“Herod … was exceeding wroth; and sent forth and
slew all the children that were in Bethlehem”
So much for the idea that Christmas is for children! Could there be a more disturbing scene than this? But then we have only just recently had to contemplate the slaughter of students at a School in Peshawar, Pakistan, at the hands of Taliban jihadis. Sadly we could extend the litany of the deaths of the little ones in a myriad of ways whether as the victims of the convenience of others or as expendable causalities in the pursuit of one agenda or another.
Be that as it may be, it must still trouble us to find such a feast as Holy Innocents and such a troubling story as part and parcel of the mystery of Christmas. It should trouble us, to be sure, but even more it should make us think more deeply upon the Christmas mystery. In a way, I like the way this story troubles our sensibilities because it suddenly makes the Christian mystery that much more real and redeems it from all of the comfortable and cozy sentiments that clog and cloy our thinking.
The story underscores the radical meaning of Christ’s holy birth. He comes to redeem a sad and broken world where the slaughter of the innocent ones belongs to the folly and wickedness of human power which overextends itself in tyranny and destruction. Matthew provides an insight into the character of Herod – his rage – but elsewhere in the Gospels we are made aware of another motive that moves Herod’s policy of infanticide, namely, the fear of another king who will displace him. Wrath and fear – a deadly combination for persons in positions of power.
The story has a larger meaning. It is a reprise of the ancient story of the Hebrews leaving Egypt under the guidance of Moses. “Out of Egypt have I called my Son” is now understood to be more radically fulfilled not just in Israel’s deliverance from political slavery in Egypt but in Jesus Christ. The theme of liberation extends to all the forms of our enslavement, not the least of which is our enslavement to ourselves, to sin. This does not hide the machinations of political evil. The birth of Christ by definition challenges all the forms of human authority in their pretense to self-sufficiency and absolutism. Herod forgets, as so many rulers do, that they have no power really apart from God, a point which Jesus will make to Pilate.
But this still does not ease our hearts. Little children are slaughtered. Matthew draws upon one of the great stories of inconsolable grief to make us feel this sorrow, “Rachel weeping for her children, And would not be comforted, because they are not,”, is a passage from Jeremiah, drawing upon Genesis, to signify the overwhelming sense of loss and grief in Israel’s captivity and exile in Babylon
Yet alone of the special Christmas holy days, this story happens in Bethlehem. There is, inescapably, blood in Bethlehem, the blood of the children who are killed by Herod’s order in an attempt to annihilate a potentially rival king, the child King Christ. The story launches one of the more intriguing Christmas mysteries, the flight into Egypt, symbolically signifying the recapitulation of the story of Israel in Christ. So far so good but our sensibilities must still be with the little ones. How are we to understand their tragedy?
Through a breath-taking and yet a spiritually profound concept expressed rather disturbingly in the Collect: “Thou madest infants to glorify thee by their deaths.” The Collect quickly goes on to suggest a moral application of this to ourselves in terms of mortifying – putting to death – “all vices in us” and being strengthened by grace to embrace “the innocency of our lives, and the constancy of our faith, even unto death,” so that “we may glorify thy holy Name.” All well and good but I have known clergy who have found this all to be utterly repellant, especially the idea that “thou madest infants to glorify thee by their deaths.” It does challenge us and yet I have to say that I find there is great strength and even consolation in the prayer and in the remembrance of the Holy Innocents, especially in those difficult pastoral occasions when one has to deal with the death of infants.
What is the theological doctrine which offers comfort and consolation? It is simply this. These deaths are not meaningless. These lives participate, however briefly, however fleetingly, in something more which is imaged poetically and powerfully in the lesson from Revelation. “These were redeemed from among men, being the first-fruits unto God, and to the Lamb.” These little ones bear witness to the innocence of the infant Christ who comes to redeem the whole of our humanity. Even more, as hard as it may be to say, they participate in the innocent suffering and sacrifice of Christ and so participate in the glory of God revealed in Jesus Christ. There is something altogether touching and profound in such an outlook. It participates in the Christian idea that nothing, absolutely nothing, including the wraths and fears of all the Herods of the world, “can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.”
There is grief and sorrow, to be sure. Such experiences of grief and sorrow cannot be denied but neither can they be allowed to define us entirely and completely for then we render life meaningless and empty and make even the brief lives of the little ones empty and nothing because they are not with us, as if what matters is really us. What gets lost is how we are with God in our griefs and sorrows, the God who has taken the griefs and sorrows of our mad and maddening world into his own heart. Such is the meaning of the child Christ of Bethlehem, the little one who comes to redeem all the little ones, including ourselves. The Holy Innocents testify to the radical meaning of the love which comes down at Christmas, all the wrath of the world notwithstanding.
“Herod … was exceeding wroth; and sent forth and
slew all the children that were in Bethlehem”
Fr. David Curry
The Feast of the Holy Innocents
December 28th, 2014 8:00am