Day 289: Slaughter of the Innocents

DAY 289

Faith in the Midst of a Pandemic

A series of daily reflections for people of faith

by Rev. Robert Bayley, Interim Pastor

Patuxent Presbyterian Church, California, Maryland

pastorrobert@paxpres.org

Week Forty-two    Monday 28 December 2020

Slaughter of the Innocents

We remember today, O God, the slaughter of the holy innocents of Bethlehem by King Herod. Receive, we pray, into the arms of your great mercy all innocent victims; and by your great might frustrate the designs of evil tyrants and establish your rule of justice, love, and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. - The Book of Common Prayer: Collect for Holy Innocents Day

Fresh on the heels of the Christmas events in the Gospels and our celebrating of them comes ‘the rest of the story’ three days later in the church calendar, completing the Christmas narrative.

Matthew 2:13-18

        “When the Magi had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up,” he said, “take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.” So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: ‘Out of Egypt I called my son.’                                                      

        When Herod realized he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled: ‘A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.”

From the very beginning of the Gospel story, the power of darkness, Satan himself, was trying to destroy this God Incarnate even as he tries to destroy all lives: “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they might have life and have it to the full.” John 10:10. And so we pray the prayer above for all innocent victims and against all evil powers.

Reflective question: Who weeps today in the midst of the ‘slaughter of the innocents’ through our societal tolerance of ‘convenience abortion,’ human beings who, like those slaughtered by Herod, will never live to enjoy the life God had planned for them? 

Reflective Scripture: Jeremiah 1:5 – “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,…”

Reflective hymn:

“In Bethlehem a Newborn Boy” – Rosamund Herklots (1905-1987)

In Bethlehem a newborn boy was hailed with songs of praise and joy.

Then warning came of danger near: King Herod’s troops would soon appear.

The soldiers sought the child in vain; not yet was he to share our pain;

But down the ages rings the cry of those who saw their children die.