Tragedy at Christmas-Rachel Weeping For Her Children

Last Sunday, we were still trying to wrap our minds around the tragedy of the horrible shootings in Newtown, Connecticut. We didn't grasp yet fully the significance of what had happened. We were still reeling from the shock of all of that. And we mentioned that last Sunday we had prayer for those families and for that community and for all of those affected by it. Now a week later, we are even more horrified and troubled as the picture has become clearer as to what happened. I will not rehearse the details of that incident for you again. Those have been well documented in the news. No need for me to do that this morning. But the calculated, premeditated nature of that crime and the horror of 20 children being murdered makes the event itself almost unspeakable, unbearable. And as we have watched this week, a procession of funeral after funeral in that stricken community, the grief of parents, of loved ones is beyond words. I am reminded of an Old Testament prophecy in Jeremiah which finds its way in the New Testament into the Christmas story. That prophecy is in Jeremiah 31 and verse 15. It is on the screen for you because that is not our main text for today. This is what the Lord says. A voice is heard in Rama, the village north of Jerusalem, mourning and great weeping, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted because they are no more. And all of this at Christmas time, all of this happening right at Christmas. The question on many people's hearts and minds has been, how do you observe a time of great joy and still process such a horrible tragedy as this and express in appropriate ways your sorrow and your grief that is at the forefront of our thinking? How do you resolve those two? Actually was a question asked in the Friday edition of the USA Today newspaper, the cover story of Friday's edition was, where tears shower a season of joy, subtitle. How do we mark a holiday defined by life and children? And I am very much aware that that same question is asked not only by people in Newtown Connecticut today and people who are thinking of that tragedy, but some of you here this morning. Because for some of you today, Christmas time is a time of, yes, great joy, but it is also a time of painful memories. For some of you, this time of year marks an anniversary of a tragedy or a death in your family or some significant difficulty that you have faced in your life and even the time of year once again brings back those scars and your celebrations are dimmed and marred by what is there in your heart and mind. So I found myself asking this week, where do you find answers to bring all this together? As always, we must turn to the Word of God. Is there anything there that will give us some answers? Is there any way to find something in the Bible that speaks to this terrible evil? Can we find anything there? Indeed we can. And it is forever tied to the Christmas story. Because within two years of our Savior's birth and directly tied to his birth, there was the horrible massacre of young children. Matthew chapter 2 describes it for us. I invite your attention to Matthew's gospel chapter 2 where we will look for our answers today. This is the forgotten part of the Christmas story. This is the part of the Christmas story you never hear in the Contatas and the Christmas plays. Even if we do talk about the wise men and they're part of the story, we usually end our readings at verse 12, but the story doesn't end there. Sadly, there is this side of Christmas as well. This side directly tied to the coming of the Lord, our Savior. And so regrettably, this needs to be the focus, at least in my heart and mind of this season's celebration of Christmas. Now do we celebrate the time of great joy when it is mixed with unspeakable horror? How do we resolve that tension? Where do we find the answers in Scripture? I must admit I have never preached on this passage, at least the latter part of the passage it will consider this morning. I have never preached on it. It's just, again, not a familiar part of the Christmas story, not one that we revel in and take joy in, and yet at this time of year it is sadly the appropriate passage for our thoughts. Matthew 2 begins with Matthew describing the birth of Jesus as we understand it and celebrate it as a time of unparalleled joy, just unparalleled joy. The angels had announced that to the shepherds in the other gospel that chronicles the birth of Christ in Luke 2. On the screen again, these verses, the heralding of the angels, this is what the Lord says. Let's flip on up to Luke 2. Sorry about that. Time of unparalleled joy. Luke 2 verse 10. The angels said to them, do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David, a Savior has been born to you. He is Messiah, Christ, the Lord. And so that news of great joy is given to the shepherds and it was also received by a group of astrologers in a faraway land in Persia, men who studied the stars and to whom God had given a special revelation, possibly through the ancient text of a man, a Jew, who had lived in Persia, Daniel. Daniel chapter 9, they may have understood from that text which was left there. The timing of the birth of the Messiah was close and when they see this phenomenon in the heavens, God reveals to them, this