**Summary:**

Today, we explored the profound theme of fulfillment in the Advent series, focusing on Matthew's account of Jesus's birth and the prophecies it fulfills. The term "fulfilled" in this context means to be made complete, and Jesus's birth signifies the realization of God's promises. We delved into the story of Mary and Joseph, who faced immense challenges, including the threat from King Herod, who sought to kill Jesus. Despite the danger, Joseph's obedience to God's guidance saved Jesus, highlighting the importance of faith and trust in divine plans.

We also examined the tragic events in Bethlehem, where Herod's wrath led to the massacre of innocent children, fulfilling Jeremiah's prophecy of Rachel weeping for her children. This story of grief and loss resonates with our own experiences of suffering and raises questions about God's presence in our pain. We discussed the concept of deism, which views God as distant, and how it contrasts with the Christian belief in a God who is intimately involved in our lives.

The Christmas story reveals a God who enters into our suffering, offering hope and redemption. Jeremiah's prophecy points to a future where God will restore His people, and Jesus's birth is the ultimate declaration of God's presence in our pain. We are reminded that mourning is not the end of our story; through Jesus, we find comfort and the promise of a future without pain. As followers of Jesus, we are called to embody this hope and joy, sharing the good news with others and being a light in a world filled with grief.

**Key Takeaways:**

1. **Fulfillment in Christ:** The birth of Jesus is not just the realization of prophecies but the completion of God's promises, bringing a new era of hope and redemption. This fulfillment invites us to trust in God's plans, even when circumstances seem dire. [01:39]

2. **Obedience and Faith:** Joseph's immediate response to God's warning demonstrates the power of obedience and faith. In moments of crisis, trusting God's guidance can lead to protection and fulfillment of His purposes. [05:20]

3. **God in Our Grief:** The story of Rachel's weeping and the massacre in Bethlehem remind us that God is present in our suffering. He does not stand apart but enters into our pain, offering comfort and hope for restoration. [12:40]

4. **Rejecting Deism:** The belief that God is distant and uninvolved is challenged by the Christian narrative of a God who is intimately present in our lives. Embracing this truth can transform our understanding of suffering and God's role in it. [13:28]

5. **Hope Amidst Mourning:** Jesus's life and teachings assure us that mourning is not the end. Through Him, we find a gateway to deeper joy and the promise of a future where every tear will be wiped away. This hope empowers us to live as light-bearers in a world of grief. [26:34]

**Youtube Chapters:**

[00:00] - Welcome
[01:39] - Introduction to Fulfillment
[03:39] - The Threat of King Herod
[05:20] - Joseph's Obedience
[06:10] - The Flight to Egypt
[07:14] - Herod's Massacre
[08:32] - Rachel's Weeping
[09:27] - Rachel's Story
[11:00] - Symbolism of Rachel's Grief
[12:40] - God's Presence in Grief
[13:28] - Challenging Deism
[14:40] - Misconceptions About God
[15:42] - Where is God in Our Pain?
[19:52] - Jesus Enters Our Suffering
[21:04] - Hope in Jeremiah's Prophecy
[23:23] - Jesus's Mission of Comfort
[25:28] - The Already and Not Yet
[26:34] - Mourning and Joy Coexist
[29:34] - Living as Light-Bearers

**Bible Study Discussion Guide**

**Bible Reading:**
1. Matthew 2:13-18
2. Jeremiah 31:15-17
3. Revelation 21:3-4

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**Observation Questions:**

1. What actions did Joseph take in response to the angel's warning, and how did this demonstrate his faith and obedience? [05:20]

2. How does the story of Herod's massacre in Bethlehem fulfill the prophecy mentioned in Jeremiah? [07:14]

3. What is the significance of Rachel's weeping in the context of both Jeremiah and Matthew's accounts? [08:32]

4. How does the sermon describe the concept of deism, and how is it challenged by the Christian narrative? [13:28]

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**Interpretation Questions:**

1. In what ways does the fulfillment of prophecy in Jesus's birth invite believers to trust in God's plans, even amidst dire circumstances? [01:39]

