Sermon at Parish Mass Christmas 1 2013

Massacre of the Innocents (Cogniet)

Isaiah 63:7-9

Hebrews 2:10-end

Matthew 2:13-end

The story of the massacre of the innocent children, at this time of year, at any time of year, seems like a rude shock. This is not the deed of an ogre from a fairy tale, or of a pantomime villain. It is an act of ruthless cruelty, perpetrated by an all too real historical tyrant, King Herod the Great. 

Apart from Matthew’s Gospel, there is no other account of this particular massacre. But it would certainly be in character for Herod. He was famous for his cruelty, and had several members of his own family executed for fear they would become rivals for his throne. He suspected that the population would rejoice when he died, so he gave orders that one member of every family in Judea should be killed after his death, so he could be sure that everyone would mourn. The emperor Augustus is said to have remarked that it would be better to be Herod’s pig than Herod’s son, because Herod, in his superficial observance of the Jewish laws, would be less likely to kill a pig. 

But why does Matthew’s Gospel tell us this particular story? All four gospels are rooted in Jewish history and faith, but this is particularly the case for Matthew. His Gospel may have been written for a community of Jewish Christian believers who were under attack for their beliefs from the Jewish religious authorities. So his Gospel is at pains to demonstrate how the life and teaching of Jesus are in continuity with Jewish belief. 

One of Matthew’s devices is the ‘fulfilment text’, a quotation from the Prophets used to demonstrate that Jesus really is the long awaited Messiah. In today’s reading we had, for example, “This was to fulfil what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, ‘Out of Egypt I have called my son.’”. And we can watch out for other examples as we read through Matthew’s gospel during the course of the year.

But the story of the Innocents does more than just refer to isolated texts. It shows that the pattern of the life of Jesus is like that of God’s saving work through history. For Matthew’s first readers, the story of a cruel king who orders the massacre of children would immediately recall Pharaoh ordering the killing of all Hebrew boys at birth, to prevent them becoming a threat to his power. And it would recall Moses, one of those children, who as a baby was rescued from Pharaoh’s ruthless designs and grew up to lead Israel to freedom. 

So the story makes a parallel between Moses, the saviour of Israel of old, and Jesus, who will become the new saviour of Israel and indeed of all humanity. And one of the signs of the Messiah was that he would be a “prophet like Moses”, a motif that recurs through Matthew’s Gospel.

But the story does more than just look back to Israel’s past. It also looks forward, to the fulfilment of Jesus’ story, to the particular way in which he will become the new Saviour of his people. The massacre of the innocent children foreshadows the crucifixion, the killing of the innocent Jesus. For this reason the Holy Innocents have always been venerated in the Church as martyrs - witnesses to Christ, not in their lives but in the way they died.

Herod’s title was “King of the Jews” - a title given to him by the Roman emperor. The Romans kept him in power because, in spite of his cruelty, he was politically capable and reliable. But his sons were not, and were only allowed to hold lesser posts. After Herod’s death Rome never appointed another King of the Jews. His political successor, at the time of the crucifixion, was the Roman Governor, Pontius Pilate. 

So the massacre of the innocent children, on the orders of Herod, foreshadows the killing of Jesus, on the orders of Pontius Pilate. And the title that Pilate put on the cross, “this is the King of the Jews”, was a typical Roman joke, cruelly ironic, because there was no King of the Jews - Rome wouldn’t allow one. 

At the heart of this story is a collision of worlds. And Jesus, while yet a baby, presents us with a choice between the two, as he will throughout the Gospel. 

There is the world represented by Herod and Rome, a world which is ultimately governed by death. Death is what defines and limits its imagination. Resources are limited, life is short, so grasp what you can while you can, before you die. In particular, grasp hold of power, for with power you can fend off death for a while, or inflict it on others instead of yourself. This is the world of sin, with all its envy, rivalry and violence. 

But Jesus has come to save us from that. He has come to bring in a new world, a world redeemed from sin. As the reading from Hebrews today puts it, he came to “free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death”. 

Jesus has come to reveal God in whom there is no death. He has come to open the way to God, so that all might enter life without limit, the life of God. But he does not do so by opposing might with might. If he had, by some omnipotent act, just struck down Herod, then he would have been a mirror image of Herod, exercising power as the world does, fending off death with death. 

Instead, Jesus defeats death altogether by suffering it himself, freely, as the innocent victim who is also God come into our world to make it anew. In the providence of God, it is only by sharing our death that he is able to free us from death. Because it is through the resurrection that the path to the new world is opened, and all are able to enter in and come to dwell in God in whom there is no death.

So this story of the Innocents both looks back, to the history of God’s saving work in Israel’s past. And it also looks forward, to its fulfilment in the death and resurrection of Jesus. 

But it is a story that is told in this in-between time, the time of sin when the world of envy and rivalry and violence is still very much in evidence. And Saint Joseph in today’s reading gives us a pattern for how to live, as believers in the resurrection who are still in the middle of this world of sin and death.

What did Saint Joseph do? Firstly, he stayed faithful. He did not always understand, but he was attentive to God and stayed faithful to the guidance he received. He may not have seen the full picture, he may not have seen the glorious future of the resurrection. But he did what was given him to do, and it was enough.

Secondly, he did not despair. In a world of great evil and violence he carried on and did what he could. It may have seemed little enough, at the time, to save himself, one woman and one child from Herod’s violence. But in fact it was a crucial part of the story of our salvation. Because of Joseph’s faithfulness in little things, the great thing which was the life and teaching and death and resurrection of Jesus was able to unfold to its conclusion. 

Joseph did not live to see that end himself, except by faith. His name disappears from the story after the childhood of Jesus. But what he did was enough. In the midst of a world of violence and sin, he stayed faithful, and did not despair. He trusted in God, whose ultimate victory was promised by the prophets of old and fulfilled by Jesus, through whom all people now may be saved from sin and death and enter into the life of God.

And we, too, in this time of sin, are called to be attentive to God, so that we can discern what we are called to do. Christ is risen, and the new world he came to inaugurate is open to all. His kingdom will never fail, and we are to bear witness to that kingdom even in the midst of a world that resists it deeply and, in some places, with great violence. And so we are to stay faithful, and not despair. For the resurrection transforms not just our ultimate future, but how we live in the world here and now.