First Sunday after Christmas (Holy Innocents)

Today we reflect on an ancient massacre, a murderous rampage, driven by fear and the overwhelming desire by the perpetrator to hang onto power at all costs.  Herod, together with those around him who enabled this terror in all its aspects.  

Those who took part are people in positions we recognise today.  They are leaders of countries and nations, rulers and emperors, all of them autocrats hanging onto power illegally.  They have nowhere else to go when they have crossed the line away from the rule of law with justice, except deeper into terror to cling to power and not be killed themselves. Those who enable such decisions, we see gathered around the despots today.  They include the heads of justice departments, judges, police commissioners and the police, guards, the military, and prison managers, the court prosecutors, financiers, defence force leaders, bureaucrats and those who manage the overwhelming propaganda machines, online and AI.  They also include regular citizens, who don’t bother to check their information, who feed on misinformation, who enjoy the role of vicarious spectator and who are glad of someone to hate and despise as it props up and justifies their own place in the world. It includes people who are weary, worn out and despairing, who are glad of someone to blame as it gives hope that it can be put right and their own lives improve. 

And we know, the light of justice and resistance, love and peace involve hard work, danger and an uncomfortable life.  Staying with the larger crowd, our familiarity with the people and their  opinions are reassuring, with safety in numbers, and the echo chamber can seem open if the crowd is large enough. So, choosing to stand against it is scary.  It is a stance and witness we too are called to make as we follow Jesus.

Are we able to see where Jesus stood and still stands today among this chaos?

Matthew tells us where Jesus’ parents were standing when soldiers came after him and others like him.  God spoke to Joseph in a dream telling him to take the child and his mother and flee to Egypt, for Herod was seeking to destroy Jesus (Matt.2:13). They fled by night, escaping Herod’s wrath, leaving behind dreadful desolation and carnage from the massacre of innocent children.  And Joseph, a good man was listening to God every step of the way. 

Mary and Joseph are people who live in the shadow of the previous failed revolution of the Jews against Rome about 15 years before. This was the revolt which resulted in thousands being crucified for daring to imagine they could overthrow Rome and the autocrat who ruled from there.  This time, the tyrant was Herod who was following in the footsteps of all client kings who serve another master, anxious to remain on the throne and hold onto power.  And to save his own throne, he was prepared to kill.

All who live with the trauma of violence and war remain alert and vigilant to its reoccurrence.   We know God walks gently with those who suffer, reminding us to bring the little children to God, including the anawim, the poor and forgotten into God’s care. 

I reflect and wonder about the man Jesus became and it is because of the care and love, the guidance and teaching he received from both his parents, Joseph and Mary.  We know about Mary’s passion for justice and her clear-sighted love for God and willingness to trust God. Joseph also took a different path, choosing to marry a young woman who was pregnant, believing God was showing him the way life should be, and because of Joseph’s faith, his family was kept safe and supported in precarious times and in strange lands.  The man Jesus became, was because of both his parents who had courage, faith and trust in God, and they taught him and showed him how to live.

Jesus survived and grew into a man, the Son of God, the Messiah, with a radical sense of justice, spreading the good news for the poor and dispossessed, the weary and grieving, the marginalised and lost; and choosing to share the suffering of humanity so all, both Jew and Gentile alike, might learn of God’s love and peace and trust God with faith.

I asked earlier where you think Jesus might be standing today?

I think he’s with the children of Ukraine, kidnapped and traumatised by Russia; with the children imprisoned in Russia for speaking out, with the children in Sudan separated, brutalised, orphaned, outcast and homeless, with the children of Gaza killed, injured and starved, homeless and living as refugees in tents, with the children in the US shot and murdered in schools, with the Jewish children in Archer Park, Bondi, shot and terrorised, and with the children now among the millions around the world, who are refugees and asylum seekers, turned away from borders, returned to unsafe countries.  Jesus is with all God’s children who have been enslaved, with the children abused in their own homes, and those who are in our own watch houses and detention centres which are unfit for purpose.  Jesus is with the children, all our children everywhere, and he is inconsolable. 

My heart weeps for all who have lost their children, their loved ones, and all who are lamenting and mourning.  Rachel was inconsolable, because her children were no more.  The images on the news are filled with children in peril, and our hearts are broken, like Rachel.  God was with Mary when her son was murdered, as he hung on the cross, and God was with the world when the tomb was found empty on the third day after his crucifixion, as Christ had risen and the inconsolable, may rejoice as they now know God is with them always.

As Christ’s followers, we can hear God speaking to us in word and in prayer, in lament and joy, and we say to one another, and to all who would divide and kill us and our children, we speak in hope, in love and peace with everyone, around the world without distinction: 

This is the message we have heard from Christ, that God is light and in God there is no darkness at all.  (1 John 1:5)

The Lord be with you.