2. How does the story of Rachel's weeping and the massacre in Bethlehem reflect the presence of God in human suffering? [12:40]

3. What are the implications of rejecting deism and embracing a God who is intimately involved in our lives, especially in times of grief? [13:28]

4. How does the promise of a future without pain, as described in Revelation 21, influence the way believers live as light-bearers in a world filled with grief? [26:34]

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**Application Questions:**

1. Reflect on a time when you faced a difficult situation. How did you respond to God's guidance, and what can you learn from Joseph's obedience? [05:20]

2. In moments of personal grief, how have you experienced God's presence? What steps can you take to invite God into your current struggles? [19:52]

3. How can you challenge the belief that God is distant in your own life or in the lives of those around you? What practical steps can you take to embrace God's intimate involvement? [13:28]

4. Consider the areas of your life where you feel hopeless. How does the promise of a future without pain, as described in Revelation 21, offer you comfort and hope? [26:34]

5. How can you embody the hope and joy of Jesus's message in your community, especially among those who are grieving? What specific actions can you take to be a light-bearer? [30:48]

6. Identify a person in your life who is experiencing grief. How can you offer them comfort and support, reflecting the presence of God in their pain? [30:48]

7. Reflect on the concept of mourning and joy coexisting. How can you hold onto hope and joy in your own life while acknowledging and processing your grief? [28:59]

Day 1: Fulfillment in Christ's Birth
The birth of Jesus is a profound event that signifies the completion of God's promises, ushering in a new era of hope and redemption. This fulfillment is not merely about the realization of ancient prophecies but about the embodiment of God's faithfulness to His people. In the face of adversity and uncertainty, the birth of Christ invites believers to trust in God's overarching plans, even when circumstances seem dire. The story of Jesus's birth is a testament to the divine orchestration of events that bring about salvation and hope for humanity. [01:39]

Isaiah 42:6-7 (ESV): "I am the Lord; I have called you in righteousness; I will take you by the hand and keep you; I will give you as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness."

Reflection: In what areas of your life do you struggle to see God's promises being fulfilled? How can you actively choose to trust in His plans today, even when the outcome is uncertain?


Day 2: The Power of Obedience and Faith
Joseph's immediate response to God's warning exemplifies the power of obedience and faith. In moments of crisis, his trust in divine guidance led to the protection and fulfillment of God's purposes. Joseph's actions remind us that faith is not passive but requires active participation in God's plans. His story encourages believers to listen for God's voice and respond with courage and trust, knowing that obedience can lead to divine protection and the unfolding of God's will. [05:20]

Hebrews 11:8 (ESV): "By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going."

Reflection: Think of a recent situation where you felt prompted to act in faith. How did you respond, and what might God be calling you to do in obedience today?


Day 3: God in Our Grief
The story of Rachel's weeping and the massacre in Bethlehem serves as a poignant reminder that God is present in our suffering. He does not stand apart from our pain but enters into it, offering comfort and hope for restoration. This narrative challenges the notion of a distant deity and affirms the Christian belief in a God who is intimately involved in the human experience. In times of grief and loss, believers are encouraged to seek God's presence, trusting that He is with them in their darkest moments. [12:40]

Psalm 34:18 (ESV): "The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit."

Reflection: Reflect on a time when you experienced deep grief. How did you sense God's presence with you, and how can you seek His comfort in your current struggles?


Day 4: Rejecting Deism
The belief that God is distant and uninvolved is challenged by the Christian narrative of a God who is intimately present in our lives. Embracing this truth can transform our understanding of suffering and God's role in it. The Christmas story reveals a God who enters into human history, offering hope and redemption. This understanding invites believers to reject deism and embrace a relationship with a God who is actively involved in their lives, guiding and sustaining them through every circumstance. [13:28]

Acts 17:27-28 (ESV): "That they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for 'In him we live and move and have our being'; as even some of your own poets have said, 'For we are indeed his offspring.'"

Reflection: How does your view of God influence your response to suffering? What steps can you take to deepen your relationship with a God who is near and involved in your life?


