permission to execute one or two of sons for treason so many times that Caesar Augustus said, "I would rather be Herod's pig than his son." Whether his sons and everyone else were out to get his throne or not, the last years of this once great king were very troubled. Then along come the wisemen. "Where is the one born King of the Jews." You can imagine how well that sat with a guy who is already always looking over his shoulder.

So, Herod figures out when Jesus was born, based on the report of the star the Wisemen gave, figured his rival was two years old or younger and sends his soldiers out to kill Him. Since the Wisemen did not return to tell Herod where this newborn king of the Jews was to be found, and Herod didn't know His identity, he had all the boys two years and younger living in Bethlehem executed. That was probably about 20 boys.

Herod may have had the title, King of the Jews, but from us he earns the title of "Monster." Yes, Herod is a monster, but the real monster behind all this is not seen. It's the Old Serpent from the garden. Paul exposes him in Ephesians 6, "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places." Here is the one who is responsible for the massacre of these innocents.

Not flesh and blood, but spiritual forces of evil. Satan himself. Satan wanted to kill Jesus at the very beginning of life. This is represented in the vision St. John had which he records in Revelation. A pregnant woman was about the give birth to a child. Right in front of her is a dragon, ready to devour the child when she delivers, but the child is protected. Satan can't touch Jesus.

That doesn't stop his attempts. He attacks Jesus frequently. King Herod wanted to kill him when he was just a few years old. His brothers, which are probably his step brothers, wanted to see Him killed and encouraged Him to show up where He was sure to run into some angry mobs. An angry mob from Nazareth did try to kill him.

At other times, Satan shows a little more craftiness. In the wilderness, he tempted Jesus to just prove He is God. Once, right after a brilliant confession, one of Jesus' closest own, the apostle Peter, tries to deter Jesus from the cross. Then in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus was attacked ever so savagely.

But Satan can't lay a finger on him until the appointed time, the time when Jesus lets him do it. Finally, Jesus lets him. Satan attacks and finds his mark when Jesus is on the cross. But this was all according to plan and became visible to the world when Jesus rose from the dead. After that Satan couldn't do anything anymore to Him.

Frustrated, he turns his eyes and they land on Jesus' followers--you and me. If he can't touch Jesus, then he is going to get His brothers and sisters. He will attack us. Therefore, what we endure as Christians is hinted at in this part of the Christmas story. We are told we are going to suffer as Jesus' followers, even in the Christmas story.

We might think the difficult times in life would come from the devil, but we know our Lord is the Lord of history. He watches over our lives. He controls what comes into them. As Job had said, "The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord." Nothing happens to us without His approval. So we can say He sends us illness and troubles, using the general curse of sin, the sin of others and our own for our benefit. We know He does this for our benefit because He is our Father, because of Christ. Peace has been made between He and us, and because of this He looks upon us as His own Son.

But in the middle of these troubles, Satan comes along to test. He wants to drive a wedge between God and us. He is the devil, the slanderer. The word devil means slanderer. And so he slanders our Father by saying He is not just or merciful; he slanders Jesus by claiming He is not God's Son and not our advocate. He slanders us by saying we are not seen as holy in God's eyes.

We are taught to pray against these attacks when we pray the 6th petition of the Lord's Prayer, "Lead us not into temptation." "God tempts no one. But we pray in this petition that God would guard and keep us so that the devil, the world, and our sinful nature may not deceive us or mislead us into false belief, despair and other great shame and vice. Although we are attacked by these things, we may finally overcome and win the victory."

There it is, in living color, laid out for us in very simple terms exactly what our spiritual enemies attempt to do. They try to deceive us and lead us to believe things that aren't true.

What might these be? What does He use to deceive us? The attacks come from within. We already know he tempts us to sin. But that's only the first step. When he has succeeded, he then accuses us with our sin, and then chooses one of two different tactics.

For some, he will use the Gospel to excuse the sin. In this, he leads us into the false belief that the Gospel gives us permission to sin. He says to us, "Go ahead and sin. Then you can ask for forgiveness and Jesus will give it to you. You can do this with any sin. You will always be forgiven." The problem of course, is that when we do this we are not seeking forgiveness for sin. We are looking for permission to sin. When he has us do this he says, "Aha! A god like this is not a merciful god. He's a pushover. He has no backbone. What kind of god is this? Now that they have created a god like this out of the real one, they won't even recognize the real one when they see Him. My work is done here."

So, as you can see, he may not be able to touch Jesus directly, as he had tried again and again when He was living and walking on earth, but he hurts Him by destroying us.

The other tactic is to lead to us to despair. He takes over the role of God as judge. He condemns us by saying, "You can't call yourself a Christian. You don't deserve to be forgiven. You say, 'I'm trying to do better,' but you are just playing mind games with yourself and you fall into the same sin again and again. Eventually God's mercy is going to run out." He will even use Bible passages which look like proof. We get to the point that we don't think we can even cry out, "Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner."

Keep in mind, the Lord always wants us to be at the point of crying out, "Lord have mercy on me." Then we can see the mercy that is delivered in Christ. But if the slanderer gets us to question God's love, and think there is a limit to it, then he will drive us to despair and make us believe we can't be forgiven; that it's futile to beg for mercy. Our faith in his mercy will die. Even while being fed, we starve, because we don't think His rich gifts are for us.

Either way, he tries to dislodge us from our Lord's hold and separate us from Him. We are told we can be confident that neither death nor life, angels nor rulers, things present nor things to come, height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the Love of God that is in Christ Jesus. This is so; none of these can, but this is spoken to those who were fearful of them doing this. They will if we distance ourselves from God. If we think we can stand on our own, we are as good as gone.

That's why the 3rd stanza of Away in a Manger is so helpful for us. We consider it just a child's hymn. Some of us may have even thought I chose it because it is a familiar Christmas carol, and I try to find every excuse during the short Christmas season to give you Christmas carols. Nice try. Actually, listen to the words we sang, "Be near me, Lord Jesus; I ask Thee to stay. Close by me forever and love me I pray. Bless all the dear children in Thy tender care, and take us to heaven to live with Thee there."

This was exactly the hymn I was looking for when I thought about Satan's thwarted attacks on Jesus, turned to us. "Be near me Lord Jesus; I ask Thee to stay." This is the way we stay safe: when He is near us; when we hear His Word; when we partake of His gifts as we do in worship, and in our daily devotions. We see that God has become flesh and offers Himself in the flesh to us for our strengthening. As our Father tells us again and again, "I have mercy on those who cry out for mercy," this is where we need to be. This is where He wants us to be.

But through our text we see God brings a purpose out of these. Jesus escapes down to Egypt and the prophecy, "Out of Egypt I called my Son," referring to the nation of Israel and the Son of God in flesh, Jesus, is fulfilled. Then when His family comes back, Bethlehem is still not safe, so they move to Nazareth, so that the prophecies of his lowly stature, even the area where he was raised, would also be fulfilled.

The Lord is in control. The devil is God's devil. He cannot act independently. Even as he attacks, the Lord will turn these times of temptation to your good. I won't say you may be attacked, as though to say, "If you are attacked." Rather, I would say when you are attacked. You will be attacked or perhaps we could even say you are being attacked right now, telling you to ignore what I say, or to discount it. But recognize the attacks for what they are. Because through them, these attacks the Lord is teaching you to rely on Him even more, drawing you closer, and creating in you a stronger desire for the gifts of His Word and the Sacrament, which He brings today.

AMEN