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Friday, October 9, 2026

What does the Bible Say about Mothers Murdering Children?

(Part Four in a Series on the Fifth Commandment)

by Pastor Paul Wolff

In this article:
What is happening?
How could such things happen?
What does the Bible say about murdering children?
Biblical Examples
What does this mean for the future?

Jesus said, "Let the little children
come to me, and do not hinder them,
for the kingdom of God belongs to
such as these."
Mark 10:14

What is happening?

There is something happening now in our society which has rarely happened in the history of the world. It is certainly not unknown, or unprecedented, but in the history of civilization it is extraordinarily rare. It may be more well known among uncivilized (or under civilized) societies, but that it is happening in what was once a civilized, Christian nation, like the United States of America (and others), is heartbreaking. What is happening is that there seems to be a trend recently of mothers murdering their children in cold blood.

Recently there was a trial of a woman in the U.S. who confessed to strangling her three young children, but which ended in a mistrial. It should have been an easy conviction, as evidence showed that she planned the murder, and conspired to get her husband out of the house while she killed their children. After the trial it was revealed that eleven of the jurors wanted to acquit her of murder (likely by reason of insanity), but only one juror would not be persuaded nor bullied into joining that decision, but held fast that it was not beyond reasonable doubt that the mother was guilty of first degree murder. During the trial, groups of women organized public protests advocating that the mother should be excused for murdering her children. Since the mistrial was declared several more women have also killed their children in the following few weeks.

How could such things happen?

What is more sad than all of this, is that this is not at all surprising to anyone who has been paying attention! Over 20 years ago I observed that the leading cause of death in the United States was abortion – the murder of children. In 2002 (the latest year that information was available when I wrote the 2005 article) there were 1,300,000 abortions. Since 1973, when the Supreme Court illegally made abortion “legal” in all 50 states, there have been over one million abortions each year on average. This has continued, even after the Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade. The problem with the Dobbs vs. Jackson was that the Supreme Court did not ensure that all unborn children of U.S. citizens were protected from murder.

What this means is that every year, for over 53 years, a million mothers have murdered their children. This does not mean that each of these million mothers are different people – many of them are repeat offenders. Also, not all of these murdering mothers are willing participants. It is well documented that a fair number of abortions are coerced by the fathers of the unfortunate children (boyfriends or husbands to the child’s mother). The Abortion Industry (as it is called) has repeatedly shown that it does not care about whether the women who seek their services are raped, abused, enslaved, or are otherwise molested, as long as they get paid. Nevertheless, what this shows is that there are tens of millions of women in the United States alone who have murdered their children.

I must also recognize that not all of these women advocate for allowing abortion and infanticide. Many women have repented of this wickedness and found forgiveness in Jesus Christ, and others have also recognized that what they did was wrong, and should not be done. Yet, that probably still leaves tens of millions of women (and others) who refuse to repent and think that they have every right to murder their children, either before their birth or after. This happens because murder is such a horrible sin that, when someone commits murder they will go to great lengths to justify it to themselves. Since these people convince themselves that they had good reason for murder, they cannot admit to themselves or others that it was wrong – because to do so would be to admit that they are as wicked as other murderers, but murderous desires lead to murder, unless reversed by repentance and trust in God through Jesus Christ.

What does the Bible say about murdering children?

Jesus said, "Let the little children
come to me, and do not hinder them,
for the kingdom of God belongs to
such as these."
Mark 10:14

In Leviticus 18:21 God told the Israelites, “Do not give any of your children to be sacrificed to Molech, for you must not profane the name of your God. I am the Lord.” I am sure that at the time the Israelites thought that this was one of the easiest commandments to keep. After all, what kind of a person would even consider killing their children, much less, offering their dead children to a false god like Molech? Such things are absolutely unthinkable for any godly person. The idol, Molech, was created to give parents a way to get rid of their children which would ease their guilty conscience (and maybe make some money for false priests during hard times). You can read an article I wrote here about how the ancient practice of child sacrifice corresponds to similar practices in our society. Yet, God knows the wickedness in our hearts more than we do, and when the tribe of Judah fell into the practice of child murder (after God had already destroyed the Kingdom of Israel for doing the same thing) God condemned them, saying, “They built high places for Baal in the Valley of Ben Hinnom to sacrifice their sons and daughters to Molech, though I never commanded, nor did it enter my mind, that they should do such a detestable thing and so make Judah sin.” (Jeremiah 32:35) This practice was a large part of the reason why God sent the Babylonians to conquer Judah, destroy Jerusalem, and take the survivors as slaves in exile to Babylon.

