This Christmas series, O Come, Let Us Adore Him, looks at prophetic songs of worship and adoration of Christ in the Old Testament, and songs and prayers sung in the wake of the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies in the New Testament.
King Herod’s anger at the wise men led to the slaughter of innocent children in Bethlehem.
By drawing on Jeremiah’s prophecy (Jeremiah 31:10-34), Matthew focuses our gaze on the hope God can bring us, even in the midst of hopeless circumstances. In the same passage in which he speaks of the pain of losing children, Jeremiah also looks forward to a time when God will gather his scattered people—turning their mourning into joy, giving them hope for the future, returning their worship to God, and bringing rest to their weary souls). This will be accomplished through the ministry of God’s Son, who, with his own blood, provides us a new covenant with God. This covenant is not written on stone tablets and kept in an ark like in days past; it is written on the hearts of Jesus’s followers who have received forgiveness for their sin.