But the lectionary allows no resting there. Christmas joy is interrupted.
The first Sunday of Christmas pulls the reader immediately into danger, displacement, and fear. The child who has just been born is already under threat. The family must flee. The passage for today is somewhat unpalatable (Matthew 2:13-23). The text raises lots of questions.
The story is of God’s protection for the infant Jesus. Herod feeling threatened by the stories he had heard about the rise of a new sovereign had all the children under two years old murdered.
Joseph was warned in a dream to take the child and flee. The gospel of Matthew recites how Joseph takes the infant Jesus and Mary and flees by night. There is urgency here. No preparation. No certainty. Just movement away from violence, to find safety.
From the beginning, Christ is a displaced child. A refugee. One whose survival depends on the courage of others and their willingness to journey into the unknown. The realm of G*d enters the world not through security, but through vulnerability.
Nevertheless, this text is hard to read. Only one parent was warned to protect their child. All the other children were sacrificed. That is not a pleasant thought. It disturbs me and raises several questions:
Was an all-powerful God not able to save more babies?
Were their lives not also important?
Was it okay for them and their families to suffer?
It is back to the question of theodicy.
Reading this text also started me thinking of a connection with the Easter story— a strange paradox.
There, one died to save all.
Here, many died to save one.
I also wonder how Mary and Joseph felt. Their baby was safe, but many others weren’t. The gospel does not shy away from extent of the grief. Other parents were grieving, “wailing and loud lamentation” (18) The story names the cost of protecting the Christ child and the devastation that brought.
It gives the message that Christmas does not erase suffering but enters into it. The birth of the Christ child does not cancel human cruelty but reveals G*d’s decision to dwell within it, to share its weight, to bear its consequences, to remain present even when innocence is destroyed.
Life goes on, but not cheaply.
In the church’s calendar this event is remembered by the feast day of the Holy Innocents (Dec 28) which was established late fourth/early fifth century. The children who were killed were regarded as the first martyrs of the church. In ancient theology these children were called “martyrs in deed not in will” or “martyrs before speech”. This disturbed some early theologians because martyrdom usually involved consent. These children had none.
Interestingly, in Medieval England the sadness and pain of the day was remembered by whipping children as they awoke in the morning. Thankfully, that custom ended in the 17th Century.
This story does not appear in any other gospel. Scholars are divided on the authenticity of it. Roughly, there are three ways of looking at it, historically plausible but uncorroborated, (Brown, Wright, Keener) historically doubtful but theologically meaningful (Crossan, Borg, Sanders) and a literary and theological narrative not intended as history (Allison).
Regardless, it is part of the faith tradition so I need to ponder it as I would any other text.
I look around my house still full of lights to welcome the Christ child — it is, after all, only the fourth day of Christmas! Yet, in the middle of this celebration of Christmas comes this very harsh reading.
It raises question about how one deals with these unpalatable passages. Are they to be ignored? Are they to be swept under the carpet? When one is reading the lectionary there is always the temptation to focus on the “good” bits of the story. That has always felt a little dishonest to me.
Faith and honesty in dealing with the scriptures sometimes feels like walking a tightrope. I want to be honest, but sometimes that honesty leads me to say that a passage displays a trait of God which I do not like. This is one such passage — a God who only saves one child, albeit a child with a special mission, feels a little distasteful.
Yet, it can remind me that G*d-with-us is not confined to moments of joy, but remains present in fear, grief, and displacement, in all the places where life is fragile and difficult.
I can remember that Christmas with its message of light, love, peace and all-is-well does not end the story but begins a journey with all the vulnerability and uncertainty that brings.
