BLOG 12/28/14. THE ‘MASSACRE OF THE INNOCENTS’

BLOG 12/28/14. THE POST-CHRISTMAS EVENT WE WISH TO OVERLOOK

It is interesting that when the church developed it liturgical calendar, those many centuries ago, that the third day after Christmas: The Birth of Jesus, was designated to observe that horrible event, which was King Herod’s slaughter of great numbers of innocent children. The day is called either Holy Innocents, or The Massacre of the Innocents.

You probably remember the story. King Herod was a power-hungry, totally ruthless and immoral half-breed king, who broached no opposition. He killed his own family members who were a threat to him. So, when the astrologers / wise men showed up at Herod’s place to ask where they might find him who was born king of the Jews … that all of Herod’s alarm signals went off. He called his own advisors and asked them where such might happen and they found in the scriptures that it would be Bethlehem. Herod was smooth. He directed them, and then asked that they report back to him if they found him. But after they had found Jesus, and given to him their rich gifts, they were warned in a dream (according to the Matthew text) not to go back to Herod, and so went home another way. Joseph and Mary were also recipients of a dream that they were to escape Herod’s attempt to destroy Jesus by fleeing to Egypt. So the holy family became political refugees.

When Herod found out that he had been thus tricked, he became furious and ordered the extermination of all of the male children who were under two years of age. This is no ‘sweetness and light’ Christmas story, and gets by-passed by most even inside the church. This story is another dimension of my last (12/21/14) blog about this whole incarnation story not being exactly safe. There are hostile political and social principalities and powers, which are threatened by those agents of God’s gospel of peace, those instruments of justice and truth and human welfare.

But then, my friends, it is quite too facile to dismiss this tragic and heartbreaking event and consign it to history, because the victimization of children is very present among us at this moment. Children and women are the primary victims of terrorism, of famine, and of parental neglect because they are the most vulnerable. The Taliban wreaks death on a school in Pakistan, or ISIS destroys the children of the Shia Muslims, and enslaves the children of those who oppose them. This pattern is also true in places like Nigeria, and wherever terrorist forces seek to impose their will. Infant mortality is huge in this world. All relief organizations can footnote this reality.

Let’s get closer to home, however. What of the frightening phenomenon of children in our own country, who have been birthed and then essentially abandoned by parents who seem clueless about parenting—absentee parents, busy on their own self-centered agendas, so that their children become de-facto orphans—the flotsam and jetsam of our society, finding their own families on the streets all too often. Children long for real parents, for love and order in their lives, for security and for family and hope and meaning—but they wind up with almost nothing but homes that are little more than places to camp. Young urban professionals can provide all of the material stuff that kids want, but can also produce an emotionally handicapped and confused generation, even with their designer clothes and iPhones.

Or take governmental budgets that can place the supplements for hunger programs for the poor way down the list of their priorities, … or procrastinate on spending the money to create functioning and excellent schools. All of this may not seem nearly so grotesque and bloody as Herod’s massacre of the innocents, but it portends all kinds of nightmarish results down the road, if not already obvious. (One could almost wish for the church’s reclaiming its provision of excellent children’s homes in order to rescue these little ones from the pathologies of our culture.) It’s contradictory to dump on Herod if we are callous to the emotional and spiritual destruction of this generation of little ones among us today. [If you find these Blogs provocative, invite your friends to subscribe.]

About rthenderson

Sixty years a pastor-teacher within the Presbyterian Church. Author of several books, the latest of which are a trilogy on missional ecclesiology: ENCHANTED COMMUNITY: JOURNEY INTO THE MYSTERY OF THE CHURCH, then, REFOUNDING THE CHURCH FROM THE UNDERSIDE, then THE CHURCH AND THE RELENTLESS DARKNESS. Previous to this trilogy was A DOOR OF HOPE: SPIRITUAL CONFLICT IN PASTORAL MINISTRY, and SUBVERSIVE JESUS, RADICAL FAITH. I am a native of West Palm Beach, Florida, a graduate of Davidson College, then of Columbia and Westminster Theological Seminaries.
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