Matthew 2:13-23
Now after they [the Magi] had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, "Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him." Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfil what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, "Out of Egypt I have called my son."
When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the wise men. Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah:
"A voice was heard in Ramah,
wailing and loud lamentation,
Rachel weeping for her children;
she refused to be consoled, because they are no more."
When Herod died, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, "Get up, take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who were seeking the child's life are dead." Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus was ruling over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. And after being warned in a dream, he went away to the district of Galilee. There he made his home in a town called Nazareth, so that what had been spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, "He will be called a Nazorean."
Today is the Sunday after Christmas. This past week we heard all the stories of the birth of the Child – the loving parents, the worshipping animals, and angels singing. Today’s story is an abruptly different story – one of violence and grief and horror. It’s a hard jolt to hear this story today after all the sweetness of the past few days, and yet, this is the more familiar reality for much of our world.
It is also slightly out of order chronologically. This story begins just as the Magi, the Three Wise Men, have come and gone – on their way back to their distant home, sneaking away without speaking to Herod again. But chronologically those Magi haven’t arrived yet. Their story is found in Matthew just prior to today’s reading but we’ll get to it in the readings next Sunday. I guess the plan of those who put the readings together is to keep this first week focused on the baby Jesus and not his visitors.
As I said, it’s a sad story and one we’d rather not listen to today – or at all – but it’s important for us to recognize and remember that Jesus’ entire life was lived under a hostile and violent regime.
Herod was “King” in Judea, but only as a vassal under the real rulers, the Romans. His family had for several generations been political operatives under the Romans who had conquered the area under Julius Caesar. Because the family had always done their work well, Herod was rewarded with the title of King in Judea. Aside from being a good political lackey he did possess some convoluted lineage that technically placed him as a descent of King David, thereby sort of qualifying him as a legitimate king. This was supposed to make him more acceptable to the Jewish people.
He was also married to a daughter of the high priest. This gives us an idea of how deeply the priesthood at this time was invested in the Roman political power structure – they too were allowed to rule in power and wealth just as long as they stayed on the Romans’ good side.
The story of the Slaughter of the Innocents, as it is known, has no historical backing of any kind. It is considered dubious at best by almost all qualified scholars. Not only is it not found in any secular history but there is no hint of it anywhere else in scripture – just this one story in Matthew. It is possible that the story originated in the apparently true story of Herod murdering his two nephews to remove them as rivals – a story that became garbled and expanded into the one we just read.
Whatever the truth of the story, we do know that the ruling forces were well aware, as were the poor, that a prophecy existed that a child would one day be born who would break the shackles of the poor and overset the powerful. When three important visitors from another country showed up, announcing that this child had apparently been born, we can well understand the consternation and fear that the powerful felt. In a culture of merciless violence it is not hard to believe they would lash out in mindless slaughter.
One of the scholars I researched in preparing this message, Kathryn Matthews, reminds us that it is important that we note here that nowhere does the story suggest that the slaughter was God’s idea. God did not decree that those babies must die in order that Jesus might be glorified later. We are familiar with hearing the phrase, "All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet," but here Matthew makes a point of telling us that it was only after Joseph and his family had fled, only after the Magi had tricked Herod and snuck home without returning to report to him – only “...then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah” that there was wailing and loud lamentation for the murdered children.
There are a couple of smaller points in this story that are interesting. The first is that it three times refers to Joseph receiving messages in dreams, something I don’t recall hearing discussed much in the past. The second is that the ending of this story gives us an explanation of why Mary and Joseph left Bethlehem where they had been living since the child’s birth and returned to Nazareth in Galilee where Jesus ended up being raised.
More disturbing are the similarities between then and now. Though we refer to Matthew’s story as the Slaughter of the Innocents, an actual estimation of two-year old males in that area at that time suggest maybe seven children may have been killed. Still horrible but not the wholesale slaughter we’ve been led to believe. All because of one man’s fear of being supplanted as king.
In the past year, here in the U.S., seven children – that we know of – have died in ICE custody. All because of one sick old man’s terror of people of color and their supposed germs.
Some people would say that bringing this up in church is just politics and doesn’t belong here. I disagree. I don’t call this politics, I call it simple decency. I call it right and wrong. I call it following Jesus.
In 2019 the US took just shy of 70,000 children away from their parents and locked them in cages or, in some cases, put them in foster care all over the country and then proceeded to “lose” the records of what we did with them. In the case of seven of these children we let them die.
These are not criminals. These are people who were fleeing murder in their own countries. Imagine how our scripture story would be different if Joseph and Mary, fleeing death threats against their child at home, were stopped at the border of Egypt and Jesus taken away from them and all of them put into cells and they never saw Jesus again.
This isn’t politics, I call it flat-out evil and against all that Jesus sought to teach us about loving and caring for each other. I firmly, absolutely believe Jesus would be and is completely against such actions.
