Sermon for the Feast of the Holy Innocents
“Herod … slew all the children that were in Bethlehem”
Christmas is for children, it is frequently said and rightly so bearing in mind that we are all the children of God and especially at this holy time when God became a little child. And yet, so much for children in our violent and brutal world where the innocent little ones are all too frequently the casualties and victims of horrendous acts of violence. And so, too, in the Christmas story.
The most troubling scene in the Old Testament, it seems to me, is the story of the Levite’s concubine. Abused and ravaged, she dies with her hands outstretched on the threshold of her master’s house; her body then cut up and circulated to all of the tribes of Israel as witness to the collective betrayal of the Law and of the universal laws of hospitality, the like of which had never before been seen in Israel. But the most troubling scene in the New Testament, it seems to me, is the story of the slaughter of the children of Bethlehem, killed because of Herod’s envy and fear about a rival King, on the one hand, and out of unbridled power without truth, without justice, without compassion, without restraint, on the other hand. Just so it speaks to our disordered world.
That this story belongs to the Christmas mystery is itself most telling and most moving. If it is the most troubling scene, it is also one of the most moving. It shatters all of our sentimental nonsense about Christmas. In this story we confront the deeper meaning of Christ’s Incarnation and face the realities of human wickedness, then and now. We don’t want to hear it and many are utterly unaware of it. And yet it marks the last of the three special Holy Days of Christmas, all of which comment upon the deeper meaning of Christ’s holy birth.
At issue, I suppose, is whether we are up to pondering this mystery. Almost universally overlooked, this story more than any other speaks directly and powerfully to the worst of the worst in our sad and troubled world, fractured and broken, violent and destructive. Christmas by virtue of this Christmas story is not a distraction but a condemnation of human folly and its violence. None of us escape this story. It belongs to the sad and sorry pageant of human violence, to the continuing spectacles of genocide and destruction that more than any other age belong to the story of the last one hundred years. It speaks as well to all of the deaths of the little ones in the name of convenience and expediency however complicated and complex the context. To ponder this story is to enter more fully into the Christmas mystery such that joys tinged by sorrow are deepened into faith and worship.
