Christ Church

These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth

There is, perhaps, no feast more troubling than The Feast of the Holy Innocents. Yet it belongs to the Christmas mystery and helps to illumine the deeper realities of God’s intimate engagement with our world and our humanity in the child Christ.

The story simply shows us what is a continuing feature of our own world; the horrible sufferings and deaths of the little ones in so many parts of our world, the sufferings and deaths of the little ones because of war, the sufferings and deaths of the little ones because of what is expedient and useful for the interests of others. In other words, there are a myriad of innocent ones. Innocent simply means those who are not able to harm.

In the Christian story, the little ones of Bethlehem are destroyed by Herod in his attempt to get rid of a potential rival to his throne. The story, too, draws upon the Egyptian captivity of Israel and God deliverance of Israel by God. The Hebrews are drawn out of Egypt and learn to be defined by the Law in the wilderness. So, too, Christ with Joseph and Mary flees Bethlehem and goes into Egypt from which he will return. Fuga in Egyptum, “the Flight into Egypt,” as the Matthaean story is called has excited the imaginations of the artists. The angel of the Lord alerts Joseph in a dream about the danger the young child and his mother are in. They flee into Egypt.

Meanwhile back in Bethlehem, we have the slaughter of all the little ones just because they are little ones. It is a policy of infanticide enacted for a political purpose. Sadly, there is nothing new in that: think about the horrors of the Rwandan genocide or the present horrors of the Syrian civil war, of the flood of refugees, etc., etc.

What is the point? What is there to celebrate? What are we celebrating? The meaningless and cruel deaths of little children? Cruel deaths, yes, but The Feast of Holy Innocents makes the strong theological claim that such deaths are not meaningless, that such deaths actually participate in Christ’s coming, including his death. Their lives have their meaning entirely in Christ. It means, too, that the sufferings that arise so directly from human folly and wickedness in all its forms are known to and in God. The simple “givenness of things,” to use Marilynne Robinson’s phrase, embraces the suffering of all things, both gentle and violent. The suffering of all things belongs to the being of God.

The unspeakable grief of the mothers of the world at the loss of their little ones is part and parcel of the Christmas story, “Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not.” The only comfort is found in the comfort of the Christmas story. God himself becomes a little one so that he might redeem all the little ones of the world. Without guile, in other words, innocent, “they are without fault before the throne of God.”

Think about how poignant and powerful this story might be precisely for those who have lost little ones. I have had occasion in the priestly and pastoral ministry to deal with those who have lost a child at childbirth or shortly thereafter. What comfort can there be except to recall this feast which makes it clear that the little ones ultimately are those who “follow the Lamb,”a reference to Christ in his sacrifice for us, “whithersoever he goeth”? He goes ultimately to the Cross for us and for our salvation. The holy Innocents are “they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth.” There can be no other comfort.

Fr. David Curry
Holy Innocents, 2018