Day 5: Hope Amidst Mourning
Jesus's life and teachings assure us that mourning is not the end. Through Him, we find a gateway to deeper joy and the promise of a future where every tear will be wiped away. This hope empowers believers to live as light-bearers in a world filled with grief. The promise of redemption and restoration through Christ encourages believers to hold onto hope, even in the midst of sorrow, and to share this hope with others, bringing light to those in darkness. [26:34]

Revelation 21:4 (ESV): "He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away."

Reflection: In what ways can you be a source of hope and light to those around you who are experiencing grief? How can you embody the promise of joy and restoration in your daily interactions?

"Sometimes when we think about fulfillment or prophecy, it might be easy to think about, oh, someone had a dream and now it's happening, or they saw something and now it's happening. But what Matthew is using here, this term fulfilled or fulfillment, actually means to be made full or to be made complete, or to bring to realization. So it's that Jesus, by being born, is doing something new, is putting all things into completion." [00:00:38] (28 seconds)


"Joseph immediately gets up and goes. At this point, I'd imagine both Mary and Joseph are moving as fast as they can. Joseph, we've already seen, has had a dream, believes God, another dream, he's like listening, he's in tune, he knows he's got to go. Their baby had a price on his forehead, and they needed to get out of there." [00:05:34] (22 seconds)


"When Herod realizes that he'd been outwitted, 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. So all of these innocent babies are killed at the hands of the Lord. And so we're going to talk a little bit about of Herod." [00:07:14] (21 seconds)


"Rachel, the familiar subject, symbol of grief and suffering, is representing this pain and suffering experienced by the Jewish people. So Jeremiah is writing to these people who are in exile. They've been taken by the Babylonians. Empire. They've lost all freedom, all autonomy. They've lost their cultural expression. And Rachel's grief over this exile then is a metaphor for the collective mourning of the entire people of Israel." [00:11:37] (30 seconds)


"I've been really lucky to have some friends who think a lot differently about the world than I do. And some friends of mine, I've been lucky to have some believe that there is a version of God. God exists in some kind of way, but that he is distant and kind of uninvolved in our lives. He doesn't really do anything anymore, and this is an especially true and poignant thing when we talk about pain and suffering in the world." [00:13:12] (25 seconds)


"The Christmas story, this one that we've been sitting with in Matthew, shows us something really profound. It shows us a God who doesn't avoid the mess of grief and suffering, but steps right into it. A God who enters into broken relationships, unmet expectations, and deep grief. The good news of Jesus, the message that his birth and ultimate death and resurrection offer us, is that God is with us in our mourning, and there will be a day with no more pain." [00:19:44] (37 seconds)


"If we take a deeper look at Jeremiah 31, and the verses surrounding verse 15 that's been quoted in Matthew, there's actually a great, great sense of hope that God is promising to restore his people, to rebuild them, and to bring joy out of their sorrow. This message of hope brings joy, and is fulfilled in Jesus, who not only enters our suffering, but brings redemption." [00:20:21] (29 seconds)


"But the good news of the Christian story is actually that God takes our pain so seriously that he was willing to enter into it himself, to become a man of grief and sorrows, to mourn and to weep, but to know that through his suffering, he will be able to make all things new." [00:23:23] (22 seconds)


"Jesus, before he heads back from earth to be with God the Father, promises that he will come back again. And in his second coming, the work that he started will be fully complete. The kingdom of heaven is already here, Jesus has already ushered in parts of it, and it's not yet. Jesus fulfilled the promise to end spiritual exile or a separation from God and draws us back to the presence of God." [00:25:28] (29 seconds)


"Through Jesus, mourning is not the end of our story, but it's actually a gateway to deeper joy. Jeremiah's promise again that eye will turn their mourning into gladness. While Jesus has ushered in the kingdom of God, we still live in a broken world where grief and loss persist. The not yet points to a day when Jesus will return to bring about the fullness of God's promises." [00:26:34] (28 seconds)


"This message of good news is not just for us to hold on to and keep to ourselves, but we have the incredible privilege of showing up in this world as good news people, people who hold fast to the promise that one day every tear will be wiped away, every loss restored, and every sorrow turned to joy. As followers of Jesus, we're called to embody this hope and joy in the midst of grief." [00:30:26] (30 seconds)

Well, hello. Happy Sunday. My name is Brooklyn. If we haven't met yet, I'm part of the team here at Hope, and it's great to be here with you on this last Sunday in the year here at this building.

