by CCW | 28 December 2024 10:00
The Christmas Feast of Holy Innocents operates on at least three levels. There is, first of all, the overarching and controlling concept that the Holy Innocents are “the first-fruits unto God and to the Lamb” of the redemption of our humanity. There is, secondly, the purported event of Herod’s fear of a rival to his political power that leads to the slaughter of “all the children that were in Bethlehem” – the harming and destruction of those who can do no harm, hence the innocent – understood as the precipitating event of the flight into Egypt of the Holy Family and as fulfilling Jeremiah’s prophecy about mourning and loss, on the one hand, and Hosea’s prophecy about the God’s love and compassion that delivers Israel, on the other hand. This aspect highlights the theme of loss and mourning as leading to redemption and restoration. And, thirdly, there is the moral application of the whole event in the Collect in which “babes and sucklings” who are weak and helpless are strengthened by God and, though infants, who are by definition unspeaking, nonetheless, “glorify God by their deaths.” This becomes the basis of the moral charge to us about “mortifying and killing all vices” in ourselves so that being “strengthened by grace, the innocency of our lives and the constancy of our faith, even unto death,” we, too, “may glorify thy holy Name.”
In one way, it is all rather complex, a bit complicated, and profoundly troubling. It offers a reflection on a way of understanding the interplay of scriptural passages, particularly between the Hebrew Scriptures and the emerging Christian writings. It is, a rather disturbing and disquieting story that challenges our thinking about the radical meaning of Christmas. It is meant to be troubling and yet realistic about the forms of human suffering, especially of the little ones, the ones who can do no harm and yet are harmed by others, subject to agendas and purposes in relation to which they are simply collateral damage and regarded as disposable, as nothing worth.
This is the theological challenge of Holy Innocents Day. It points us to the radical meaning of human redemption. It suggests in no uncertain terms that the little ones, whether born or the unborn, are the children of God, creatures of a loving Creator in spite of the evil of others, socially and politically. A 15th century Latin carol found once again in the 16th century Scandinavian collection known as the Piae Cantiones, memorably recalls this story, making reference to Herod in his fear and fury: “all the little boys he killed/ at Bethlem in his fury.”
That this should be an essential part of Christmas shatters all our assumptions about Christmas. It teaches us about the deeper meaning of Christ’s sacrifice for the redemption of the whole of humanity. It means the radical overcoming of all our evil and folly. It teaches that “nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus,” imaged here as the Lamb of God, on the one hand, and the Son of God who comes out of the Egypt of ancient captivity to liberate us from all evil, on the other hand. That is meant to provide comfort and strength for us in the face of the heart-rending losses of children and infants for whatever reason in the disorders of our day.
It is a testament of faith to be able to see redemption in such things. But Christmas does not hide from view all the forms of human evil that destroy all and any that are simply inconveniently in the way of our human projects and agendas, treating them as disposables. The story is a retelling of Pharaoh’s policy of infanticide enacted against the Hebrews in Egypt. In every way, the story in all of its ancient and modern applications is about the denial of the forms of our humanity, whether in the womb or newly born, namely those who are unable to harm yet find themselves in harm’s way.
There is another telling theological aspect of this extraordinary Christmas feast. There is blood in Bethlehem. It is the blood of the Holy Innocents, and yet their deaths are seen to participate proactively in Christ, the sacrificial Lamb of God. They who are at once contemporary with Christ in his nativity anticipate his death and crucifixion. As the carol In Dulci Jubilo reminds us, “Christ was born for this;” He is “born to save.” Thus the Holy Innocents are said in Revelation to “follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth.” He comes as sacrifice and goes to the Cross for our redemption. The little ones of Bethlehem participate already in the real purpose of Christ’s birth.
This challenges our rather limited linear and sequential way of thinking by showing us the gathering of all things to God in his eternal knowing and loving of all things, on the one hand, and providing us with a way to apply this way of thinking to ourselves in moral reflection and action, on the other hand. It belongs, in other words, to a way of thinking the Scriptures in the light of essential doctrine. In this case, illuminating for us the radical nature of redemption where nothing, absolutely nothing, falls outside of God’s Providence which is his eternal knowing and loving of all things.
Christmastide reminds us that we are all the children of God, and live only by the grace of God, the source of all our being and knowing. It does so in the wonder of God himself becoming a child, an infant. The unspoken Word of God speaks to us today “out of the mouths of babes and sucklings” who, like him, are literally without speech and yet who glorify God even by their deaths. If we think that God, to the extent that we think of God at all, is simply the affirmation of our immediate concerns and interest, then this feast must surely trouble and disturb us. But, perhaps, just perhaps, it may make us think more deeply about the Christmas mystery which is so elaborately and profoundly set before us. In so doing, it must act as a counter to the cynicism, indifference, narcissism and nihilism in our global culture that wreaks such harm on others.
There is, I think, something compelling that the Holy Innocents of Bethlehem are “the first-fruits unto God and to the Lamb,” those who without guile or deceit, “follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth.” He goes to the Cross for us and for our salvation and already that is intuited and known in Bethlehem.
Fr. David Curry
Holy Innocents, Christmas 2024
Source URL: https://christchurchwindsor.ca/2024/12/28/sermon-for-the-feast-of-the-holy-innocents-13/
Copyright ©2026 Christ Church unless otherwise noted.