As I write this 28/12/2020 it is the feast of the Holy Innocents – the church’s annual reminder of the horror perpetrated by King Herod.
Having failed to trick the Magi (Wise Men) into revealing Jesus’ location, Herod tries the catch-all strategy of killing all the young boys born in the area around Bethlehem at the time of Jesus’ birth.
‘When Herod realized that 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.’
Matthew 2:16, NIV
It was a plan doomed to failure as Joseph had already been warned in a dream to flee to Egypt with his family.
But, following Herod’s orders, all the boys in the Bethlehem area who were under 2 years of age were brutally snatched from their mother’s arms and killed by soldiers.
Maybe it was only a few children, a few dozen at most, but that does nothing to diminish the horror of the act and of the trauma that would reverberate down the decades in those families and communities.
Just imagine…
Jesus’ birth is therefore accompanied by an act of unthinkable brutality.
As we move towards Easter we are reminded that Jesus’ death is likewise an act of horrific barbarity.
An innocent man. Falsely condemned. Brutally tortured and mocked. Nailed to a wooden cross. Dying in intense agony through slow suffocation.
Just imagine…
It seems significant to me that at both Jesus’ birth and his death we see the very worst of humanity on graphic display.
Which, if ever you needed an illustration of why the world needs Jesus, I can’t think of a more powerful one.
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