If you've been with us throughout the last couple of weeks, you know we are in the middle of a series, an Advent series called Fulfilled, where we've been looking at Matthew's account of the birth of Jesus and specifically digging into some of these prophecies or Old Testament kind of narrative reminders of what was promised to the Jewish people and how Jesus, being born, actually fulfills these prophecies or promises.

Sometimes when we think about fulfillment or prophecy, it might be easy to think about, oh, someone had a dream and now it's happening, or they saw something and now it's happening. But what Matthew is using here, this term fulfilled or fulfillment, actually means to be made full or to be made complete, or to bring to realization. So it's that Jesus, by being born, is doing something new, is putting all things into completion.

And so here we are, week three with a couple of new prophecies and fulfillments to look at. Again, we've been reading and rereading Matthew's account of Jesus's birth story. And if you've grown up in church or if you're just familiar with the Christmas story, it's pretty easy to just skim right past a lot of these verses because they're familiar to us. But they actually pack a ton of punch. So I want us to lean in to these few verses today to kind of see what's going on in the story.

Before we get to this point, the story in verse seven, though, I just want to recap a little in case you aren't familiar or if you just need to remember what's been going on. So Mary and Joseph are kind of two main leads here. Mary, who got pregnant miraculously as a teenage virgin in this small town, now has her baby. Her husband, fiancé Joseph, was going to leave her, has a dream from God, decides to stay, and then the two of them, while she's pregnant, have to travel by donkey to a new town. So that's kind of a lot for two people to experience in a pretty short amount of time.

Then they have their baby away from their homeland, and they're raising this kid a little bit as they're hanging out in Bethlehem. And so I'm sure they're tired. Jesus was a human baby. If you've been around human babies, you know that they are needy a little bit. They cry, they need to eat, they need to sleep, there's diapers, there's all these things that kind of disrupt their sleep schedule. So I would imagine Mary and Joseph are pretty tired at this point.

And the story here then picks up where we are introduced to King Herod, who was ruling the land, and these magi, or magicians, or astrologers, astronomers from the east, are coming in because they've seen a star. And they're like, this star is different and means something that is being fulfilled from the Jewish promises. So they know about this Jewish God, they know what the Jews believe, and they're like, I think it's here. So they go to Herod, and Herod kind of is like buddy-buddy with these guys, right? And it would be easy if we just stopped there to be like, oh, Herod wants to know. He's going to go worship too.

But that's not the case. And what we actually know about King Herod from history is that he was really insecure. What a funny thing to be known for several, several years later. Josephus, who was a Jewish Roman historian at the time, actually writes a lot about King Herod and the rule around that time and what was going on in ancient Israel. And we know that he killed a lot of people, like so many people, because he wanted to maintain power and he got really paranoid anytime there was a threat to his kingdom, to his authority in the world.

He even has his wife and some of his sons killed. That's the kind of guy we're talking about when we talk about King Herod. Any threat was met with extreme force and with violence, which we later see. In this story, Herod, though, is pretty smart, I would imagine. He's positioning himself, again, as buddies with the Magi so that he can get what he wants. He wants location and information so that he can wipe out the threat. He's manipulative. He's smart. He's cunning.

And the Magi maybe would have gone back to him. They maybe didn't know all of the details around what this guy was up to. He was probably convincing. But in verse 12, we see that God actually intervenes and warns the Magi in a dream that they need to avoid Herod, not to go back to him. And so it kind of seems like maybe we've averted a crisis, right? Wrong.

So in verse 12, or 13 rather, we keep reading where Joseph now has a dream, and an angel of the Lord appears to him and says, "Get up, 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." Joseph immediately gets up and goes.

At this point, I'd imagine both Mary and Joseph are moving as fast as they can. Joseph, we've already seen, has had a dream, believes God, another dream, he's like listening, he's in tune, he knows he's got to go. Their baby had a price on his forehead, and they needed to get out of there.