God also demonstrated that He values the lives of even the most humble people, though the world may think they are expendable. In Exodus 22:22-24 God says, “Do not take advantage of a widow or an orphan. If you do and they cry out to me, I will certainly hear their cry. My anger will be aroused, and I will kill you with the sword; your wives will become widows and your children fatherless.” The consequences of taking advantage of the lowest in society (whom some might consider “burdens”) was that God would raise up enemies against them who would kill the men so their wives would be widows, and their children orphans.

We should be aware that all that is going on does not escape the notice of God. In Deuteronomy 10:17-18 God tells His people, “The Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes. He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the alien, giving him food and clothing.” This was both a blessing and a curse (as these are frequently joined together in Holy Scripture). It was a blessing because God would protect His people if they fell on hard times or experienced disaster. It was a curse if the people disobeyed God and took advantage of the weak in society – then God would punish the wrongdoers.

Biblical Examples

God tested Abraham,
but did not let him kill his son.
Yet, God did not spare His Son,
but let Him be sacrificed
to save us from sin and death.

Abraham and Isaac
There are some examples in the Bible of the murder of children which can give us instruction. The first one is in Genesis 22 where God uncharacteristically tells Abraham to kill his son, Isaac, as a sacrifice to God. Abraham does not openly question God, but prepares to do as God commanded him to do. The New Testament book of Hebrews explains to us that, because God had already promised that Isaac would be the ancestor of a great nation and many kings, Abraham trusted that if he did as God commanded, God would raise his son from the dead so that Isaac could fulfill what God promised. Here we should note that God did not allow Abraham to kill Isaac, but called to him to stop when the knife was in his hand ready to do what God told him to do.

This story is in contrast to its fulfillment in Jesus Christ. God would not allow Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac, but God offered His son, Jesus, as the atoning sacrifice for the sins of the whole world, and did not stop it from reaching its fulfillment. Isaac was likely an unwilling sacrifice (though he apparently did not fight Abraham, nor seem to hold any hard feelings against his father later in his life), but Jesus was the perfectly willing sacrifice. God did not force Jesus to sacrifice His life against His will, but made it clear in the Holy Scriptures that He wanted Jesus to freely offer His life in payment for the sins of the world, so that we may be forgiven and rescued from sin and death. Because Jesus loved God perfectly, He was willing to do what God wanted, and let sinful men put Him to death. In doing this, Jesus offered His innocent life to pay for the sins of the whole world, and God accepted His sacrifice, so that all who believe in Jesus have full forgiveness of all their sins, and full salvation through Him.

Pharaoh’s Command to Kill Baby Boys Before the Exodus
In Exodus 1, we are told that a Pharaoh in Egypt came to power who forgot about Joseph and why all the Israelites were living in Egypt, and saw them as a potential threat. He feared this, even though the descendants of Israel had been living in Egypt for 400 years, they had done nothing against their Egyptian hosts. The King first commanded the Egyptian midwives to kill the male Israelite babies they delivered, so that they would not grow up to be a military threat to Egypt. The midwives did not obey this command because they were in the business of delivering babies, not killing them. Only in the past 50 years or so have doctors and nurses become active agents of murder instead of healing.

The oppression and murderous commands of the Pharaoh led the Israelites to cry out to God to send them a deliverer. God heard their prayers, and sent them Moses. When the Egyptian midwives failed to do as the Pharaoh decreed, he commanded all Israelite baby boys to be thrown into the Nile River to be drowned. Moses’ mother complied with the letter of the law by putting her baby in the river, but she placed him in an “ark” made of woven reeds, and waterproofed with tar or asphalt so it would float, and he would not be drowned. Pharaoh’s daughter found the “ark” and took pity on the child, and adopted him as her son, though she knew that he was from an Israelite family. Moses was the deliverer whom God sent to lead the Israelites out of Egypt toward the Promised land of Canaan, though he would not accomplish this until he was 80 years old.

