If celebrating twelve days of Christmas doesn’t seem counter-cultural enough to you, then celebrating the remembrance of King Herod’s massacre of the innocents will firmly place you against the grain. Congratulations…you’re crazy! Just kidding. Sort of.
If the readings didn’t spell it out, this feast day celebrates when King Herod decided to massacre a bunch of baby boys, thinking that he’d somehow kill the Christ child in one fell swoop. He kills many young boys (ages 2 and under) but he never finds Jesus (because Jesus’s family departed from Bethlehem). Jesus’s family only returns home once they learn of Herod’s death.
This story of the massacre of the innocents casts a somber note in the midst of a joyous season. SO WHY ON EARTH WOULD WE CELEBRATE THIS DAY??
There are several ways you could view this feast.
One take would be to make a silly tradition that would involve hitting kids with sticks. The English did this for Childermass (another name for the feast of innocents); adults would slap children with sticks to remind them of King Herod’s massacre. There are all sorts of obvious problems with this tradition, and one of the main reasons I disagree with it, is that it makes something tragic into a game. Children aren’t really edified from this activity, and for crying out loud, you’re hitting children!
Another take on remembering the massacre of the innocents would be to make it a day of mourning. When reading the story, it’s hard not to let it cut you deeply. I myself have three little children, and I hold them closer when I read this story. The poetic passage from Jeremiah referenced in Matthew’s gospel amplifies what Matthew cannot say himself: children are ruthlessly killed and mothers weep without comfort.
And cruelty and suffering of children is often a stumbling block to those who don’t know Christ. I think of Ivan Karamazov in The Brothers Karamazov and his refusal to understand Orthodox Christianity because he cannot fathom how a loving God would allow the suffering of children. I think of the Sandy Hook massacre several years ago and the senselessness of it. Or the constant loss of innocent lives on the patient’s table in clinics everywhere around the world. These are indeed deeply dark and seemingly chaotic events.
But it is not the end of the story.
For the innocents or for Jesus. The children who lost their lives at the hands of Herod save the life of the Prince of Peace who would one day be the ultimate sacrifice for all. To the reader, it may seem like the children are merely pawns in the great drama of the Christ story; the loss of many babies shows the scope of evil which seeks Christ.
And yet, Jesus, who spent much of this adult life with his eyes fixed on the cross he would be placed upon, welcomed children so completely into his arms: “Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God.”
For Jesus’s story, we see the greatness of evil in full force, trying with its most diabolical efforts to eradicate the Christ-child, and it cannot do it.
So, why do we celebrate a day that seems unfathomable?
Jeremiah says in the verse after Rachel’s lamentation the following: “keep your voice from weeping, and your eyes from tears, for there is a reward for your walk, declares the Lord, and they shall come back from the land of the enemy. There is hope for your future, declares the Lord, and your children shall come back to their own country.”
We celebrate the welcoming of these many saints whose hearts are known and made fully with Christ in heaven.
We celebrate that the light overcomes the darkness; chaos and senselessness do not get the last word. The innocents’ story is intertwined with Christ’s story of redemption of mankind. Their sweet short lives protected Christ’s mission on earth.
We celebrate their unwilling death that allows Jesus’s willing sacrifice on the cross—the sacrifice to change death to life for all.
We celebrate the hope through Christ that one day we’ll know these children, too. And that we’ll meet with joy and laughter all those children who have been lost to us.
If the readings didn’t spell it out, this feast day celebrates when King Herod decided to massacre a bunch of baby boys, thinking that he’d somehow kill the Christ child in one fell swoop. He kills many young boys (ages 2 and under) but he never finds Jesus (because Jesus’s family departed from Bethlehem). Jesus’s family only returns home once they learn of Herod’s death.
This story of the massacre of the innocents casts a somber note in the midst of a joyous season. SO WHY ON EARTH WOULD WE CELEBRATE THIS DAY??
There are several ways you could view this feast.
One take would be to make a silly tradition that would involve hitting kids with sticks. The English did this for Childermass (another name for the feast of innocents); adults would slap children with sticks to remind them of King Herod’s massacre. There are all sorts of obvious problems with this tradition, and one of the main reasons I disagree with it, is that it makes something tragic into a game. Children aren’t really edified from this activity, and for crying out loud, you’re hitting children!
Another take on remembering the massacre of the innocents would be to make it a day of mourning. When reading the story, it’s hard not to let it cut you deeply. I myself have three little children, and I hold them closer when I read this story. The poetic passage from Jeremiah referenced in Matthew’s gospel amplifies what Matthew cannot say himself: children are ruthlessly killed and mothers weep without comfort.
And cruelty and suffering of children is often a stumbling block to those who don’t know Christ. I think of Ivan Karamazov in The Brothers Karamazov and his refusal to understand Orthodox Christianity because he cannot fathom how a loving God would allow the suffering of children. I think of the Sandy Hook massacre several years ago and the senselessness of it. Or the constant loss of innocent lives on the patient’s table in clinics everywhere around the world. These are indeed deeply dark and seemingly chaotic events.
But it is not the end of the story.
For the innocents or for Jesus. The children who lost their lives at the hands of Herod save the life of the Prince of Peace who would one day be the ultimate sacrifice for all. To the reader, it may seem like the children are merely pawns in the great drama of the Christ story; the loss of many babies shows the scope of evil which seeks Christ.
And yet, Jesus, who spent much of this adult life with his eyes fixed on the cross he would be placed upon, welcomed children so completely into his arms: “Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God.”
For Jesus’s story, we see the greatness of evil in full force, trying with its most diabolical efforts to eradicate the Christ-child, and it cannot do it.
So, why do we celebrate a day that seems unfathomable?
Jeremiah says in the verse after Rachel’s lamentation the following: “keep your voice from weeping, and your eyes from tears, for there is a reward for your walk, declares the Lord, and they shall come back from the land of the enemy. There is hope for your future, declares the Lord, and your children shall come back to their own country.”
We celebrate the welcoming of these many saints whose hearts are known and made fully with Christ in heaven.
We celebrate that the light overcomes the darkness; chaos and senselessness do not get the last word. The innocents’ story is intertwined with Christ’s story of redemption of mankind. Their sweet short lives protected Christ’s mission on earth.
We celebrate their unwilling death that allows Jesus’s willing sacrifice on the cross—the sacrifice to change death to life for all.
We celebrate the hope through Christ that one day we’ll know these children, too. And that we’ll meet with joy and laughter all those children who have been lost to us.