What if you learned that the government was out to kill your son, right? That's not a light, quick, read over, keep moving kind of conversation. As a parent, what would you be feeling? What would you do? How desperate do you think you would be? Even if you don't have kids in the room, I think you can get a sense of this absolute horror that Joseph and Mary must have been feeling.

Throw in the added layer that this son is supposed to be the Messiah, God's son, savior of the world, and he's just a little baby, and there's a lot going on already. So they pack their bags, and they go about 40 miles or so by foot to Egypt. And we talked about this prophecy last week that, "Out of Egypt, I called my son." And so if you missed that and you want to hear more about what that prophecy means, I encourage you to go back and listen. Pastor Drew did a great job kind of unpacking that for us.

But Joseph's incredible obedience to God saves baby Jesus from what is to come in verses 16 to 18. The crisis that maybe we avoided or averted for Jesus still brings some pretty horrible things in verse 16. When Herod realizes that he'd been outwitted, 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.

So all of these innocent babies are killed at the hands of the Lord. And so we're going to talk a little bit about Herod. Based on birth rates, population estimates, scholars guess that around 25 to 50 baby boys under the age of two would have been murdered in this raid. The absolute horror that that community must have experienced. And Matthew keeps going.

Then he, what was said through Jeremiah was fulfilled, that a voice is heard in Ramah, weeping in great mourning. Rachel, weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted because they are no more.

There's a little footnote at the end of that verse. And historically when I've read some of these passages in the New Testament, I skim right over the footnote and I don't care to necessarily go back and look. But today, instead of just taking that at face value, it's important for us to understand what's going on in the Old Testament text to understand more.

The richness and the fullness of what Matthew is showing us by inserting it in here. So Jeremiah 31 is where we find this metaphor of Rachel's grief, this overcoming, undoing kind of grief. The prophecy is almost as painful to read as the verses before it. Weeping, mourning, refusing to be comforted.

Have you ever been in a place like that? That overcome with grief, refusing to be comforted, completely undone. While this story is pretty extreme, can't imagine we have that exact experience, I'm sure that many of us have experienced grief where it's been hard to find words and hard to hold on to hope.

So what's going on here? Who is Rachel? What does she matter here? And what does this have to do with Jesus? I'm glad you asked.

So to understand Rachel a little bit more, I think we need to understand her story. So if you're not familiar with Rachel, her story actually starts way back in Genesis chapter 29. And honestly, it's incredibly heartbreaking. She is head over heels in love with this guy named Jacob. And he is all into her. He likes her a lot. So much so that he's willing to work for seven years for her dad so he can have a child. So he can marry her.

But then her dad does this whole thing where he does a switcheroo and then Jacob ends up marrying his sister instead of Rachel. And so then Jacob has to work another seven years to marry Rachel. So she's waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting, and then her sister gets married first, and now she's waiting and waiting and waiting.

Finally, she gets to marry Jacob, and we think, okay, yay, we're here, we did it. But her story continues to be one of heartbreak. While her sister can have kids, she cannot. And so she sits and watches as her sister has kids, as her sister's maidservant has kids, as her own maidservant has kids, and she has none. The pain of waiting and hoping and being disappointed and watching everyone else get what she wanted the most.

Then, finally, she has a son, yeah, exciting, which is a huge moment of hope for her. And then she gets pregnant again, which is another just really exciting, hopeful time, I would imagine. But things take another pretty dark turn. She gives birth to her second son, but dies during childbirth.

Her story ends in tragedy, and she becomes a pretty powerful symbol of grief and loss in the Jewish history lore. So when Jeremiah writes that Rachel is weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, he is using pretty common imagery for his context to the people that he was writing to. Rachel, the familiar subject, symbol of grief and suffering, is representing this pain and suffering experienced by the Jewish people.

So Jeremiah is writing to these people who are in exile. They've been taken by the Babylonians. Empire. They've lost all freedom, all autonomy. They've lost their cultural expression. And Rachel's grief over this exile then is a metaphor for the collective mourning of the entire people of Israel. Rachel's tears represent a sense of despair, a mourning that seems to have no end.

