From Bethlehem to Aleppo

I prefer the sweet little baby in the manger on my shelf, the Christmas lights, and the warm fuzzy family memories made possible by the birth of Christ.  Let's just hang out there forever, because if we move forward just a few verses in Matthew, just two years on the timeline, we see with unflinching proof just WHY the world needs a Savior.  

Three chilling verses in Matthew gave me pause today.

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 who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the wise men.  

Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah:

"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."

Matthew 2:16-18

Matthew writes this violent part of Christ's story dispassionately, more as a means to illustrate fulfilled prophesy than to say how utterly depraved this word can be.  But over the centuries artists have contemplated the Slaughter of the Innocents with deep conviction and emotion.

Bethlehem:

Genocide.  Over and over and over.  Nazi Germany.  Rwanda.  Aleppo.  So many more in between.  Have we learned nothing?  Wealth, science, evolution, education, globalism, post-modernism, war, humanitarianism...none of it has solved the dark spot in humanity.  

For this, Christ came, fled, returned, taught, suffered, died, and rose again.  For one heart at a time.

Aleppo: