Herod in Our Mirror

Today is the Feast of the Holy Innocents. These were the first Christian martyrs. Children killed by an infuriated King Herod who thought he had been tricked by the wise men. He was paranoid, afraid and desperate to hold onto power. Desperate enough to slaughter children in an attempt to relieve his ever growing fear. Their story is recorded in Matthew’s Gospel:

Now after (the wise men) 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 fulfill 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.” - Matthew 2:13-18

Many have made the obvious, and I believe accurate, connection of the Holy Family’s life or death escape from that horror, with the life or death escape of families from Central and South America coming to seek asylum in our country. In that scenario, our country plays the part of Egypt in today’s retelling this terrible story. A country that welcomes those plagued by danger and violence in a distant land.

But on this Feast of the Holy Innocents, I would challenge us to look more deeply into our national mirror and see our national self more clearly. We are not playing the role of Egypt, but rather more disturbingly, we are playing the part of the infuriated Herod. On this Feast of the Holy Innocents, it seems to me impossible, however uncomfortable, not to connect the children who died at the hand of an infuriated King Herod, with the children now separated from their families, being held and dying in the concentration camps of our own infuriated king’s making.

Our country will not move forward until we confront ourselves in this most painful of mirrors. We, as a nation, will continue to falter until we confess our nation’s sins. This latest horrible sin is just the latest in a line that stretch back to before our country’s founding. We will never actually become who we imagine we are, until we do the hard work to make those past and current wrongs right. Racism, slavery, genocide, separating native children, Japanese American interment camps, Jim Crow, and now our slaughter of these most recent holy innocents. Our country has an unhealthy tradition, once we see what we have done, of simply trying to “put those sins behind us” instead of doing the hard but essential work of honest confession and real repentance. Until we do that hard work together as a nation, we will never break free of this horrific cycle. We will forever be cast in the role of Herod in this story, no matter how much we desire to play the part of the heroic, rescuing Egypt.

The prayer assigned for this feast day is below. Perhaps a beginning for us might be to pray this prayer both as it is written and in the way it is too easily modified to fit who we continue to be as a country today:

We remember today, O God, the slaughter of the innocent children of Bethlehem by order of King Herod. Receive into the arms of your mercy all innocent victims. By your great might frustrate the designs of evil tyrants and establish your rule of justice, love, and peace, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

We remember today, O God, the slaughter of the innocent children at our border by order of our president. Receive into the arms of your mercy all innocent victims, including Jakelin Caal and Felipe Alonzo-Gomez. By your great might frustrate the designs of evil tyrants and establish your rule of justice, love, and peace, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.