The exile was not just this physical separation from the promised land, from what they believed God had called them to from their temple, from their worship, but it was also a spiritual one. And it felt as though God had abandoned his people. I'd imagine that the women of the sons of Bethlehem from Matthew 2 would have felt as if God had abandoned them. Their sons were no more. Great weeping and mourning, refusing to be comforted.

Where was God in their grief? Did he even care? And doesn't that question resonate pretty deeply in our world today? In Jeremiah and Matthew, God's people are enduring this loss and this injustice, and yet there's no immediate word from God. I think we too can find ourselves asking, where is God in our grief? Why does he let things happen? Does he even care?

I've been really lucky to have some friends who think a lot differently about the world than I do. And some friends of mine, I've been lucky to have some believe that there is a version of God. God exists in some kind of way, but that he is distant and kind of uninvolved in our lives. He doesn't really do anything anymore, and this is an especially true and poignant thing when we talk about pain and suffering in the world. Maybe you think that way too. Welcome.

This perspective is also known as deism, and it kind of absolves God of involvement in our pain. Grief then becomes a natural part of life, but with no deeper meaning or redemptive purpose. It's just painful. It's just grief. I think even as Christians, we can slip into a deistic thought pattern without even realizing it.

When prayers seem to go unanswered or suffering drags on, we start to believe that God is distant, that he's not involved, and that he doesn't care. The pain we face can feel even more isolating, as if God is simply watching from afar. Over time, it can feel easier to just with our grief and our pain, seeing it as something to endure rather than a place where God wants to meet us.

We might stop praying altogether, thinking that it doesn't make a difference, or we might try to handle everything on our own, assuming that God won't intervene. Over time, again, it just feels easier to stop engaging with grief. Without even noticing, we can live as though God is uninvolved, even while claiming to believe that he's not involved.

Sometimes the way we think about God could set us up for heartbreak in a different way when life gets hard. Many of us have been taught, intentionally or not, that God's main role is to make us happy, keep us safe, and help us succeed. But when grief or suffering show up, this version of God feels too small, and the silence or absence of comfort clashes with the expectation of a God who's supposed to fix everything and make us happy.

This perspective, another fancy term, is moralistic therapeutic deism, is pretty widespread, but it can crumble under the weight of real pain and real suffering. Where is God in the communal grief that we see around us? In Gaza, where families mourn and suffering feels endless? In our own nation, divided and fractured and scared and concerned and unsure about what will come?

Where is God in the personal losses that we carry when a family member dies or is diagnosed with something scary? When a broken relationship leaves you shattered? Or when you long for a child but face the ache of infertility? Where is God in the quiet griefs that we don't necessarily say out loud? When you're mourning the life that you thought you'd have, but you don't? When you feel stuck or unseen or abandoned? Does God see us? Does he hear our cries?

So I wondered, what grief are you carrying into this season with you? This summer, my uncle passed away pretty unexpectedly at the age of 46, leaving behind a three-year-old little girl. And this season has definitely been filled with big grief of losing a family member and a lot of little griefs that his death brought up.

Growing up, my Uncle B was the best. He was the best. He was the best. He was the best. He was the best. He was the best. And he was present for everything. My memories mostly revolve kind around these pictures of the basketball court. Right? My dad and his brothers grew up in Indiana. And so, if you know Indiana at all, it's a big basketball state. And so we had hoops in our driveway. He'd come over, we'd play. And then I'd watch my dad and his brother play in rec leagues.

And he was just a lot of fun. So I'm really, really thankful for a lot of those beautiful memories that I have from my childhood with my uncle. But as we grew up and as things changed, my uncle became a lot more cold and pretty distant. So by my senior year of high school, no one quite knew why, but we didn't see him around as much anymore.

Over the last decade, I can count probably on one hand the number of times I saw him in person. So when I got the call from my mom that he had died, I was pretty devastated. But not just for his passing, but for the finality of a relationship. I'm also pretty sad for my dad, who really loved his brother and wanted a reconciled relationship with him. And he's grieving a loss. And for my mom, who loved Benj as her own sibling and who also was hoping for some restoration.

