“God’s anonymous: the Holy Innocents”
Matthew 2:16
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus.
Someone should have seen it coming. After all, by the age of three, Adam Lanza was suffering from quite a number of developmental challenges. His extreme anxiety and depression had kept him “homebound,” and out of school. Those who knew him called him “fidgety” and “deeply troubled.”
When he was fourteen, Yale University’s Child Study Center diagnosed him with obsessive-compulsive disorder. He washed his hands frequently throughout the day, and changed his socks twenty times a day, to the point where his mother had to do three loads of laundry every day. He also went through a box of tissues every day because he was too afraid to touch a doorknob with his bare hands.
Now at the age of twenty, standing six feet tall and weighing only 112 pounds, he spent most of his time in his blacked-out bedroom, playing video games and studying mass shootings. He had cut off all contact with his father and brother two years before. For a time, he would contact his mother only by email, even though she lived in the same house. He said she was selfish.
Then came the morning of Friday, December 14, 2012. Sometime before 9:30 that morning, he shot his mother, then he took her car and drove to Sandy Hook Elementary School.
First, he shot his way through the locked front entrance doors, then he took the lives of the school principal and the school psychologist. And after firing some a hundred and fifty rounds in a little over five minutes, twenty-six people were dead--sixteen of them were six years old, and four of them were seven. It’s one of the worst mass shootings in our nation’s history.
In the words of Dannel Malloy, governor of Connecticut, “Evil visited this community today.”
It seems that death is everywhere, all around us, all the time. But while we can often keep it at arm’s length, sometimes it invades our lives completely uninvited and unannounced.
And so it was when Christ was born. I’ll read the words of Matthew chapter 2: “When Herod saw he had been tricked by the wise men, he became furious and sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had ascertained from the wise men. Then was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah: ‘A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be comforted, because they are no more” (Matthew 2:16-18).
These words from the book of Matthew don’t seem to belong in the gospel account at all. Killing children? It’s barbaric and unspeakably cruel. It’s something only the likes of Stalin or Hitler or Saddam Hussein would do.
But as the Bible would have understand, it’s exactly what Herod did.
So what do we know about Herod? History tells us he was a man of power, prestige, and wealth. He was a king with a crown and robes, and a royal throne for a chair--not bad for a man of just thirty-six years!
But there was a problem. When the Roman Senate elected him, they called him, “The King of the Jews.” The only problem was, the Jews didn’t like him. In fact, most of his subjects haheroted him.
Lousy ingrates! For all he did for them! You could stand him side-by-side with almost any king in the world, and he would clearly outshine them all.
In all, he reigned for forty-three years. He built palaces and fortifications throughout Judea, like Caesarea and Masada and the Herodium.
And the Temple--now that was his crowning achievement. He made it twice as large and more glorious, (thank you very much!), than it had ever been before. When people said, “You have not seen a truly magnificent building until you’ve seen Herod’s temple,” he beamed with pride. And when famine struck and money was tight, he melted down his own golden silverware just to buy food for his people. Such a nice guy!
But he had a problem, a really big problem--he was paranoid. He was afraid for his throne. And if anyone, and he didn’t care who, anyone would try to claim it or rob him of it, off with their head. It was that simple.
One day, one of his sons came up to him in confidence to tell him that two of his sons were conspiring to take control of his throne. So what did Herod do? He killed them. Then without blinking an eye, he killed the third son too.
Small wonder that the great Roman emperor Caesar Augustus openly said, “It’s better to be Herod’s pig than to be his son!”
But what hurt him most of all was his favorite wife, Mariamne. She was beautiful--one of the most beautiful women he had ever known. If only she hadn’t begged him to appoint her little brother Aristobulus to be high priest, that little seventeen-year-old squirt.
But alas, there was that little party at his palace up in Jericho and that terribly unfortunate accident. It seems he was swimming with a couple of his soldiers down at the deep end of the pool, and the poor boy drowned! Such a dirty shame. If only someone could have saved him. But I suppose it’s bound to happen when someone holds your head under the water too long.