is the signal. This is the star. The signal that the Messiah, the Jewish Messiah has been born. And so they react with great joy. They make that long journey to find him. That's how it begins. Let's read Matthew chapter 2 verse 1. After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, where is the one who has been born King of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him. These Magi, we sometimes refer to them as kings or wise men, the Bible does not call them kings, they were astrologers. They were men who studied the heavens, but they were also in the kingdom of Persia, the king makers. They were the ones who sought out and installed the kings of that part of the world. So when God reveals to them that there is a phenomenon in the heavens that reveals the coming king of Israel, obviously they are intrigued and interested in finding out more about him. And so they go to the place they would expect to find him. The capital of Israel, certainly if a king is born, that's where it will be heralded and celebrated and he will be shown to all of the people in the capital. So they come to Jerusalem to find him. Verse 3. When King Herod heard this, he was disturbed and all Jerusalem with him will see why in a few moments. When he had called together all the people's chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born. In Bethlehem in Judea they replied, this is what the prophet has written. But you, Bethlehem in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah. Or out of you will come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel. So the Magi come to Jerusalem asking, expecting to receive a clear answer, everyone celebrating the birth of their king. But when Herod finds out about this, a man who is obviously wicked and evil in his desire to exterminate any potential threat to his throne, when he hears that a king of the Jews has been born, he is to put it mildly, greatly disturbed. And all Jerusalem is with him. They know this man, they know his character. And because of what they know about him, all the city is disturbed as well about this news of the birth of a king. So Herod calls in the scholars, the Old Testament scholars, those who would be familiar with the prophecies and would know maybe where this is supposed to happen and sure enough, the Old Testament scribes and scholars know Micah chapter 5 and verse 2. They know that prophecy that describes the Messiah when he comes will be born in Bethlehem. So Herod has the first bit of information he needs to concoct them evil plot to do away with any threat to his throne, verse 7. Herod called the Magi secretly. He is going to get second bit of information that he is going to keep to himself. He doesn't want this to be in the court, he doesn't want this to be public knowledge. He calls them secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. He sent them to Bethlehem and said go and search carefully for the child as soon as you find him report to me so that I too may go and worship him. We know from the events that follow that was the last thing on his mind. He had no interest, no inclination at all to worship this newborn king. It was his desire to gain as much information about how old he was. When did the star first appear? When did you first see it? It's taken you how long to get here? Where is he? He's gathering information for a plot. Verse 9. And after they had heard the king, they went on their way and the star they had seen when it rose, went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary and they bowed down and worshipped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and humor and having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route. These king makers, these astrologers, the magi, once they lead Jerusalem, God supernaturally again, calls us the star to appear to direct them to the very place, the very house where Jesus is. You'll notice it is a house, it is not the stable, as Al said, all of our Christmas scenes are wrong. The wise men did not show up on the night of Jesus' birth, the shepherd's dead, but not the wise men. They come later, Jesus is settled with his mother and Joseph in a house and knowing the timeframe, particularly the age of the children that will intrigue Herod in his plot, Jesus may be 18 months old, maybe close to two years old by this time. When these king makers come, they give him gifts that are fitting for a king, gold, frankincense and murder because there are three gifts. We have our folklore that tells us there were three wise men. We don't know how many there were, maybe 15, but they brought three gifts and those three gifts are given in an offering to the Savior, the little boy who will be our Savior. But God has warned them in a dream not to go back to Herod, not to report to Him what they've seen, where He is, and so they go back another way. What joy, the Bible says they were overjoyed when they realized God was leading them once again in a very direct way to the place where they would see the Savior, the king, a time of unparalleled joy, and that's what we celebrate at this time of year, that the Savior has come, that Jesus is born, a time of unparalleled joy is ours and rightly so at this time of year. But we cannot escape the fact that Matthew also describes this as a time of unspeakable