| CELC > Devotions > December 28, 2002 |
Scripture
Now after they (the Wise Men) had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, "Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him." Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt. . . When Herod say that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under. -- St. Matthew 2.13-14, 16a
Commemoration
The Holy Innocents were the children of Bethlehem (numbered 14,000 on Eastern calendars) who were slaughtered by order of King Herod in his attempt to eliminate the infant Jesus. There is no record of this event outside Matthew's gospel, but it is not impossible, given Herod's character. He drowned his sixteen-year old brother-in-law, the high priest; killed his uncle, aunt, and mother-in-law, with several members of his brother-in-law's family, his own two sons and some three hundred officials he accused of siding with his sons.
Although the Holy Innocents were not believers and were unaware of the reason for their fate, they were killed for the sake of Christ, and in a sense in place of him, and the church by the beginning of the third century recognized them as martyrs.
This day is an appropriate time to remember children, and also to remember the innocents of all ages killed in the slaughters of history, such as:
 | Wounded Knee, South Dakota (December 29, 1864, a slaughter of nearly 300 Sioux men, women, and children |
| The massacre by the Turks of the Armenians who lived in the Turkish part of Armenia (April 24, 1915) |
| Guernica (April 26, 1937), a destruction of a Spanish town by German and Italian aircraft in the first mass bombing of an urban community |
| Lidice (June 10, 1942), the obliteration of a village by the Nazis in reprisal for the death of Reinhard Heydrich |
| Dachau, Auschwitz, and the extermination camps (1939-1945) |
| Dresden (February 13, 1945), fire bombed by the Allies |
| Hiroshima (August 6, 1945) and Nagasaki (August 9, 1945), the first and second atomic bombs used in warfare |
| The martyrs behind the Iron Curtain |
| And, in our own much more recent time, the thousands killed in the suicide attack on the World Trade Center in New York |
from Festivals and Commemorations Philip Pfatteicher
Prayer
We remember today, O God, the slaughter of the Holy Innocents of Bethlehem by order of King Herod. Receive, we pray, into the arms of your 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 and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. AMEN
-- Pastor Stickley