And when she had the gall to blame him and refused to forgive him, that’s when he began to realize what a threat such a pretty wife could be.
I can’t tell you how much it hurt him. But what else could he do but accuse her of adultery, have her tried and then executed? Sometimes sacrifices have to be made. His future was at stake.
Then came that night, that one remarkable night, in his sixty-ninth year. One of his palace guards came running to tell him that strange visitors from a faraway place, wise men, advisers to a king, had come all the way to Jerusalem. And there was only one question on their minds: “Where is He that is born King of the Jews? We saw His star in the east and have come to worship Him” (Matthew 2:2).
“King of the Jews?” he thought. “You have got to be kidding me! The Jews already had a king and, believe me, they most certainly don’t need another one.”
With a snap of his fingers, he called his religious leaders in to help. “Tell me,” he demanded. “Where is this Christ to be born?”
“In Bethlehem in Judea,” they answered, “for that’s what the prophet has written: ‘But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a Ruler who will be the Shepherd of My people Israel’” (Matthew 2:5-6).
Now Herod might have been a lot of things, but one thing he wasn’t was stupid. Now was the time to move and the time to move fast.
In a flash, soldiers were dispatched to break into Bethlehem homes in the dead of night, to take the lives of every single baby boy, a job they did very well. They didn’t miss a single one. And in the morning, when the slaughter was over and the soldiers were gone, all you could hear were the wails of mothers and fathers who had lost their little sons.
As a hymn once put it so well: “Sweet flowerets of the martyr band, plucked by the tyrant’s ruthless hand, upon the threshold of the morn, like rosebuds by a tempest torn.”
It was Christmas Day in 1864. After four bloody years, the Civil War was drawing to a close. Five hundred thousand soldiers were already dead, and another two hundred fifty thousand would die before the war’s end.
And on that Christmas Day, professor and poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow sat down to write the words of a poem. You know how it goes: “I heard the bells on Christmas Day, their old, familiar carols play. And wild and sweet the words repeat, of peace on earth, good-will to men!”
But while you know the poem, you may not know the story behind the poem for, shortly after the war began, Longfellow’s wife Fanny died after being burned in a fire. She was melting some wax when her dress caught fire. He rushed to help her, throwing a rug over her. But it was too late. He so grieved her loss that, later, he said he was “inwardly bleeding to death.”
Even worse, two years later, in 1863, his eldest son Charles was severely wounded and crippled in battle. And in sadness and longing for his wife and son, he wrote another verse: “And in despair I bowed my head. ‘There is no peace on earth,’ I said. ‘For hate is strong, and mocks the song, of peace on earth, good-will to men!’”
When Adam and Eve sinned, Satan struck a blow for evil. And from that moment on, sin has reigned in every corner of the world and made its home in every human heart.
But if Christmas means anything, it’s this--God will win in the end. At Bethlehem, He launched a counteroffensive that continues to this day. It all started with a tiny baby Boy, born in a stable, laid in a manger. He’s the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, the unconquerable Son of God. And if you have the eyes to see it, in those tiny little fists is the power of God.
Thirty-three years will pass and soldiers will march once more, but not through the streets of Bethlehem. This time they’ll march through the streets of Jerusalem.
And neither are they out to kill baby boys. This time, they’ve come to crucify the King of the Jews. And as they nail Him down to a cross and lift Him up high, they wait and they watch Him die.
And as He breathed His last breath and they pierced His side, anyone would have told you, “Power has triumphed and evil has won.”
But today, we know the whole story, for the love of God still stands. Once, the boys of Bethlehem died so that Jesus could live. On the cross, Jesus would die so that they could live. So that we could live.
And that’s why Longfellow could pen one more verse: “Then pealed the bells more loud and deep: ‘God is not dead, nor doth He sleep!’ The wrong shall fail, the right prevail, with peace on earth good-will to men!”
We thank You, dear Father, for the wonder that once took place in a manger, and the grace You’ve shown in Bethlehem. Grant that we may rest in knowing that You are God and that You are good, for Jesus’ sake. Amen