While I was home for the funeral, there were a lot of other family dynamics at play that deepened some of the grief and the pain that I was feeling. As the oldest child, I stepped in to help my parents kind of process and receive text messages and phone calls and kind of all of those logistics that happen during a funeral. To give them some space to process their grief.

And I spent a lot of time while I was there at their pool, their apartment complex, just trying to process my own emotions and my own grief in it as well. There's a lifetime's worth of really deep pain that I carry when it comes to my extended family. The gap between what I think family should look like and what mine actually is. So when everyone comes together in the same space, I have a really hard time.

And when I let myself get really honest about what I'm feeling and what I'm experiencing in my grief, I find myself asking some of these same questions. Where is God in all of this? Does he even care? The Christmas story, this one that we've been sitting with in Matthew, shows us something really profound.

It shows us a God who doesn't avoid the mess of grief and suffering, but steps right into it. A God who enters into broken relationships, unmet expectations, and deep grief. The good news of Jesus, the message that his birth and ultimate death and resurrection offer us, is that God is with us in our mourning, and there will be a day with no more pain.

If we take a deeper look at Jeremiah 31, and the verses surrounding verse 15 that's been quoted in Matthew, there's actually a great, great sense of hope that God is promising to restore his people, to rebuild them, and to bring joy out of their sorrow. This message of hope brings joy, and is fulfilled in Jesus, who not only enters our suffering, but brings redemption.

So Jeremiah 31, starting in verse 3, says this: "The Lord appeared to us in the past, saying, 'I have loved you with an everlasting love. I have drawn you with unfailing kindness. I will build you up again, and you, virgin Israel, will be rebuilt. Again, you will take up your timbrels, and go out to dance with the joyful.'"

This is what the Lord says: "A voice is heard in Ramah, mourning and great weeping, Rachel weeping for her children, and refusing to be comforted because they are no more. This is what the Lord says: 'Restrain your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears, for your work will be rewarded,' declares the Lord. 'They will return from the land of the enemy, so there is hope for your descendants,' declares the Lord. 'Your children will return to their own land.'"

Jeremiah's words don't leave us in mourning in verse 15, but point to this future celebration, restoration, and a new covenant, that Jesus's birth is the ultimate declaration of God's presence in our pain. Emmanuel, or God with us, God doesn't stand apart from our grief, but he enters into it.

Now, when I was at a Christian college, I also was an assistant resident director, so I had a team of RAs. We had a lot of fun in the dorms, but also college is hard, and a lot of our residents and ourselves were going through hard things, as you do throughout those four years. One of the things that we've been doing is we've been doing a lot of hard things, and we've been doing a lot of hard things we used to joke a lot about was the Jesus Band-Aid.

You know, the Jesus Band-Aid is one of those like quick quips to brush over hard things. It's like you've got like a bullet wound and someone takes a Band-Aid to put over it, right? Things are hard, and some of those quips might sound like this: "Don't worry about it, God is with you," or "Let go and let God," or "You just need to trust God more, he has a plan for you."

And those Band-Aids are usually kind of followed with like a pity smile or like a knowing glance, and then someone quickly walks away so that we can stop talking about it. Sometimes it kind of feels like that's the right Christian answer to suffering is to simply slap a Jesus Band-Aid on it and walk away. But that can make it actually feel worse, like our pain is being dismissed and that God doesn't want our grief.

But the good news of the Christian story is actually that God takes our pain so seriously that he was willing to enter into it himself, to become a man of grief and sorrows, to mourn and to weep, but to know that through his suffering, he will be able to make all things new.

In Luke's story of Jesus's life, he actually tells this one story where Jesus goes to a synagogue and delivers the message. And Jesus takes the scroll and he actually quotes from another Old Testament person in Isaiah 61. And he reads a scroll that says this: "The spirit of the sovereign Lord is on me because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn and provide for those who grieve in Zion, to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor."

And at the end of this story, Jesus rolls up the scroll, hands it back, sits down, and says, "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing." You can check out more of that story in Luke 4. But Jesus has arrived, so setting in motion the fullness and completion or the fulfillment of the end of grief and suffering and mourning.