We cannot just read scripture as entertaining old stories from long ago when those same stories are being lived out on our nightly news. I don’t know what to do to “fix” this – except to yell “NO’ long and loudly. Except to vote as if people’s lives depend on my vote. They do. Except to insist on leaders who believe that human beings are more important than money. They are. To call forth leaders whose most addictive drug is not power but actual goodness. They’re out there.
My heart is breaking and I don’t know what else to do except to keep showing up for goodness, for kindness, for the way that Jesus teaches us. To keep saying “NO” in the face of selfishness and greed...and to keep saying “YES” to Christ’s love.
May we all do better.
It is also slightly out of order chronologically. This story begins just as the Magi, the Three Wise Men, have come and gone – on their way back to their distant home, sneaking away without speaking to Herod again. But chronologically those Magi haven’t arrived yet. Their story is found in Matthew just prior to today’s reading but we’ll get to it in the readings next Sunday. I guess the plan of those who put the readings together is to keep this first week focused on the baby Jesus and not his visitors.
As I said, it’s a sad story and one we’d rather not listen to today – or at all – but it’s important for us to recognize and remember that Jesus’ entire life was lived under a hostile and violent regime.
Herod was “King” in Judea, but only as a vassal under the real rulers, the Romans. His family had for several generations been political operatives under the Romans who had conquered the area under Julius Caesar. Because the family had always done their work well, Herod was rewarded with the title of King in Judea. Aside from being a good political lackey he did possess some convoluted lineage that technically placed him as a descent of King David, thereby sort of qualifying him as a legitimate king. This was supposed to make him more acceptable to the Jewish people.
He was also married to a daughter of the high priest. This gives us an idea of how deeply the priesthood at this time was invested in the Roman political power structure – they too were allowed to rule in power and wealth just as long as they stayed on the Romans’ good side.
The story of the Slaughter of the Innocents, as it is known, has no historical backing of any kind. It is considered dubious at best by almost all qualified scholars. Not only is it not found in any secular history but there is no hint of it anywhere else in scripture – just this one story in Matthew. It is possible that the story originated in the apparently true story of Herod murdering his two nephews to remove them as rivals – a story that became garbled and expanded into the one we just read.
Whatever the truth of the story, we do know that the ruling forces were well aware, as were the poor, that a prophecy existed that a child would one day be born who would break the shackles of the poor and overset the powerful. When three important visitors from another country showed up, announcing that this child had apparently been born, we can well understand the consternation and fear that the powerful felt. In a culture of merciless violence it is not hard to believe they would lash out in mindless slaughter.
One of the scholars I researched in preparing this message, Kathryn Matthews, reminds us that it is important that we note here that nowhere does the story suggest that the slaughter was God’s idea. God did not decree that those babies must die in order that Jesus might be glorified later. We are familiar with hearing the phrase, "All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet," but here Matthew makes a point of telling us that it was only after Joseph and his family had fled, only after the Magi had tricked Herod and snuck home without returning to report to him – only “...then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah” that there was wailing and loud lamentation for the murdered children.
There are a couple of smaller points in this story that are interesting. The first is that it three times refers to Joseph receiving messages in dreams, something I don’t recall hearing discussed much in the past. The second is that the ending of this story gives us an explanation of why Mary and Joseph left Bethlehem where they had been living since the child’s birth and returned to Nazareth in Galilee where Jesus ended up being raised.
More disturbing are the similarities between then and now. Though we refer to Matthew’s story as the Slaughter of the Innocents, an actual estimation of two-year old males in that area at that time suggest maybe seven children may have been killed. Still horrible but not the wholesale slaughter we’ve been led to believe. All because of one man’s fear of being supplanted as king.
In the past year, here in the U.S., seven children – that we know of – have died in ICE custody. All because of one sick old man’s terror of people of color and their supposed germs.
Some people would say that bringing this up in church is just politics and doesn’t belong here. I disagree. I don’t call this politics, I call it simple decency. I call it right and wrong. I call it following Jesus.
In 2019 the US took just shy of 70,000 children away from their parents and locked them in cages or, in some cases, put them in foster care all over the country and then proceeded to “lose” the records of what we did with them. In the case of seven of these children we let them die.
These are not criminals. These are people who were fleeing murder in their own countries. Imagine how our scripture story would be different if Joseph and Mary, fleeing death threats against their child at home, were stopped at the border of Egypt and Jesus taken away from them and all of them put into cells and they never saw Jesus again.
This isn’t politics, I call it flat-out evil and against all that Jesus sought to teach us about loving and caring for each other. I firmly, absolutely believe Jesus would be and is completely against such actions.
We cannot just read scripture as entertaining old stories from long ago when those same stories are being lived out on our nightly news. I don’t know what to do to “fix” this – except to yell “NO’ long and loudly. Except to vote as if people’s lives depend on my vote. They do. Except to insist on leaders who believe that human beings are more important than money. They are. To call forth leaders whose most addictive drug is not power but actual goodness. They’re out there.
My heart is breaking and I don’t know what else to do except to keep showing up for goodness, for kindness, for the way that Jesus teaches us. To keep saying “NO” in the face of selfishness and greed...and to keep saying “YES” to Christ’s love.
May we all do better.
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