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Psalm 54 (ant.: v. 4)
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Behold, God is my helper; the Lord is the upholder of my life. O God, save me, by your name, and vindicate me by your might. O God, hear my prayer; give ear to the words of my mouth. For strangers have risen against me; ruthless men seek my life; they do not set God before themselves. Behold, God is my helper; the Lord is the upholder of my life. He will return the evil to my enemies; in your faithfulness put an end to them. With a freewill offering I will sacrifice to you; I will give thanks to your name, O Lord, for it is good. For he has delivered me from every trouble, and my eye has looked in triumph on my enemies. (ESV)
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Against All Comers
Holy Innocents
28 December 2010
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When I was a child I watched wrestling on TV with my older cousins. The antics of television wrestlers were always ludicrous. Sometimes they were even entertaining. Part of the program included interviews with the wrestlers who would offer challenges of annihilation to any and all comers. Even as a child, I recognized it as staged bravado to gin up the television audience. However, in real life, if we decline to compete against all comers we are seen to be weak and unable to defend ourselves or others. Our Lord Jesus Christ was willing to enter the ring for us men and for our salvation, wrestling to the mat both death and devil.
The incarnate God accepted the most disgraceful and dishonorable death, so that through its glory He might become the Life of all the living. He chose to die and gave himself over into the hands of wicked men, men like us. And though he had the power not to undergo this ignominy and suffering, he did not use it, choosing to face all comers that He might make death nothing by swallowing it up in Life.
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Athanasius of Alexandria
"Death came to His body not from Himself but from enemy action, in order that the Savior might utterly abolish death in whatever form they offered it to Him. A generous wrestler, virile and strong, does not himself choose his antagonists, lest it should be thought that he is afraid of some of them. Rather, he lets the spectators choose them, and that all the more if these are hostile, so that he may overthrow whomever they match against him and thus vindicate his superior strength. Even so was it with Christ.
"He, the Life of all, our Lord and Savior, did not arrange the manner of his own death lest He should seem to be afraid of some other kind. No. He accepted and bore upon the cross a death inflicted by others, and those others his special enemies, a death which to them was supremely terrible and by no means to be faced; and He did this in order that, by destroying even this death, He might Himself be believed to be the Life, and the power of death be recognized as finally annulled. A marvelous and mighty paradox has thus occurred, for the death which they thought to inflict on Him as dishonor and disgrace has become the glorious monument to death's defeat."
Athanasius, On the Incarnation of the Word of God, 24
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Collect for Holy Innocents
Almighty God, the martyred innocents of Bethlehem showed forth Your praise not by speaking but by dying. Put to death in us all that is in conflict with Your will that our lives may bear witness to the faith we profess with our lips; through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.
For all those suffering from depression and disappointment caused by the unrealistic worldly expectations of this season, that the peace of Christ, the incarnate Lord, might be theirs
For the gift of the Holy Spirit, that all Christians might grow in confidence of the mercy of God at the celebration of Christ's most holy birth
For Pastor Murray, as he prepares to travel to India to teach pastors there, that the Lord would watch over His travel and give success to the instruction
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Art: BASSANO Nativity 15th century
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 © Scott R. Murray, 2010
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