a sermon for 29th Dec 2024
I mentioned to some of my clergy colleagues that today I would be preaching on the subject of Holy Innocents, the massacre at Bethlehem. And they said ‘What sort of idiot are you?!’ Who actually wants to hear a sermon on a horrible painful subject like that, a few days after Christmas. So here we go.
Bear in mind that Holy Innocents day is 28th December, yesterday, so it is extra odd that we should think about this a week before the Epiphany, the arrival of the Magi. It is sort of the wrong way round, but I like that the Church does not say This is a sad subject we should avoid this – but rather it has been part of our calendar for centuries.
There’s something in this whole story that invites us to remember the importance of Safeguarding, of us as a community looking out for each other
I’ve got 4 points. Point one is the Honesty of Scripture.
The Magi follow the star, it takes them almost to the right place. They go to see Herod. They don’t know that Herod is proper nasty piece of work.
But Herod really is. He killed the Sanhedrin council – all 46 of them – at one point. He killed 12 of his 15 sons. A poet at the time said It would be better to be one of Herod’s pigs than his sons.
Herod was so worried that no one would be crying on the day of his death that he arrested leaders in each of the towns of Israel with instruction that they be put to death on the announcement of his death so at least someone was crying. In the end that ruling was overturned by his wife.
But you get the picture of someone who was trigger happy, very insecure about his own status – not least because Herod was not born a King but asked the Roman Caesar for that label.
Now along comes the Magi asking for one who has been born King of the Jews. That is going to get Herod very hot under the collar.
As a by the way – Herod was called Great because he was actually very good at building projects – he built the harbour at Caesarea, inventing underwater concrete, and he built Masada deep in the desert, and in Jerusalem the Jewish Temple complex was built up to being a wonder of the world. And other things.
Point 1 is the honesty of Scripture. We might prefer it if St Matthew had left this story out. But then we would have a different sort of problem where the bible would read like a Disney version of life, and lack the painful reality that so many of us see.
So the massacre of the under-2 year old boys in Bethlehem and surrounding areas – it fits with the character of Herod.
But when you compare it to the news, perhaps even today, there will have been something around the world – be it in Ukraine, Syria, Gaza, (has the Lebanon ceasefire held?). The deaths and kidnapping from Kibbutzim around Be’ersheva in southern Israel (Oct 2023). These massacres seem common enough.
“Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled: 18 “A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.”
Matthew quotes Jeremiah – its not a prophetic fulfilment, that’s not what Jeremiah meant – he was referring to the fall of Jerusalem in 586BC when so many were slaughtered, so many were taken away into captivity. Ramah was a staging post about 8 miles north of Jerusalem, where those who had survived were imprisoned before their long march into slavery. Rachel weeping inconsolably would be a personification for everyone – through the matriarch Rachel, the beloved wife of Jacob, of Israel, the mother especially of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin. And that’s what we see in Bethlehem of Judea, the mothers weeping and refusing to be comforted.
So I want to say that it is good that its here in the Bible. I pray that you will never be anywhere near something as horrific as Herod’s massacre but we know this happens and for it to not be in the Bible would be a different sort of travesty.
The point about the Honesty of the Bible is that our scriptures are not trying to make life seem all simple and easy. Faith in God does not mean an easier walk through life.
Point 2 – can we look at this from the perspective of Jesus. Here is the messiah – all very small, barely a toddler – remember the Magi and the Shepherds never were on the same page in the bible. They come to the Holy Family at different points. The Magi have arrived after the circumcision, the naming of Jesus, after the ceremony of the cleansing of Mary (what we celebrate at Candlemas) – after all that that’s when the Magi show up with their valuable presents, very timely funds to pay for the escape – the angel warns Joseph in a dream – Joseph obeys the dream.
I find Matthew’s phrase – Out of Egypt I called my son – a bit of a nonsense. The prophet Hosea (750BC) was the one to use this phrase and by it he meant to show that God had been so good to God’s people in rescuing them from slavery in Egypt and bringing them into the promised land, so that the son was a whole gathering of all the tribes.
But Hosea uses this image to berate the ancient Israelites for their lack of faith, for their neglect of the poor, for their worship of other gods.
So Matthew using this phrase ‘Out of Egypt I called my son’ is a sign that he saw that to a large extent the people were still in a metaphorical ancient Egypt, still caught up in a sin-entrapped sort of slavery and needing to be rescued.