horror. Just get down to verse 16, if you will. In Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. In order to make sure he got Jesus, if the Magi would not come back and tell him where Jesus was specifically, then he would just murder everybody of that age group and under the whole vicinity and make sure he gets Jesus. For 17, then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled, a voice is heard in Rama weeping and great morning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted because they are no more. Herod was an evil man, Herod was a wicked man. He had already murdered several people that he thought were a threat to his throne, even family members. He had murdered because of his suspicion of that. An uncle, a brother-in-law, his mother-in-law, three of his sons and his own wife. He had already murdered, thinking them to be a threat to his throne. So, yes, when he hears a report that a king of the Jews has been born, his default response is, I'm going to exterminate him, I'm going to get rid of him, there will be no threat to my throne. So that's the whole plot that is concocted and when it is not able to be fulfilled because God warned the Magi to go back a different way, he decides to murder all of the little boys in that vicinity. His response to the Magi is certainly in keeping with his character, but it is still, nonetheless, horrifying to think of what happened in Bethlehem. He has not been alone through the ages. There have been many since then, just like Herod, evil and wicked. The 20th century alone exposed us to the Nazi death camps, the killing fields of Cambodia, Soviet gulags, genocide in Rwanda and Sudan and other African countries. The shootings at Columbine and Onan on the list goes. The 21st century has been no different, the attacks on the World Trade Center, shootings at Virginia Tech. The shootings at a youth camp in Norway, the shootings at a theater in Aurora, Colorado, and now this. Where does this kind of stuff come from? How do we find ourselves in this kind of situation over and over and over again? What is it that motivates this? Well part of my responsibility in what I felt so pressured about this week is as the preaching teaching pastor here, there must be a biblical perspective on these kinds of events that just consume our thinking and raise so many questions. So I want to try to frame this within a biblical context, a biblical perspective. Where does this come from? It is the result of sin and evil in the human heart. That's where it comes from. Biblically, that's where it comes from. It is the result of sin and evil in the human heart. The prophet Jeremiah in another part of his prophecy, chapter 17 and verse 9 says this about the wickedness within our hearts. He says the heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. One translation says, desperately wicked. Who can understand it? Our heart is corrupted by sin because of the fall of Adam and the resultant dragging of the whole human race into sin. We are all born with a sinful nature. We have a heart that is deceitful and desperately wicked beyond cure and left unchecked by the grace of God. That heart can take horrifying directions and we've seen it over and over and over again. Jesus told us where these things come from, very specifically in Mark chapter 7, verse 20. When he said, what comes out of a person is what defiles them. For it is from within out of a person's heart that evil thoughts come and then he lists a whole list of sinful behaviors that come out of the heart. Sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, loodness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly and the list could go on. Jesus is giving representative examples of what the human heart is capable of because of sin and evil in the human heart. Listen, that is where this kind of thing comes from. How else can you explain the murder of children? How else can you explain the murder of their teachers and guardians? How else can you explain forcing a child to watch his little friends die knowing he or she will be next? How else can you explain that? The Bible will not allow us to use mental illness as an escape clause for the person who perpetrated this evil or for a coping mechanism for us. Whatever mental issues that young man struggled with and reports are, there were mental issues he struggled with. If whatever those may have, however, those may have affected him, this act was a cold, calculated, premeditated crime, monstrous in its devising and absolutely horrifying in its execution. I think the FBI profiler who commented on this case had it right when she said that a calculated approach which even went to the extent of destroying his computers to try to minimize any damaging evidence before this happened. This kind of calculated approach does not fit one who snaps and is out of his mind. She was right when she said this was evil. It was the result of sin and the horrifying effects of the fall of Adam and its effect on our human hearts and our human race. Without minimizing what has happened at all, the same capacity is in the heart of each of us without excusing anyone at all. We have the same capacity, the same human heart, tainted by evil. Thank God because of the intersection of our lives in this room today. And I hope all of us, certainly