Gospel: Matthew 2: 13-18
The extent to which those in power will go to retain their power and wealth is reflected in Herod's slaughter of the innocence, a scene that played out many times prior to that event and one in which has repeated itself to our present times. No doubt it will repeat again and again in human history, one sanctioned by religious leaders either in active word or in cowardly silence. Why the silence?
We honor these children as martyrs today and we bemoan such brutality - on this page of the hymnal. But what of our singing of the glories of Joshua's genocide in Canaan, or the atrocities committed by the Maccabees? Do we really believe in intrinsic evils, or are actions atrocities only when they happen to us and our tribe and not when we commit them against others?
Jesus came to remind us that we are all children of one heavenly father, that we have a common origin in one set of human parents - that both in matter and spirit we are one human family. Perhaps some day we will live as such, and as that day has not yet been, then let it begin today. The love and peace of Christmas cannot be for one day only - it must be for all days, all times, and for all places.
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