The Tenth Plague in Egypt

God called Moses
to lead the children of Israel
out of slavery
to the land He promised to
give to Abraham

As a counterpoint to the Pharaoh’s command to kill the Israelite baby boys, when God sends the plagues on Egypt in Exodus 7-12, the tenth and final plague was that God killed all the firstborn of men and livestock in Egypt. However, God spared the firstborn of the Israelites by having them sacrifice a male lamb or goat without blemish and put the blood of the sacrifice on their doorposts so that God would pass over their homes when He came to kill the firstborn of Egypt. There was death in every household in Egypt that night, but none of the Israelites died because God accepted the lambs as substitutes for the firstborn of the people. This caused Pharaoh to send the Israelites out of Egypt, and was God’s main salvation event of the Old Testament.

The tenth plague and Passover showed how God would save all people by the coming of the Messiah, or Christ. Jesus would be the substitute who would die for the sins of the whole world, so that everyone who believes in Him would be rescued from sin and death, just as the Israelites in Moses’ day believed in God and did as He directed. Here we see God’s justice. As Egypt’s Pharaoh tried to subdue God’s people by killing their children, God came to rescue His people. The Pharaoh of 80 years later, suffered defeat and the loss of his firstborn son in the plague, along with every household in Egypt. God showed that He has mercy on His people, and, although He is patient (wanting all sinners to come to repentance and be saved), He is not unwilling to bring vengeance on those who persist in evil. When God does act in this way He is always just and right in His actions. When it seems He is slow to act, it is not because He is uncaring, or unable to do anything, but it is because He is patient and merciful.

Prayer for Vengeance in Psalm 137
The Psalmist’s lament in Psalm 137 is a difficult one for many people, because in this Psalm, the writer is praying that God would bring retribution on the Babylonians for their conquest of Judah, the destruction of Jerusalem, and the many thousands of people killed in that war. Though God had enabled the Babylonians to do this, they did not acknowledge God, nor do it for God’s glory, but did it for their own glory. The Psalm ends with the writer praying that God would bless those who take the Babylonian children and “dashes them against a rock.” (Psalm 137:9) It sounds cruel, but those taken into captivity likely had witnessed the Babylonians doing just that to their children, and the Psalmist is only asking for similar justice to be done – no worse than what was done to them. God answered their prayer later when the Persians conquered Babylon, and God moved the Persian king to let the people of Judah return and rebuild Jerusalem. God did this so that His promises to Abraham, Jacob (Israel), and David would be fulfilled, and the Messiah would come from their descendants in the land that God had set aside for it to happen there.

Jesus loves the little children

Herod’s murder of infants in Bethlehem
We see another tragic mass murder of infants in Matthew 2 when King Herod heard about a sign proclaiming the birth of a future king in Judah. Though the child was less than two years old, Herod was so paranoid that he ordered soldiers to kill all the children in the Bethlehem area under two years old. This story parallels closely the story of Moses and the Exodus from 1,500 years earlier. Also, as the person of Jesus is a greater savior than Moses, so also is the salvation won by Jesus greater than the freedom to which Moses led the people of Israel. Christ’s salvation is for all people who trust in the true God for salvation, not just one small nation on earth.

What does this mean for the future?

In Biblical history, when there is a mass casualty event involving children, it is often associated with God’s judgment against idolatry, wickedness, and violence. Such things only happen in times of great apostasy and rebellion against God, because a godly society would treasure and protect their children, and such things would not happen. Such tragedies as: abortion, infanticide, mutilation and abuse of children for the sake of sexual fantasies, and more, all show us that we live in an era of great apostasy and wickedness. This calls for likewise great repentance and a swift punishment of all who carry out and support such evil.