most of us, because of the intersection we have with the grace of God, we have been delivered from going to the extent that our human hearts might carry us if left unchecked by the grace of God. It is the result of sin and evil in the human heart. That is where it comes from. Jesus told us that. Jeremiah told us that. Regardless of who else comments on it, I'll take their word. That's where it comes from. But I must say this as well today because I know this question is raised by many and is faced by many. It is also sin that will ultimately be judged. I know that many feel and many have felt the anger of this. When a mass murder or takes his own life, we can feel robbed of justice. There is an inborn expression of the image of God in us that seeks justice to be done. And that's right. But we know that he will never face a human court. He will never face his accusers. He will never stand convicted of his crimes. He will never hear a just sentence passed down. And somehow we feel robbed of that sense of justice when that happens. But I want to say this morning, again, clearly from the word of God, justice will be done. It will be done. Every human being will stand before the judge of the universe who will rule with perfect righteousness and justice. And the scriptures make this abundantly clear. Just to bring again a biblical perspective to this and understand what the scriptures teach. This is clear. It is not easy. But it is right and it is just and it is clear in passages like second Thessalonians. Chapter one. Where Paul says God is just, he will pay back trouble to those who trouble you and give relief to you who are troubled. The Thessalonians were suffering severe persecution. Some who were wanting to take their lives. Paul says God will write all that. When will it happen? This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might. There is a king who rules with justice who is returning someday and he will set everything right. Even things that were not able to be set right in this life. The book of Revelation describes what will happen at the second coming from heaven's perspective. When Jesus comes at the second coming, this is what is being said and done in heaven. After this I heard what sounded like the roar of a great multitude in heaven shouting, hallelujah, salvation and glory and power belong to our God. For here is the reason why. For true and just are his judgments. He has condemned the great prostitute who corrupted the earth by her adultery. That speaking of a commercial and religious system known as Babylon in the book of Revelation that has deceived and corrupted the whole world. Part of the reason why Jesus comes back is to judge that. And he judges it first of all in the armies of the Antichrist. But it goes on to say he has avenged on her the blood of his servants. God making sure that justice is done. That evil is punished. And again they shouted in heaven now they're shouting hallelujah. The smoke from her goes up forever and ever. Is that some kind of vindictive satisfaction? No no. It is the perspective of heaven. It is the perspective of people who have no sinful motive, no sinful thought anymore. They are redeemed and glorified saints in heaven. And they share God's perspective that it is right and just for their to be a day when God will write all wrongs on this earth. And sad to say but very true again the Bible tells us what the ultimate destiny is of these folks who are judged. Revelation 21 verse 8. But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars, they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. The lake of fire. This is the second death. It is irreversible. It is eternal judgment. Now the only way to be delivered from that is through a personal knowledge of Jesus Christ as your Savior. The grace of God redeems us from those kinds of lifestyles that will result in that kind of judgment. And there are many some even sitting here this morning who have lived those kinds of lifestyles but have been redeemed by the grace of God. And the grace of God, the power of Jesus Christ through his blood has wiped all of that off of your record. You are now whole and complete and new in Christ. That is the only way to escape that. Otherwise, because of the evil and wickedness in all of our hearts, regardless of how it manifests itself, that is our ultimate judgment apart from the grace of God. Yes? A time of unspeakable horror in Bethlehem tied to the birth of Christ. So with both of those, the Magi overjoyed at his coming, the coming of the Savior, the citizens of Bethlehem weeping because their children are no more. How do you resolve that tension? How do you bring resolution to that that dissidence in our spirit? Ah Matthew does not leave us hanging here because he also describes this scene as a time of unshakeable hope, unshakeable hope. Go back to verse 13 that we skipped. When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream when the wise men had left from their worshiping Jesus. Joseph has this dream. Get up, he said, take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him. So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Herod and so was fulfilled. What the Lord had said through the prophet out of Egypt. I called my son. There is unshakeable hope in those words and that hope is found in