But we might still be sitting here wondering, why is there still pain then if Jesus has come? I'm still mourning. There's still brokenness. Advent, or the season again of arrival in anticipation, includes the anticipation of the second coming of Jesus. Jesus, before he heads back from earth to be with God the Father, promises that he will come back again. And in his second coming, the work that he started will be fully complete.

The kingdom of heaven is already here, Jesus has already ushered in parts of it, and it's not yet. Jesus fulfilled the promise to end spiritual exile or a separation from God and draws us back to the presence of God. While there is pain and grief, Jesus promises to be with us in the midst of it, that we are not alone in our suffering.

In another well-known story of Jesus, he preaches a sermon on the mount and says, "For they will be comforted." Comfort does not erase mourning, but it meets mourning with God's presence. Through Jesus, mourning is not the end of our story, but it's actually a gateway to deeper joy. Jeremiah's promise again that he will turn their mourning into gladness.

While Jesus has ushered in the kingdom of God, we still live in a broken world where grief and loss persist. The not yet points to a day when Jesus will return to bring about the fullness of God's promises. And I love Revelation 21 a ton, and this is what it says: "And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'Look, look, God's dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away. He who is seated on the throne said, 'I am making everything new.'"

Every time I read Revelation 21, I cry a little level one cry. And as I've been reflecting on this message and how God wants to meet me in this season, I am painfully aware of how heavy grief can be and is for me. The pain of my uncle's passing and everything else that comes with that, plus just the pain of this year, is still pretty fresh.

And I find myself thinking a lot about some of my therapist's words. My therapist often asks good questions in hard times, which is his job, so that's good. But he, when we've talked about hard emotions, will say, pause me to say, "Let's think about this for a second. I want you to sit in that emotion, and can you answer this question? Where do you think God is in the room with you? Where in the room? Where in the room is God?"

And as I've sat in my grief this week, I'm reminded that I get to invite Emmanuel, God with me, into my pain. And that he is sitting with me, mourning and comforting, wiping the tears from my face. Friends, mourning is not the end of our story. I think often we fall into the trap of believing that moving forward or embracing joy or embracing comfort means that we ignore our pain.

Yet Jesus shows us a different way. A way where mourning and joy can coexist. Jesus, who knows pain and suffering, is with us. He knows bodily physical pain. He knows the pain of abandonment and betrayal by friends. He knows the pain of a broken society and a broken structure. He lived and experienced and suffered.

And so while we grieve, too, as followers of Jesus with the world, we also grieve differently. As Jesus followers, we have hope that this isn't the end of the story. I love what Tim Keller said, that the opposite of joy is not sadness, it's hopelessness.

So how can we hold intention, hope, and joy, and sorrow and sadness for parents who grieve the direction their child's life has taken, or for young adults wrestling with isolation during the holidays, or maybe the teenager who feels really unseen in their family? The promise of Jesus assures us that he is with us in our pain.

In our world where systematic injustice and inequality persist, God promises to rebuild and restore, should give us hope to keep working for justice and trusting in ultimate restoration. This message of good news is not just for us to hold on to and keep to ourselves, but we have the incredible privilege of showing up in this world as good news people, people who hold fast to the promise that one day every tear will be wiped away, every loss restored, and every sorrow turned to joy.

As followers of Jesus, we're called to embody this hope and joy in the midst of grief. We mourn with those who mourn, we hold intention with grief, and we point people to Jesus's second coming, a day when mourning will give way to dancing.

Maybe you have people in your life that are coming to mind that you just are sensing they need to know that Jesus cares for them so much that he took on pain and suffering and sorrow for them? What might it look like for you to be a light bearer, a hope bringer to those who are suffering around you, in your neighborhood, in your workplace, in your community?

Or maybe you yourself are sitting with deep pain and grief, and the invitation is that Jesus wants to be part of your pain with you. The God who sees, sees you. Emmanuel, God with you, wants to comfort you.

So I'm going to invite us just into a moment of reflection and of silence to sit with and think about the ways that God is with you and with those around you.