If Christians are unable to address and correct the evil, then God will find someone else to do it. However, as Judah was apostate in the times of the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah, and God empowered the pagan Babylonians to carry out His justice, we see that the cure may be worse than the disease – though God does work everything out for good for those who love and trust in Him above all things. If Western Christian nations cannot turn back to Christ, and bring to justice those who murder and mutilate children, then God could very well empower Islamic Jihadists to conquer and enslave Western nations and bring a temporal order. The “cure worse than the disease” in this is that Islamic Jihadists in the past two centuries have adopted a Marxist Gnosticism which is much more radical than many eras of past Islamic conquests.

There have been times in history when Christians have lived with a fair bit of autonomy under Islamic rule. However, much of radicalized Islam these days is much more extreme. Although a conquering Islam would bring a semblance of order in what is now a chaotic world, and would forbid societal evils such as sexual perversion, general infanticide, abortion, and several other plagues endemic to Western Marxist Liberal Progressivism, such a government would harshly persecute Christianity and all other religions. It would also enslave all women and girls under strict Sharia submissive rules, and mandate universal general conversion to the false religion of Islam, with severe penalties for all who refuse to submit.

The Holy Family is an image
of God’s relationship with His people.

Such a future is not necessarily imminent. No one knows except God, alone. Such things are likely to happen in the very last days before Christ’s return, however. These days may not be those days. It could be that a general repentance and return to Christ may mean that several generations may still live under God’s grace, and many more will be added to the number of blessed Christians who find salvation in Jesus Christ. Either way, now is the time for repentance and prayer, trusting in Jesus alone for our forgiveness and salvation.

The world seems hell-bent on destruction, and Christians should not get caught up in the chaos – neither in going along with the world’s apostasy, nor in reaction against it. Jesus Christ is Lord of all, and He has already won the victory. We dare not panic, lest we lose sight of Jesus Christ and His salvation. All that is left is for history to play out as it must. As for Christian believers, we should continue steadfast in the True Faith, no matter what else is going on in the world, as we await our salvation in confident, patient trust that Jesus will rescue us from all harm and evil, and that all things will work out to the glory of God – our savior and redeemer.

Articles in this series:

You Shall Not Murder

The True God Cannot Murder

The Opposite of Murder

Friday, April 7, 2023

Woman behold your son…. Son, behold your mother.

Third in a series on the Seven Last Words of Jesus

by Pastor Paul Wolff

Standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son!” Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home. (John 19:25-27)

Jesus said, to Mary and John
“Woman, behold your son.”
“Son, behold your mother.”

The work of Jesus to win salvation and pay for the sins of the world wasn’t done in a day. Good Friday was the most important day, but it was the completion of a lifetime of work. Jesus lived about 12,000 days from His birth to His death, and every day was a test. Would He love the Lord God with all His heart, mind, soul, and strength – even when it was the Lord’s will that He endure God’s wrath for sinners? Would He love His neighbor as Himself – even when those people sinned against Him, and hated Him and plotted to kill Him and took great satisfaction in doing so? If Jesus had failed just once in 12,000 days it would be all over, and our hope for salvation would have been lost.

As we consider the work of God for our salvation we ought to think about the work of Jesus in two aspects: active and passive obedience to God. The passive obedience of Christ was that He let sinners falsely accuse Him of sin and hang Him on a cross to die, and He also passively endured God’s wrath over the sins of the world, so that He could take the punishment meant for sinners, and rescue them from the righteous wrath of God. This is what Jesus was doing hanging on the cross, but His work of active obedience was not done.

The active obedience of Christ was that He actively obeyed all the commandments of God. In all of His 12,000 days, Jesus always did the good things that He ought to have done, and He never did any of the evil things that were forbidden by God’s commandments. This had to be done for our salvation so that Jesus could be the perfect obedient man who obeyed all God’s commandments, and the perfect unblemished sacrifice for the sins of all mankind. The Active obedience of Christ is why God said of Him, “This is my beloved son. In Him I am well pleased.”

In this third word that Jesus gives from the cross we see again that He is still thinking of others, and not himself. Jesus sees His mother, and the disciple who is not named in John’s Gospel, which is John himself. By saying to Mary, “Woman, behold your son” and to John, “Behold, your mother” Jesus is telling Mary to consider John to be her son and He is telling John to consider Mary to be his mother. In doing this, Jesus is keeping the Fourth Commandment, “Honor your father and your mother.”

