Third Day of Christmas 2023: The Massacre of the Innocents

Santa Claus is for children, and Christmas Day is for children; but the whole story of Christmas is not.

When Herod realized he had been duped by the astrologers, he was outraged. He then issued a death warrant for all the male children in Bethlehem and surrounding region two years old and younger. this corresponded to the time [of the star] that he had learned from the astrologers. With this event the prediction made by Jeremiah the prophet came true:
'In Ramah the sound of mourning
and bitter grieving was heard:
Rachel weeping for her children.
She refused to be consoled:
They were no more.' " (Matthew 2: 16-18, SV)

Advent and Christmas are seasons steeped in mystery and the whole of the human story, from joy to misery, from peace to pain. We shield our children from these truths, so we can shield ourselves. We pretend God is only about love and peace and our happiness, and complain that the God of Israel is a god of blood and thunder, while the God of Jesus is a god of babies and rainbows. Neither simplicity is true, and the simplicity of the Christmas story, that it begins with the Annunciation to Mary and ends with the angels singing Gloria to the shepherds, is too simple to be true, also. Luke tells one story of the birth, where the power of the state forces the Holy Family to Bethlehem but that power merely fulfills the expectation that the redeemer of the line of David will come from the ancestral home of David. Matthew tells the other story; the story of Herod's fear and insecurity. This is the part of Christmas the world doesn't celebrate. This is the part of Christmas we ignore, for the sake of the children, we tell ourselves; but it's really for our sake. Just as we don't want Advent blighted with the deaths of the innocent, we don't want Christmas spent remembering the Holy Innocents.

Everybody knows the Magi story; but few pay attention to its aftermath:

Jesus was born in Bethlehem, in Judea, when Herod was king. Astrologers from the East showed up in Jerusalem just then.  "Tell us," they said, "where the newborn king of the Judeans is.  We have observed his star in the east and have come to pay him homage."

It's worth noting that births were important to the Egyptians, because they considered Pharoahs to be born gods and rulers.  It was several centuries after the creation of the Church before the Church itself would acknowledge the importance of the birth day of the Christ, and that first recognition came in Alexandria. I interrupt this partially familiar account from Matthew to make us stop and pay attention to what's being said.  The astrologers (Magi) are not children of Abraham, and are not following a star (yet).  They have seen a new star and interpret that as the birth of a king, in Judea.  Which is a political statement threatening Herod and, ultimately, Rome (well, Roman power over Judea.  Herod is a Roman satrap, not a sovereign monarch.)

When this news reached King Herod, he was visibly shaken, and all Jerusalem along with him.

When the King sneezes, the kingdom catches cold.  Well, the capital, in this case.  Matthew is also setting Jesus against Jerusalem, because his life will end there, demanded by the crowd.

He called together all the ranking priests and local experts, and pressed them for information:  "Where is the Anointed supposed to be born?

They replied: 'At Bethelem in Judea." This is how it is put by the prophet:

And you, Bethlehem, in the province of Judah,

you are by now means the least among the leaders of Judah.

Out of you will come a leader

who will shepherd my people, Israel.

Then Herod called the astrologers together secretly and ascertained from them the preicse time the star became visible.  Then he sent them to Bethlehem with this instructions:  "Go make a careful search for the child. When you find where he is, report to me so I can come and pay him homage."

They listened to what the king had to say and continued on their way.

Matthew has already cited scripture several times to place Jesus in Hebraic history and in the scriptures, as well.  Here he uses the ranking priests to confirm his readings of those scriptures.  And here we get the first hint that these events take place sometime after the birth of the Christchild.  We'll soon find out how long after.

And there guiding them on was the star they had observed in the East; it led them forward until it came to a standstill above where the child lay. Once they saw the star, there were beside themselves with joy.  And they arrived at the house and saw the child with his mother Mary. They fell down and paid him homage.  Then they opened their treasure chests and presented him with gifts--gold and incense and myrrh. And because they had been alered in a dream not to return to Herod, they journeyed back to their own country by a different route.

Which is where the story usually stops.  But Matthew isn't finished yet:

After the astrologers had departed, a messenger of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph, saying "Get ready, take the child and his mother and flee to Egypt,  Stay there until I give you instructions. You see, Herod is determined to hunt the child down and destroy him."

