Many people do not want any intrusions into a Christmas of unadulterated joy, but Matthew refuses to cooperate. What passes for a "Christmas story" in his gospel features the slaughter of children in Bethlehem. Christmas hope in Matthew is not about light and joy that blots our winter's dreariness or the world's despair. It is about a God who enters into the world's suffering and brokenness, who weeps with Rachel and who calls us to join in that weeping and in the difficult and costly work of birthing something new.