Precious Infants

 

Texts: Jeremiah 31:15-17; 1 Corinthians 1:26-29; Matthew 2:13-18

Well, Christmas is over for another year, and this First Sunday after Christmas can sometimes seem a bit flat.  But not this year: this year this First Sunday after Christmas is anything but ho-hum in the Church Calendar, and is especially exciting for this congregation this morning, as we welcome Ethan Scott Haines to the family.  We'll get to him soon, but first I need to say something about this special day in the Church Calendar.

We are marking the Massacre of the Holy Innocents; and I must confess right away when I was preparing a list of services for December and January, I hesitated when I got to this one.  This commemoration is fixed for 28 December, so in most years it doesn't fall on a Sunday, and we can successfully overlook it.  But not this year: here it is on Sunday 28 December, the First Sunday after Christmas.  And when I noticed that back in November, I wondered if I should duck it.  Isn't it a bit heavy for us just three days after Christmas?  Are we ready for it; are we in the right mood for such a solemn commemoration so soon after Christmas?  Could we stick with the theme of love and joy, peace and hope just a bit longer?

However, the more I thought about it, the more I realised that this commemoration is a real part of the Christmas story.  The Massacre of the Holy Innocents, as we see from our Gospel reading this morning, remembers the orders given by King Herod to kill all baby boys born in and around Bethlehem in the preceding two years in an attempt to get rid of the child who, according to the Magi, had been born to be King of the Jews.  That event only makes sense in the context of Christ's birth; it is part of what Christmas means.  It underlines for us how extraordinary the Christmas story really is – that God should chose to come to us as a defenceless baby in a world that all too often destroys the young and the vulnerable without mercy.  Herod is only one example of tyrannical leaders down through history who have taken up genocide and infanticide as part of their policy to retain power.

So, yes, I thought, we will follow the Church Calendar and commemorate this event today.  And then Rose approached me and said that Amber and Scott would like to have Ethan's baptism on Sunday, 28 December, and would that be alright?  And, of course, the way she said "Would that be alright?" made it clear that the right answer was, "Yes, that'll be fine!"  But then the same worries re-surfaced.  Would it really be appropriate to talk about the Massacre of the Holy Innocents with Ethan present?  Hopefully, he won't understand what I'm on about, but it might give the heeby-jeebies to Amber and Scott, and the rest of the party!  Should I change plans or not?

And once again, thinking about it made me realise what a gift it is to have Ethan with us this morning, on this particular day of commemoration, and just three days after Christmas; because Ethan reminds that what we were talking about at Christmas, and what we are talking about today, is real flesh and blood, real babies and infants.  At the heart of the Christmas story is a real baby.  Sometimes that simple fact can be disguised with all the nonsense that we have added to the Christmas event through our carols, our pageants, our cards and all the rest.  I can never quite forgive the author of "Away in the Manger" for insisting that baby Jesus didn't cry.  I'd be seriously worried for the health of an infant that never cried – definitely a case for the Plunket Helpline there!  Look and listen to Ethan, and you will see and hear what baby Jesus was really like.

And the word that comes to mind is helpless.  Babies are completely dependent for their survival on those who are caring for them.  And there is nothing like having a baby of your own to drive that point home to you.  I think Ethan is about 10 weeks old now (is that right?), so perhaps Amber & Scott are over the first nervous moments; but I can still remember my own from almost 37 years ago.  My first child was born in Bethany Home in Wellington; and in those days the conveyor-belt system of delivering babies had not been invented.  Mothers and their infants were not looked upon as unfortunate charges on the hospital budget: the practice was for them to stay in hospital for 8-10 days after birth – particularly for first-borns – before being sent home.  So my wee daughter would have been about 10 days old when she came home.  And I can still remember those first few nights, when I woke up every few minutes to make sure she was still breathing!

So at the heart of the Christmas story is the astonishing decision God made to come to us through the birth process; to suffer the trauma of birth, and to put himself into human hands, completely helpless and dependent!  Ethan reminds us of that.

And on this day when we commemorate the Massacre of the Holy Innocents we are reminded of just how much at risk infants are.  It is not just accidents by well-meaning parents and others that threaten their existence; sometimes they have to contend with the darkest side of human nature turned against them.  In recording the story of Herod's murderous edict, St Matthew recalls the Exile of the Jews when their land was conquered by the Babylonians in the sixth century B.C.  He refers to Rachel weeping in Ramah because her children are no more.

Rachel was the second and preferred wife of Jacob, the mother of Joseph and Benjamin, and through them the matriarch of Judea.  Ramah was the place where the Jews were assembled before being carted off into exile in Babylon; and according to one of two traditions, it was also where Rachel was buried.  That's why Jeremiah uses this image of Rachel weeping for the lost children at Ramah (although Matthew goes with the alternative tradition and favours Bethlehem as Rachel's burial place).  Perhaps of even more significance, Rachel died in child-birth, again reminding us of the reality with which we are dealing in our Christmas story.  At Jesus' birth, Mary herself was in danger.

In our short lesson from St Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians, the great apostle is putting the Corinthians in their place.  They were a boastful lot, to put it mildly; they were particularly proud of their spiritual gifts – they could speak in tongues, they had words of knowledge prophecy, and so on.  But St Paul pricks their bubbles; God is not impressed by such things.  God chooses the foolish to shame the wise, the weak to shame the strong, the lowly and the despised.  Today, if God was choosing one of us for some important task my money would be on Ethan, if only because today he is the most Christ-like of us all.

And so to Ethan.  I said in my Christmas Eve sermon in St Barnabas that what we had in the Scriptures that night was a birth notice; but one with a difference.  For the Scriptures say, "Unto you a child is born; to you a son is given."  And they weren't addressing Mary and Joseph – they were talking to us all.  And I think there is something very important in those words for us all to ponder, especially in this country as we come to the end of this year.  We have a horrendous record for massacring holy innocents; and perhaps a good first step to stopping this outrage is for us to learn that all babies are born, not just to their parents, but to us.  They are given, not just to their parents, but to us.  If we are one people, all members of the one human race, all members of the one family under God, then all babies are born to us, and are given to us.  It is, therefore, our business if any of them are being mistreated or harmed in any way.

And if that is so through birth, how much more true is it through baptism!  As soon as I have baptised Ethan this morning with water in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, you will say to Ethan, "Child of God, blessed in the Spirit, welcome to the family of Christ."  Welcome to the family of which we are members through our own baptism.  Today he is given to us as a brother.

This morning, then, as we gaze upon Ethan, let us see in him the miracle of Christmas; and let us commit ourselves anew to pray and work for a world in which all babies are welcome, and loved and nurtured and treasured.  May we have the wisdom of the Magi to defeat the tyrants who resort to genocide and infanticide; and may we as a country be always ready to offer sanctuary to refugees and their infants, as Egypt gave sanctuary to the Holy Family!  Amen.