So Joseph got ready and took the child and his mother under cover of night and set out for Egypt. There they remained until Herod's death.  This happened so the Lord's predictions spoken by the prophet would come true: "Out of Egypt I have called my son."

When Herod realized....

And we're back where the started this. It is also why we guess the age of Jesus at this time to be no older than 2 years old (for the purposes of Matthew's story, I mean). The Epiphany (the revelation to the Gentiles) comes long after the night of the birth story in Luke. But isn't it interesting how much of the birth story events take place in darkness?  Except for the Massacre of the Innocents; but we relegate that one to darkness, the better to ignore it.

This is truly the Church's portion of Christmas. Appropriate to the interests of the church, Walter Brueggeman would call Herod's concerns the theology of scarcity, and point out it's a very old game, even in Biblical history. It is a game we blame on God; but it is one entirely of our making, and it ties the story of the Holy Innocents to our secular observation of Christmas, and our cri de couer for someone to tell us what Christmas is all about. This story, is what it is all about. And the Coventry Carol captures it in one song:

Lully, lullay, thou little tiny child,
bye, bye, lully lullay.

O sisters too, how may we do,
for to preserve this day,
this poor youngling for whom we sing,
bye, bye lully lullay.

Herod the king in his raging,
charged he hath this day,
his men of night, in his own sight,
all young children to slay.

Then woe is me, poor child, for thee!
And every morn and day,
for thy parting not say nor sing
bye, bye, lully lullay.

Lully, lullay, thou little tiny child,
bye, bye, lully lullay.

It is the only remnant of the story that still makes it into our Advent and Christmas music, though we may not always recognize the story and the reason it is a "Christmas carol." In another medieval play, “The Play of Herod,” they take the story even more seriously. To portray the story from Matthew, an angel is sent from God to console Rachel, but she refuses even the aid of God. She refuses all comfort. Of course she does; she is a grieving mother, her children are gone. What comfort can be offered to her? This is real; this has happened. What else could be felt, except bottomless grief, except the sucking, horrible pain of loss?

This is not Matthew reaching for yet another scriptural reference to support his nativity story. This is not Matthew trying to shore up his tale with yet another appeal to authority. This is Matthew telling us he has no words for this horror, and he must borrow words just to be sure we feel it as it was felt by those grieving mothers and fathers. This is not Matthew telling us this is true, because scriptures predicted it. This is Matthew telling us someone else, someone earlier, described it, caught the horror of it, knew what it felt like. This is Matthew telling us this is real. This is Matthew telling us to believe this birth occurred, because the world is not kind to saviors, even when they are babies. The world does not seek salvation, but its own contentment; and it does not react well to mystery.

So Rachel cannot be comforted, but that is not where "The Play of Herod" ends the story. That mystery play ends where it should: in holy mystery.

For there is a Te Deum sung: 'We praise you, God, we confess you as Lord.' The greatest chant of praise. This is sung by Mary and Joseph, processing through the audience, but they are joined in their song and procession by the animals and the angels, by the shepherds, by the lamenting Rachel and the parents of Bethlehem, and they are joined by the soldiers and their victims and by Herod. Knowing that (Hopkins again)

we are wound
With mercy round and round. . . .

they all, incarnate God and all creation, even death, tyrants and martyrs, all process and all sing praise. And we sing too, and find ourselves in the procession.

Today we can't imagine it. We take our Christmas with lots of sugar. And take it in a day. Though we've been baptized into his death, we have little time for or patience with how that death is told at Christmas, a death that confuses lament and praise forever. And no wonder we are careful to keep Christmas at an arm's length. What is Herod in these times?--Gabe Huck

Or, to return to Luke:

Lord, let your servant 
die in peace
for you kept your promise.
With my own eyes
I see the salvation

you prepared for all peoples;

a light of revelation for the Gentiles

and glory to your people Israel.

 

I like that translation for this context, because it emphasizes Simeon's wish:  he can die now, God's promise to him has been kept. But that's not the end of Luke's nativity, because Simeon turns back to Mary:

And Simeon blessed them, and said unto Mary his mother, Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel; and for a sign which shall be spoken against;

(Yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also,) that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.

Even in Luke's more beautiful, more popular version, we cannot escape it: the appalling strangeness of the mercy of God, and the penetrating mystery at the heart of the season, just as the year begins again.