Jesus was honoring His mother by seeing that she was provided for in her old age. Assuming Mary was in her early to middle twenties when Jesus was born, she would have been in her middle to late fifties when Jesus was crucified, and could have lived many more years before her death. Jesus would not be around bodily to take care of her, and none of her other children were there with her at the cross of Christ, but John was there. It was the duty of the children to take care of their parents in their old age. As the firstborn son, Jesus was most responsible to take care of His mother. However, that was not His calling. Just as He was not called to take a wife and raise a family, so He would not live to see His mother grow old before He died. Jesus could have left the care of His mother to His brothers, James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas, but where were they? They were not there at the cross with Mary. Likewise, none of Jesus’ disciples were there except John. Jesus had the responsibility to see that Mary not only was provided with material needs, but also Spiritual needs. John could be considered the most faithful of the disciples.

John had run away with all the other disciples when Jesus was arrested, as Jesus had told them beforehand that this would happen, quoting Zechariah 13:7 saying, “You will all fall away because of me this night. For it is written, ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’” John did enter into the house of the High Priest with Peter during the trial of Jesus, yet John did not deny Jesus as Peter did. John also was there at Golgotha to witness the death of Jesus. So Jesus knew He could trust John to provide for Mary’s needs of body and soul as she grew older and moved toward her death.

Mary’s needs were not only physical, because although she had remained faithful while Jesus was with her, the evil one would surely still try to lure her away from her salvation, and get her to deny that she needed the forgiveness of Jesus to save her from her sins. John would be her pastor to call Mary to repentance when necessary, and to frequently assure her of the redemption and forgiveness of Jesus so that she would remain faithful to her end trusting in Him to save her.

Jesus was also changing His relationship as son with Mary for a couple other reasons. Jesus was the one chosen by the Father to suffer and die for the sins of the world. Jesus had to do this alone. He could not share His suffering with anyone else, especially a sinner. He had to endure the full wrath of God for all the sins of the world, so that we would be rescued from all our sin. Mary surely mourned that the son she bore and gave birth to was the one chosen by God to suffer for the sins of the world, but nothing that Mary suffered had any effect for the salvation of anyone, including herself. Mary could be comforted by the Apostle John, whom Jesus gave to be her adopted son.

These words of Jesus also point out the false teaching of those who pray to Mary in heaven because they reason that Mary’s Son must listen to His mother and obey her. The resurrected Jesus is exalted as King of kings and Lord of lords, and that includes His mother. Jesus is not obligated to obey His mother, or anyone except God the Father and the Holy Spirit, though He is in perfect agreement and unity with God in all things. Mary’s role in our salvation is nothing more than we confess in the creed. She was the faithful virgin who believed God’s Word when the angel spoke it to her, and, by the power of the Holy Spirit, the Son of God was miraculously conceived in her and she gave birth to Him so that He could live and die as a man to redeem all mankind from our sins.

Jesus was honoring His Father by remaining obedient to God, the Father, and offering His life as the atoning sacrifice for the sins of the world, but He does not do this at the expense of His mother. Jesus was again thinking of others while He was suffering and dying on the cross. He did not want to lose His mother, just as He did not want to lose even the thief who was crucified alongside of Him (see the previous word from Jesus on the cross).

Articles in this series:

Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.
I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.
Woman behold your son. Son, behold your mother.
My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?
I thirst.
It is finished.
Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.

Sunday, December 25, 2022

The Holy Family

by Pastor Paul Wolff

The Holy Family
Window from Epiphany Lutheran Church,
Detroit, Michigan
(Now closed)

This past year (2022) my wife and I have been blessed to see our extended family grow. On the day of Epiphany we rejoiced at the birth of our fifth granddaughter. Then, not quite eleven months later, we rejoiced again at the birth of her niece, our first great-granddaughter. I don’t know what the deal is with all the girls. Statistically, you would expect out of six children born to the younger generations three would be girls and three would be boys. Children, aren’t born by statistics, however, and our grandchildren are all beautiful women and girls, and we thank God for all of them.