the deliverance of the Savior. The Savior Himself is delivered from this horrifying scene in Bethlehem and the question on many minds might be why not the others? If God could warn Joseph and Mary to get Jesus out of that, why could He not stop the others? From being killed. It is one of the most perplexing questions that we all face on this earth. And that is the presence of evil. Why doesn't God stop it? Why doesn't He keep things like this from happening? He delivers His Son, but the rest of the little boys die. Why? Again, I don't want to sound uncaring and unfeeling and just sweeping off honest and deep objections to truth under the carpet with a theological brush. I don't want to do that, but the Bible does again give us a perspective on this and the presence of evil. God does not stop all evil, although it was never in His plan and His desire. God does not stop all evil that humans in their freedom of choice may commit. But otherwise we would have a world full of robots who had no choice to either do good or evil. God did not want a universe like that. None of us wants to live in a world like that if we really understand the implications of that. Evil was never a part of God's purpose and plan for this world. It came into the world as a result of Adam's sin. God has so chosen to redeem us from that, but He will not intervene to take away the freedom of choice that we as human beings have. And some regrettably have chosen to direct their thoughts and their actions toward again, unspeakable horror. Where was God when all this happened? He was there. He was weeping. He was broken and crushed and angry. At the unspeakable horror committed by the wickedness and sin and evil in a young man's heart. He was not absent. And He will set all things right someday. Even the way we had messed up this world. So why was Jesus delivered when the others weren't? Jesus must be delivered. He is the real target of Herod. He is the real target of Satan behind Herod. And why? Why is he the target? And why must he be delivered? Because he came to deliver us. He came to be our deliverer. Satan knew from the very beginning if he could stop Jesus before he got to the cross. He would win. This was only the first of many attempts to derail the cross, to abruptly end the life of Jesus before he could make it to the cross. And so Jesus must be delivered so that He can deliver us. Satan knew what we must understand and what we must know. Jesus is delivered so that He can make it to the cross, so that He can do what He came to this world to do. And that is to die for you and for me, to pay the penalty for our sin, to take God's wrath that we rightly deserve and pay it for us. He delivers us from all the darkness and the sin and the evil and wickedness in our own hearts. Through His death on the cross, ultimately He will deliver this whole world, this planet, the whole universe, because of what He did on the cross. But He must make it to the cross and do what He came here to do. He did. He made it. He voluntarily willingly gave His life. Jesus just shortly before He died said this in John chapter 10. No man can take my life from me. I have the power to lay it down. I have the power to raise it back up. No man takes my life from me. Jesus willingly laid down His life. He was not robbed of His life. He was not murdered. He willingly laid down His life for you and for me. He is the deliverer and God showed the great victory of the death of Christ in raising Him from the dead, proclaiming once and for all the assurance of final and total victory over sin, evil, wickedness, death, the grave, and hell. It is all because Jesus is our deliverer and that, that is our hope. Even in the midst of such horror, that is the hope that we see. That is the hope that we cling to and it is the only hope that you have of seeing the Lord someday, of being in heaven, of knowing that your sins are forgiven, and that you can spend eternity with Him. It is your only hope. Your only hope is what Jesus did for you and for me on the cross. And so that is where we find resolution. In a time of great joy that is sometimes scarred by unspeakable horror, how do we resolve all that? We understand that we live in a sin-curse decaying world that is full of evil, but there is hope. There is hope on the other side through Christ. And that's what we cling to. But I cannot end this message with that also. So, talking about this, the hope in the destiny of the children. I cannot say this as well as a blog I read this week. So I am going to read a part of it, Dr. Albert Moller, the president of Southern Seminary, wrote a blog last Friday on the day this happened, a week ago Friday. He is one of the most eloquent spokesman for Christianity in our country and is one who comments on news from a biblical perspective quite often. In the midst of his six or seven-page blog on this event, this is what he said about the children. What of the eternal destiny of these sweet children? There is no specific text of scripture that gives us a clear and direct answer. I won't speak to 2 Samuel 12 where David says about his baby who died, I will go to him. That's a different context. Dr. Moller's right, there's no specific clear direct answer. He goes on to say, we must affirm with the Bible that we are conceived in sin and as sons and