And that would be seen by Jesus not giving up on His mission by staying in Egypt, and living a new life, but by returning in order to bring us our salvation, our freedom from sin.
Note the vulnerability of this baby messiah. The ease with which the Devil could have done away with Jesus in this moment. We might say things like ‘Gosh that was a lucky escape!’
Don’t say – ‘Well of course He’s God, so its all very well for God to make one rule for His Son and another for the rest of us. Of course God would rescue the Son and not the others’ –
Don’t say that – because you wont be saying that as we get closer to Good Friday and we see the Messiah taking upon Himself your sins in His sacrifice.
So we have the Honesty of the Bible, and that’s a good thing. We have the Horribleness of Herod – a king who rules by fear – contrasted with the vulnerability of a messiah who would rule by His sacrifice and by the rule of love.
But now let’s look at the pain and sorrow in Bethlehem. Can we look at it from 2 angles. Firstly from the angle of an on-looker, and then the angle of one in grief?
The on-looker sees pain, the suffering of others, and what does that do to you? CS Lewis spoke of pain being God’s Megaphone to the World. I’ve always understood that to mean that pain has a role in our lives of waking us up from our complacency, to see injustice and to do something about it.
So when I’m in a school doing a Grilla-vicar and they ask about suffering – I say what suffering do you see and what are you going to do about it? You want God to do everything for you – but this anger at how wrong the world is – that’s a call – Go be a scientist and cure cancer, go be a politician and cure homelessness, go be a musician and make the world a better place through the joy you bring them.
Pain then as a catalyst for us to make the world a better place.
We’ve all got home from a long drive and over a cup of tea thought about the number of times that some idiot cut us up or applied their breaks more suddenly than we expected and somehow or other you did not get involved in a terrible pile up and actually you have whispered a quite ‘Thank you Jesus’ prayer.
So its not as if God isn’t at work, as if little miracles don’t happen on a daily basis.
Why didn’t God send a bad dream to all the parents in Bethlehem. I don’t know. But I have come across people who knew they were supposed to be in one of the Twin Towers when the terrorists flew a plane into it on 9/11 in 2001. But for some reason or other they were delayed.
AS Jeremiah said, as Matthew said, here again is Rachel weeping inconsolably, refusing to be comforted. Quite understandably.
So Pain Happens. I’m sorry about that. But what’s your response to it going to be? To pray, to study, to protest, to fight for a better world, or to give up?
We’re looking at the Honesty of Scripture, the Horribleness of Herod compared to the Vulnerability of Jesus – 2 different sorts of Kings – one by oppression, the other by sacrifice and love, And at the power of pain to motivate us to work for a better world.
One last thought, about when it is you that is caught up in the pain. But alas here you know perfectly well that there is no answer. Not least because any answer would be intellectual, and your pain is one that shudders up and down your body mind and soul.
Consider The book of Job ends with an encounter – Job encounters God – he doesn’t get an answer.
I remember a woman I trained with at Bible College saying I would rather go through this Crappy life with Jesus than without. Oddly to her there wasn’t an option for life not to be hard and horrible.
Even the old Book of Common Prayer, even the modern Funeral service refers to this troublous life. Even our own liturgies have always been aware that life is hard.
So, for some people in the midst of their pain they give up on God. I have some sympathy with this. Perhaps they felt that faith in God should give them some sort of membership rights and so they give up on God.
Perhaps the act of throwing God out of the window, that angry act – not of abandoning faith but of rejecting it – that angry act is of some comfort.
So I would always encourage someone who wants to give up on God because God has failed them as He failed the children at Bethlehem, I would want to say Hold on to God, because then you can be angry at God. But if you abandon your faith, then where will you take your anger? or your cry for justice?
I find the Psalms good for this. There are some very angry psalms. And that’s good and healthy that we have a God that we can turn to with our pain and cry out to and shake our fist at.
And this is what takes me back to that woman who said – I would rather go through this difficult life with Jesus than without Jesus.
And back to the CS Lewis megaphone – there’s so much pain that I don’t see, that I walk by on the other side, but sometimes I do see it, Now what is God calling me to do about it?
So I am glad for the honesty of scripture, that St Matthew kept this event in the bible and didn’t make it easy reading. Because I find here a challenge to follow a king who rules by fear or the King who rules by Love and each day I must choose who my king will be.
Amen. //