Children are truly a blessing from God, despite what the world may think of them. King Solomon wrote, “Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them!” (Psalm 127:3-5) This blessing goes all the way back to the creation of the world where God created mankind as a husband and his wife and blessed them, saying “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” (Genesis 1:28) This blessing was given before the fall into sin, but God blessed Adam and Eve with children even after they rebelled against Him, but He also promised to send a Savior to rescue them all from their sin. God also repeated His blessing to Noah and his sons after God rescued them from the great flood, saying“Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.” (Gen 9:1) Even though every person ever born on earth (except Jesus) has been born a sinner, God still blesses families with children, and has provided salvation for all of us through Jesus. This is the reason why we celebrate with joy the birth of Jesus, and why it is also important to remember the Holy Family at Christmas (and at other times when we celebrate God’s gifts of new members to our family).

The Holy Family
at the Nativity of Christ
This is not the real Holy Family, but a lifelike representation
(compared to the other images in this article).

It is significant that when God became incarnate He came into a young family. In American culture, we would say today that Mary and Joseph were engaged to be married, because the marriage had not been consummated. In Jewish culture of that time, respectable people (like Joseph and Mary) would be legally married for a year – while living apart – before they consummated the marriage. You should note, too, that this practice was not only for prominent wealthy people, but also for laborers, like carpenters. It didn’t matter if Joseph was a skilled master carpenter or an unskilled laborer. People of all social classes would demonstrate their integrity by waiting a year before consummating the marriage, thus showing that they had not engaged in physical intimacy with each other. This not only gave them time to prove they were chaste and hadn’t been unfaithful, but it also gave them time to solidify their lifelong commitment to one another, and to the new family that they were creating.

God could have chosen an unmarried virgin to bear God’s Son, but that is not how God works. God, in His wisdom, created marriage and family for a purpose and He blesses families. In an intact family, the children know the love of both their father and their mother (see the Fourth Commandment – Exodus 20:12). This is God’s good plan, and though in this sinful world, this is not always possible, it is what we should strive for at all times. Besides, as God planned it, we have the “holy family” to look up to and try to make our own families holy also. We do this through repentance and forgiveness of one another when we sin against one another – as we inevitably will. If God had become incarnate through an unmarried woman, then Christians would idealize unmarried mothers and that would necessarily result in all kinds of chaos, like we see in pagan America today: children growing up in broken families feeling unloved and disobeying authorities and getting involved in drugs and crime. Our prisons are overwhelmingly populated with children of broken families.

The Holy Family
Window from Holy Cross Lutheran Church,
Detroit, Michigan
(Now closed)

As it is, Joseph and Mary belong together, and we ought to try to emulate their purity and faithfulness. Though, I should say here that the “pious” idea of Mary’s lifelong virginity is pure wickedness. That would make her a lousy wife to withhold herself from her husband (see 1 Corinthians 7:1-5). Mary is perpetually a virgin in our memory because we perpetually remember her as “the blessed virgin”, or the “virgin mother”. We do this because Mary was still a virgin until after Jesus was born (see Matthew 1:18-25). This is important because it testifies to the fact that Jesus is the Son of God, not the physical son of Joseph or any other sinful man, though Jesus lived as the son of Joseph, and was named as such (see Luke 2:48; Luke 3:23; Luke 4:22; Matthew 13:55; John 1:45; and John 6:42). There is no confusing the Blessed Virgin Mary with anyone else because never before and never again will a virgin conceive and bear a child. We also see in Matthew 13:55 and Mark 6:3 that the brothers of Jesus are named and the Gospel writers make note that they have sisters, also. The most plain (and best) interpretation of this is that these are the natural children of Joseph and Mary. There is no reason to doubt that – either historically, or exegetically, or theologically.

The “holy family” is considered holy because Jesus is holy. Joseph and Mary were sinners in need of Jesus to save them from their sins. In the Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55) Mary calls God, “my savior” (v. 47). Yet, despite the fact that Joseph and Mary were just like everyone else, they were also faithful, pious believers. As a young married couple, they were chaste and pure. When Joseph learned Mary was pregnant, he knew he was not the father, and though he was not (at first) willing to believe what Mary must have told him about what the angel said, he could have intended to have her stoned for adultery, but instead he planned on divorcing her quietly and not subjecting her to public disgrace. Then, when God told Joseph in a dream that all Mary had told him was true (see Matthew 1:20), he believed and kept the family intact. Joseph later protected Mary and Jesus by taking them to Egypt after Herod sought to kill the child, who was the true King of Judah (see INRI).