daughters of Adam will face eternal damnation unless we are found in Christ. So many of these little victims died before reaching any real knowledge of their own sinfulness and need for Christ. They, like those who die in infancy and those who suffer severe mental incapacitation, never really have the opportunity to know their need as sinners and the provision of Christ as Savior. Please listen to what he says next, I think it is so biblically based. They are in a categorically different position than that of the person of adult consciousness who never responds in faith to the message of the gospel. In the book of Deuteronomy, God tells the adults among the children of Israel that due to their sin and rebellion, they would not enter the land of promise. But the Lord then said this, and He quotes Deuteronomy 139, and ask for your little ones who you said would become a prey and your children who today have no knowledge of good or evil, they shall go in there. To them I will give it and they shall possess it. Dr. Moller says many, if not all, of the little children who died in Newtown, were so young that they certainly would be included among those who, like the little Israelites, quote, have no knowledge of good or evil, unquote. God is sovereign and He is not surprised that these little ones died so soon. There is biblical precedent for believing that the Lord made provision for them in the Atonement Accomplished by Christ and that they are safe with Jesus. That is hope. That is hope. Evil and sin will not have the last word. God writes the last chapter in human history and God writes the last chapter in each of our lives. And the last chapter could be entitled with this one word. Hope. Hope. That's the last chapter. That's the way the book of Revelation describes it. Hope because of the deliverer who came to redeem us to save us. Hope of heaven because we know Him. That's the last chapter. That's how the story ends. I am fascinated by the fact that the very verse we began with in Jeremiah, chapter 31, which is used in this story of unspeakable horror in Bethlehem. That very verse is in a context of hope. I want to go back and read it before you. Just listen in Jeremiah 31. Jeremiah is actually talking about the fact that God will redeem Israel Judah at a future day. And although she is now weeping because many of them have died. Many have watched their children cruelly die at the hands of the Babylonians. And they have been taken captive to Babylon. And they have, as they have been taken captive, gone through the village of Rama north of Jerusalem, being dragged off to Babylon. As they have gone through Rama, they are weeping because their children are no more. But listen to the context of that. Jeremiah is really talking about hope for the future and the coming blessing and promise of God. He says in verse 10, hear the word of the Lord, you nations, proclaim it in distant coastlands. He who scattered Israel will gather them and will watch over his flock like a shepherd. For the Lord will deliver Jacob and redeem them from the hand of those stronger than they. They will come and shout for joy on the heights of Zion. They will rejoice in the bounty of the Lord, the grain, the new wine, the olive oil, the young of the flocks and herds. They will be like a well-watered garden and they will sorrow no more. Then young women will dance and be glad, young men and old as well. I will turn their mourning into gladness. I will give them comfort and joy instead of sorrow. I will satisfy the priests with abundance and my people will be filled with my bounty. Declare as the Lord. This is what the Lord says. And now, in verse 15, a voice is heard in Rama, mourning and great weeping, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted because they are no more. But the very next verse picks up the theme of hope again. This is what the Lord says. Restrain your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears for your work will be rewarded. Declare as the Lord. They will return from the land of the enemy. Now listen to this for 17. So there is hope for your descendants to declare as the Lord. Your children will return to their own land. There is hope. God says to Jeremiah. There is hope, God says through Matthew. There is hope. God shall set us today. In our time of grief, in the midst of unspeakable horror, there is unshakable hope. It is God, not the murderer, not evil, not Satan who will have the last word. And that last word is hope. And that is why we celebrate at Christmas. Even in the midst of tragedy and for some of you here today, in the midst of painful memories of heartaches that you have suffered at this time of year. And every year Christmas brings that back to you. And your Christmas celebration is dimmed and dulled by the opening of that scar once again. For those of you, I pronounce to you hope. There is hope. There is hope in Christ. There is hope in knowing that he will make all things right. There is hope in knowing that there is a heaven to look forward to someday. When all will be right, that is the resolution. In a time when we should have unparalleled joy, but we are faced with unspeakable horror, the only way to reconcile those two is with an unshakable hope in our redeemer and deliverer. Our Christ. Our Savior. Would you bow in my place?