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They were children. And they were butchered. An overzealous tyrant acted savagely in a futile attempt to avoid the fruition of an ancient prophecy. Those poor children. It's one thing for an adult to accept a crown of martyrdom. It's quite another for an entire community's male children to achieve it unwittingly, the cries of their helpless parents unable to stop the insanity. And while the silence of first-century Roman history raises questions as to the exact extent of the terror, the fact that the Church commemorates it at all attests to the point that someone was deeply disturbed by this record. Terror gets our attention. Martyrdom means something.
We live in a culture where our children need permission slips to go on a field trip. Most of us can't really understand martyrdom. Outside the Orthodox Church, the only place our culture really meets with it is in journalistic articles about political militants and terrorists. The word "martyr" conjures up for us images of a suicidal madman who wants to take out as many people with him as he can right before he goes.
Our culture isn't without its own suicidal madmen, of course, as our current events from December of 2012 will confirm. But the Orthodox idea of a martyr is very different from the one our culture fears. Ancient Christians looked to the martyrs as models of obedience, those who considered their lives already in the hands of God and their faith more precious than compromise would merit. Jesus went voluntarily to his own execution. He didn't take any people out with him when he went. And others followed in his example, accepting death as something preferable to heresy or blasphemy.
But back to the children. Children don't deserve death. They haven't done anything wrong. The don't comprehend heresy or blasphemy, for the most part, so they don't choose martyrdom as an alternative. Children are supposed to outlive their parents. Why? Why murder the children? It's senseless! The biblical record suggests that Herod knew of the prophecy that a child would be born who would be king somewhere within the geography he ruled. Whether he believed the prophecy, or he believed that others believed the prophecy and would act on it, he took matters into his own hands, with drastic consequences. The ancient evil of Molech has shown up in every generation of humanity in one form or another, and we never know how to process it, really. We shouldn't. It's too terrible.
Last month's current events in Connecticut were devastating. I admit that my first reaction was to ponder how sad it was that the happy anticipation of Christmas was eradicated for these little ones, permanently. There would be no more gifts, no Santa, no carols or cookies. How unfair, I thought, to be denied all that is tender and gentle about this season. But more monumentally, the Sandy Hook massacre left many people scratching their heads, asking, "Where was God?" How do we answer that? How can we answer any more than we can respond to the echoes of ancient parents asking the same question right after the angels tell us, "Good news! Emmanuel! God is with us?"
With us? Good news?? God is with us, and this happens? And yet, what again of those boys in ancient Bethlehem? They weren't killed senselessly in anticipation of Christmas. They were executed intentionally because of it! They died because God had just arrived on the scene. Why didn't he arrive in time to save them?
But maybe that's the point. Maybe incarnation and martyrdom and humanity and life and death and childhood and complexity and terror and hope and sin and repentance and resurrection are all wrapped up in the same messy package. Maybe Jesus' arrival doesn't change everything. At least not all at once.
The birth of Jesus announces the life of Jesus. It's a life that does something remarkable at its conclusion. It gives death meaning. It makes death matter. It introduces, or at least reinforces, resurrection. Jesus doesn't arrive so that he can take as many people out with him as he can. Well, not exactly. He identifies with humanity, accepts that death is the end of all people, and reorganizes death so that it can be an act of reunion with God, not an act of judgment by God. So, in that sense, maybe he did come to take us all out with him when he went. He accepted the natural end of all human beings. But he also gave human beings a new end.
Another Gospel reading we reflect on in the few weeks after Christmas is the one where Jesus echoes and extends the ministry of his departed kinsman, John. "Repent," he says, "for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." What does it mean that it's "at hand?" Has it now arrived? Is it imminent, on our doorsteps, about to surprise and overwhelm us?
Maybe that strange Greek verb, engikken, doesn't preclude that the Kingdom has always been here, always just under the edge of consciousness, waiting to poke through suddenly, perhaps violently, perhaps joyfully, but definitely dramatically. The Kingdom of God doesn't begin with the arrival of Jesus, or the beginning of his ministry, or the end of John's. The Kingdom of God was already established at the beginning of time.
What does death mean? Where is God when children die? Right where he's always been. Right here. Emmanuel. God with us.
And it's a good thing, too. Because otherwise, we wouldn't be able to handle it.
