Christmas: Hope in the Midst of Evil & Suffering (Matthew 2:13-18)

Christmastime is here - happiness and cheer? Christmas does not negate the darkness, violence and suffering of our world but it does reframe it, as we see Matthew the Evangelist do in the massacre of the Holy Innocents. In the face of real suffering, the Gospel’s answer is not sentimentality but hope: God is at work rescuing the devastated and raising the dead. God enters our grief, ennobles the human sufferer, and, in Christ, makes all things new. Creighton Friedrich, 28 December 2025 (Commemoration of the Holy Innocents)