What do you see in the face of a Child?
December 28, 2025
I wanted to find a commentary that seriously dealt with what is called “the slaughter of the innocence” which is the main subject of the gospel today. But a commentary that didn’t want to put the brakes on Christmas and carols. One that would acknowledge that the birth of Jesus from his first breath, has never done away with evil. And I found it. I want to read portions of a commentary written by the Rev. Dr. Melinda Quivik with my own commentary added in.
She said “… consider the rich paradox of celebrating the birth of Jesus, our redeemer, in the context of Herod’s slaughter of the Holy Innocents. Setting Joseph’s dreams that saved the baby Jesus, in the presence of “Rachel weeping for her children,” locates the announcement of ‘God-with-us’ in a believable universe because this is the universe we know.” Evil and good co-existing in our hearts, cities and world. Ours is a world pervaded by sorrows.
When Christmas comes in any year there will be refugees fleeing some horror in their homelands. Powerful people will still be threatening the vulnerable. Death will continue to stalk the unsuspecting and the innocent. Nothing seems to have changed this human pattern.
And into the madness of want and evil, God comes to give life, to show the way. For that reason, our focus on the Holy Innocents on the First Sunday after Christmas is a strong way to proclaim the gospel. In this story we discover an image of salvation in the midst of cruelty. It is crucial that we tell this story rather than to avoid it, because simply it might bring the Christmas joy down a notch.
A shallow religiosity will not want to hear about the murder of children, but such horrors are not endured by failing to hear about them. What overpowers these bloody spectacles that human beings create, is the overwhelming truth that God gives not only a means for responding to evil but also a reason to respond to evil. The reason to face evil is that God’s creation is holy and intended for good. You and I are intended for good. And we must use that knowledge of good to shine a light on what is evil and proclaim to those who do evil, that their evil will be remembered.
Joseph becomes our architype of one who has to face evil up close. He is given four crucial dreams in the first two chapters of Matthew, and then we don’t hear about him anymore. His role is not only to protect Mary and Jesus but to serve as one whose actions respond to God’s desire for the safety of all families. God speaks and Joseph listens.
We cannot avoid noticing that the parents of the children targeted by Herod do not receive an angel’s message or simply do not listen to the warning. I don’t know about your social media feeds but mine are filled with stories of those who regret supporting President Trump because now all the warnings about his policies are coming home to roust. Whether it is a matter of not hearing or a message not being sent, not everyone is saved from the doers of evil deeds.
Jesus, born in the midst of Herod’s brutality, knows our suffering, and comes to make a difference. Comes to the frightened and the sick and the hungry. He feeds and heals, and teaches, the presence of God’s power to us wherever there are tears.
Christians do not worship a god who simply fixes problems. We worship the God who comforts those who suffer and who visits us with dreams and visions and insights as with Joseph. Last week I said I admired Joseph and his example of love which created his family. Today we are reminded of the lengths he went to protect them and ways that God lead him in his mission.
God reaches into Joseph’s life at least 4 times. Joseph’s first dream (Matthew 1) tells him not to abandon Mary. In the second dream (Matthew 2:13-14) an angel tells Joseph to take Mary and Jesus to Egypt or Herod will kill the baby. Third, an angel tells Joseph, the refugee in a strange land of Egypt, that because Herod is dead, the family can safely return to Israel (Matthew 2:19-20). On the way, however, Joseph learns that Herod’s son — someone as brutal as his father — is the new ruler. He hesitates until a fourth dream assures him it is safe to bring his family home to Isreal but to a new home in Nazareth of Galilee (Matthew 2:22).
On this Sunday we hear of only one of Joseph’s dreams. Yet, it embodies all the dreams Joseph received, all carrying the same message: Do not fear anything — not Mary’s pregnancy, not even the king. God’s steadfast love gives us visions that are often as unbelievable as something that comes in a dream.
Scientists tell us that dreams are the nervous system’s way of sorting out the experiences we have during the day. We need deep sleep, in order to let various parts of the brain “talk” to each other. During sleep, our brains are at work revising our histories, storing the images we encountered in wakefulness, setting to rights the clash of experiences and feelings. Without good sleep, human beings can go mad. In sleep, when we are utterly vulnerable, limp, receptive, our lives get re-configured, put together in new and startling ways.
Dreams come when we no longer cling to social convention or hide behind niceness, when we are unconscious, when we are, in fact, dead to ourselves.
Perhaps that is why dreams are everywhere in scripture with angels (messengers) who bear the Word of God to those who need to hear. In dreams we are not bound but what we cannot do, or think is impossible. In dreams door that our conscious mind keep closed are flung wide. When we wake, we can begin to do, what we have already done, in our dream. God’s word of rescue sets us on a journey toward what is whole and healed.
We don’t know Joseph completely, but we know him well enough, because in just the way God’s messenger spoke to him, God speaks to us — in inklings, love, inspiration, insight, empathy, and even disgust.
Joseph understood where he ought to stand; alongside those who are in trouble. He guarded the ones in need of being lifted-up. Ultimately, like Joseph, we the members of Forest Hill and Trinity have in our Christmas outreach have acknowledged that evil has brought refugees to our shore and there are systems that have ground down those who have been born here. Our Outreach efforts strive to listen to God’s dream for a just and equal sharing of God’s creation. May we all listen to God’s dream for us.
Amen