The Holy Innocents (First after Christmas, 28th December 2025)

1st after Christmas, 28th December 2025

The Holy Innocents

Wolf Kirchmeir

Isaiah 63:7-9; Psalm 148; Hebrews 2:10-18; Matthew 2:13-23

May the words of my lips and the meditations of all our hearts be ever acceptable in your sight, O Lord.

Dear Friends in Christ,

Today, December 28th, we remember the Holy Innocents.

Today’s Gospel is grim. This will be a grim meditation.

Herod had asked the three Magi to report back when they found the boy born to be King. But they were warned in a dream, and left by another way. Joseph was also warned in a dream, and took his family to Egypt to escape Herod’s wrath. After some years, after Herod died, an angel told Joseph to return to Israel. Herod’s sons were in power, so Joseph did not return to Bethlehem, which was too close to Jerusalem. Instead he took his family to Nazareth.

When the Magi did not report back to Herod, he was furious because he didn’t have the name of the child. He ordered the murder of all male children two years and under in Bethlehem and the surrounding country. He figured that way he would eliminate the one that was a threat to his throne.

What are we to make of this story?

Let’s look again Matthew’s Gospel:

He says that the flight into Egypt was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, “Out of Egypt have I called my son.”

He also says Joseph’s decision to settle in Nazareth was made so that what was spoken by the prophet was fulfilled, “He shall be called a Nazarene.”

Herod was unable to find the infant Jesus, so he ordered the murder of hundreds of children expecting that one of them would be the rival that he feared. And that was prophesied too: A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they were no more.

So according to Matthew, young children were killed so that an ancient prophecy could be fulfilled. That conclusion about what the story means is fairly common.

It prompts the question of how a loving God could have allowed the murder of innocent children.

Or how a loving God can allow this and all the other evils that infest our world.

There is no good answer to that question. The logic of the question is that God knows the evil that will happen, and so he could stop it. And a loving God should stop it. But to say that God should stop the evils of the world is to demand that God should act according to our wishes. That God should act to calm our pain. That God should act to soothe our sense of outrage.

It’s a demand that God should do what we want him to do.

That’s not how it works.

The underlying question is about evil. Why is there evil in the world? Why do bad things happen to good people? Why do people get away with doing bad things? Why do bad people enjoy the same rewards as good people do, and sometimes even more? Why are evil acts often rewarded while good ones are punished?

In other words, why is the world not perfect?

I don’t know of any simple answer to these questions. I have however come across many ways of dealing with them. In the rest of this meditation I will talk about some of the things I’ve learned.

I’ll do this be telling three stories.

The first story is about how the world became imperfect. Genesis tells us about Adam and Eve living in the Garden of Eden. God told them they could have anything they wanted, except the fruit of the two trees in the centre of the Garden, the Tree of Knowledge, and the Tree of Life.

The Tempter in the form of a snake persuaded Eve that the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge was good to eat, and would give her the knowledge of good and evil.

So she ate some.

And then Adam ate some too.

And when God came to the Garden for his evening walk, Adam and Eve hid themselves, because now they knew they were naked. When God demanded how come Adam and Eve knew they were naked, Adam admitted he’d eaten the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, and he blamed Eve. Eve also admitted she’d eaten the fruit, and she blamed the serpent.

Neither Adam nor Eve accepted blame. It was all someone else’s fault. That began the habit of blaming someone else, of refusing to accept responsibility. That refusal causes a lot of evil, both directly and indirectly. Directly when we manage to get someone else blamed and punished for what we did. And indirectly when we refuse to accept the chain of cause and effect that leads from our actions to some evil down the line.

Herod was a tyrant. That makes this part of Matthew’s Gospel an comment on tyranny.

All tyrants know that nobody loves them. Most people obey because they fear the tyrant. Some may envy him. Some may enjoy the power they wield as his minions. Some simply put up with him. Some want to take his place. But most want him gone.

So tyrants look for signs of disloyalty or of plots against them. They want to eliminate any and all competition. The result is murder. And the tyrant will claim that it’s not his fault. He was just protecting himself from all those who want to remove him.

That’s what we see in the murder of the Holy Innocents.

You might think that by this action Herod stepped over some line, and there was an attempt to remove him. There wasn’t.

Then there’s the Holocaust, the systematic murder of more than 6 million people, mostly Jews, by the Nazis during the 2nd World War. When the trains of cattle cars loaded with Jews ran through towns and villages, most people averted their eyes. After the war, the people who lived near the death camps claimed they didn’t know what was happening there.

So another cause of evil is our unwillingness to see it. We’d rather look away. We’d rather feel that all’s right with the world. We want to believe that there’s nothing for us to worry about. Because if we did pay attention, we would have to do something. We would have to accept responsibility.

I’ve mentioned three stories: Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, blaming the serpent for their choice to eat the fruit on the Tree of Knowledge.

Herod on the throne in Jerusalem, a puppet king desperate to hold onto the little power that the Romans allowed him.

The death camps of World War Two, where millions of people were killed while ordinary folk refused to see what was happening.

Three examples of what I called the blame game. The unwillingness to do the right thing. The avoidance of responsibility.

I think you may see a theme here.

Let me tell you another story. 

Some years ago, I listened to a discussion of the death camps. The panel included historians, camp survivors, and clergy of several faiths. They finally came to the big question: How could a loving God allow the deliberately organised murder of six million people? Why did he not stop it?

One of the panel members was a rabbi. He held up his hands and said, “These hands are God’s hands. If I do not use them to do God’s work, the evil will not stop.”

These hands are God’s hands. If I do not use them to do God’s work, the evil will not stop.

Those words are an indictment.

They are also words of hope.

The indictment is obvious. Evil happens because we don’t do enough to stop it. Not that stopping it easy. At best, you will annoy people. At worst, you may lose your life.

But asking why God did nothing to stop the evil is a version of the blame game: We’re blaming God for not doing what we ought to do.

These hands are God’s hands. If I do not use them to do God’s work, the evil will not stop.

These are also words of hope. Even of comfort. Because they remind us that we are here to do God’s work. They remind us that God’s work will be successful.

When we pray that God will relieve suffering and bring justice, we are praying that we will do that work. When we pray that God will heal sickness and comfort the bereaved, we are praying that we will do that work. When we pray that God will bring peace to our world, we are praying that we will do that work.

And God will answer those prayers.

What’s more, God will be with us. The work will often be hard or dangerous. He will give us the will and the strength and the courage and the skill we need. He will comfort us when we come close to giving up hope. He will give us tasks within our strength or ability. He will surround us with a community that supports us. And our support of that community in return will give us the joy of knowing we are loved.

That love is God’s love. It will sustain us to our life’s end, and we will know that what we have done with his help is better than what we could have done on our own. It will be the best that we could do because God will push us to our limits. That is the ultimate success in this life.

May God give us the grace to do his work as witness to his love, which redeemed us and all humankind. We pray in the name of that Love Incarnate, that lives with the Creator and the Guide, now and forever. Amen.