The Holy Family
Window from Emmanuel Lutheran Church,
Dearborn, Michigan

The world despises children because it takes sacrificial love to properly raise a child. Selfish pagans idolize themselves and do not care to expend the love and time and money it takes to provide for a child’s needs of body, soul, and mind. Parents must sacrifice to provide for their children’s needs, but that is what people were made for. It is very rewarding to raise a child and give him or her the necessary skills and resources necessary to become a respectable, productive member of society. It is even more rewarding for Christian parents to raise a child who loves God and his neighbors, and trusts in Jesus to save him from his sins. Parents who have done a good job raising children can be justifiably proud that their children are admired and respected by their neighbors and friends, and are valued members of society who care for those whom they deal with every day. This is something that selfish unbelievers who despise and murder their children (see my article on Molechianism) will never fully know because they idolize themselves, and they are unfulfilled because sooner or later their false gods will fail them.

No family is perfect, however, because all members of families are sinners. Even the holy family must have had its struggles and difficulties. The presence of Jesus did not change the sinful nature of Joseph and Mary, nor of His brothers and sisters. The story of the boy Jesus in the temple at age 12 (Luke 2:40-51) shows us that as the years went by, Joseph and Mary seem to have taken for granted that Jesus was the Son of God, and just thought of Him as a normal boy – which He was. There seems nothing out of the ordinary in the way that they deal with Him, as their son. They do show a high level of trust in Him, as they weren’t particularly worried that He wasn’t with them for a time. They assumed that Jesus was with others in their group (v. 44) as they traveled back up north, and they trusted Him not to be disobedient. Jesus always obeyed them perfectly, as an obedient son, but somehow not in a way that drew attention to Himself – so they trusted Him. Though, Mark 3:20-34 describes a situation where Christ’s family (specifically, His mother and brothers) thought Jesus was out of His mind, but Jesus kept teaching what He had been teaching because He was doing what He was supposed to do, and few others understood what it was all about. They thought Jesus suicidal for calling the leaders to repentance, and not heeding the threats against His life. Jesus was not suicidal, and at various times had to walk away from imminent threats to His life before His work was finished (See John 6:15 and Luke 4:24-30), but neither did He try to save Himself when the time came for Him to give His life to pay the price for the sins of the world (see Matthew 27:12-14). Some of the people who heard Christ’s teaching understood after He died and rose to life again, but others never did.

Glory to God in the Highest
Jesus is born in Bethlehem
(I forget where this window is from.
This is a scan of an old film photograph.)

It seems strange to the world that God would become a man simply for the purpose of suffering and dying a shameful death on a cross. It is no wonder that Christ’s family thought Him out of his mind. That kind of love doesn’t make sense to our selfish, sinful flesh, but God’s love is perfect, and we see perfect love in the life and death and resurrection of Jesus. That is why we celebrate Christmas, and why we celebrate more on Good Friday and on Easter Sunday. God is the only one who can save us from the guilt of our sin, and rescue us from sin’s consequences. So God became a man in Jesus to redeem us from sin and death. This is perfect love in action – that God would live and die to save His disobedient people, so that He could make us holy to live with Him forever.

This Christmas may Christ bless your family as you contemplate the Holy Family. May you love one another as Christ has loved you. May you forgive the sins that your family members commit against you, as Christ has forgiven all your sins. May father and mother be strengthened in love and commitment to one another, and may children give thanks to God continually for the blessings of their family.

Psalm 144:9-15 (NIV)

I will sing a new song to you, O God;

on the ten-stringed lyre I will make music to you,

to the One who gives victory to kings,

who delivers his servant David from the deadly sword.

Deliver me and rescue me from the hands of foreigners

whose mouths are full of lies, whose right hands are deceitful.

Then our sons in their youth will be like well-nurtured plants,

and our daughters will be like pillars carved to adorn a palace.

Our barns will be filled with every kind of provision.

Our sheep will increase by thousands,

by tens of thousands in our fields;