Herod was not alone in his fear of the helpless

Telegraph (U.K.) ^ | 21/12/2003 | Joanna Jepson

[nickcarraway]

This is my first year in holy orders and so I was both amused and taken aback to be told by a four-year-old girl recently that she was going to be playing Buzz Lightyear - the hero of Disney's Toy Story films - in her Nativity Play. Nobody wants to spoil people's fun at this time of year, and I hope that she enjoyed her retelling of this ancient, wondrous tale. But what she said did make me wonder if we are losing sight of the compelling simplicity of Christmas.

For me, the essence of the story is the weakness and vulnerability of the baby Jesus: a child laid in a manger, without a cot, surrounded by farm animals. When we strip away the commercialism, gimmickry and tinsel of Christmas 2003, this is what we are left with: the unadulterated power of God's message, His Word made flesh in the form of the raw life of a new-born baby.

The preciousness of each baby and our duty to protect it has been greatly on my mind this year. Earlier this month, the High Court granted my appeal for a review of the decision by West Mercia Police not to prosecute the doctors who aborted a child beyond six months' gestation because the mother, after advice from her doctor, did not want to give birth to a baby with a cleft palate. The case is indicative of a destructive hypocrisy at work in our society. Here, more than 2,000 years after the birth of Jesus, was a baby unshielded and unwanted, deemed too "defective" to live a meaningful life. It had no voice, and yet its death cries out to us all to reconsider the value and worth we grant to those who are weakest and most easily dismissed.

It is as though such a child - though the cleft palate condition is trivial and easily corrected by surgery - somehow represents a threat to our society, increasingly obsessed as it is by a harsh, unattainable notion of cosmetic perfection. I think back to the threat that Jesus, though a helpless baby, represented to the powerful in his own time - to the point that King Herod, in his madness, ordered mass infanticide to remove the risk that Jesus might one day supplant him as King. The description in Matthew's Gospel is among the most chilling passages in the Bible: Herod became "exceeding wrath, and sent forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under".

There is a tragic paradox here: that sometimes we seem to be most threatened by those who are most vulnerable. Herod, for all his might and authority, could not abide the possibility that he might one day be supplanted by a child. The deplorable exercise of his power revealed only his pathetic insecurity. So, too, in our own age, I wonder whether our readiness to refuse life to those who are less than physically perfect lays bare our own darkest fears and sense of inadequacy.

On all sides, we are bombarded with images, products and advertisements that encourage us to believe that we can - and more importantly should - match an ideal of blemishless beauty. But, of course, we cannot. We are all imperfect and weak: that is our common disability. We all have inadequacies and flaws, whether physical, emotional or spiritual. But we live in a culture in which it is becoming harder to admit those weaknesses, especially to ourselves. As a result, we turn away from people and things that remind us of our flaws. We ostracise them, scorn them and even abort them.

That is why the Christmas message is not, in fact, an easy one to confront. Of course, the celebration of the birth of Jesus is an occasion for joy, for reconciliation and for hope. We give gifts to one another to mark God's decision to send his son among us to atone for all our sins and to save us. But there is a hard part, too. We should consider the image of the helpless Christ in his stable, adored by Mary and Joseph. And we should remember that, even in his very first days, he was the target of Herod's horrific bloodlust. In this sense, Jesus symbolises not only hope but helplessness. He challenges us to look hard at those parts of us that we feel are unworthy or inadequate. At Christmas, we gather round the tree and count our blessings. But we are also challenged to have the courage to approach the manger, in all humility, and be transformed by our encounter with Christ's abject vulnerability.

During Advent, I have been reflecting upon how astonishing God's choice was. For centuries, the coming of Christ, foretold by the Old Testament prophets, had been eagerly anticipated. The Messiah was expected to be a majestic, heroic king, an awesome figure bedecked in finery and terrifying to behold. And yet the coming of Jesus was as far from this expectation as it is possible to imagine. He was, after all, a refugee baby, illegitimate in human eyes, born in a stable to parents in fear of their lives.

God decided to come upon his people not as a conquering King but as a poor, weak, defenceless, dispossessed child. So remarkable and unsettling was this choice, that I think we still find it difficult to absorb. We drown out the true Christmas message in self-indulgence and self-congratulation, as a distraction from a truly important message. God's Word was made into tiny, weak, vulnerable flesh. What are we to make of this? How are we to understand a God who so clearly turns his back on all-consuming glory and chooses instead the most abject humility?

The answer is that God was sending us a message of love and urging upon us a lesson of responsibility. He was telling us that his heart is always on the side of the marginalised, the disregarded and unloved. I believe that he particularly cherishes those babies who are terminated in the womb for the cruellest of reasons: namely, that they do not match the physical perfectionism of our times. That is the lesson of responsibility at the heart of the Christmas message - that we must never forget our special duty of care to such children, as to all who need our help.

Tear away the trappings of modern Christmas, and we find a God who answers the silenced cries of the oppressed. He entered our human predicament and transformed it. Today, he is an unlikely hero in a world of false assumptions and bogus celebrities: he is Good News incarnate, Good News for those on the outside, those whom society would prefer to ignore, isolate and, in some cases, prevent from living at all. That is the true gift of Christmas.

[nickcarraway]

ping

[lainde]

Beautiful...

[hellinahandcart]

ping

[NYer]

BLESSED CHRISTMAS

I think back to the threat that Jesus, though a helpless baby, represented to the powerful in his own time - to the point that King Herod, in his madness, ordered mass infanticide to remove the risk that Jesus might one day supplant him as King. The description in Matthew's Gospel is among the most chilling passages in the Bible

 

Feast of the Holy Innocents

December 28

Gospel - Matthew 2:13-18

Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, "Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there till I tell you: for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy Him." And he rose and took the child and his mother by night, and departed to Egypt, and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, "Out of Egypt have I called my son."

Then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, was in a furious rage, and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under, according to the time which he had ascertained from the wise men. Then was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah:

"A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation:

Rachel weeping for her children;

she refused to be consoled because they were no more."

Note: Scripture readings are from the Revised Standard Version - Catholic Edition

Catholic Ping - let me know if you want on/off this list

[ahadams2]

thanks to hellin for spotting this one Ping.

[cpforlife.org]

BTTT

[cpforlife.org]

Please let me know if you want on or off my Pro-Life Ping List.

Merry Christmas

[cyn]

THANKS for the ping. I'd not thought about the birth of Jesus in quite this way. It might help me put other things in perspective. A season of joy, God's blessings and divine providence in the face of bald sustained evil against Terri . . . Interesting, challenging, but a learning experience provided for a reason, I'm sure, as all are!

[NYer]

The Coventry Carol

This beautiful English lullaby carol originated in the Coventry Corpus Christi Mystery Plays performed in the 15th century. In a play called The Pageant of the Shearmen and Tailors, the women of Bethlehem sing this song just before Herod's soldiers come to slaughter their children. It tells the story of the murder of the Holy Innocents, and is sung on December 28, the feast of those tiny martyrs.

Lully, Lullay, thou little tiny child.
Bye, bye, lully, lullay.
Lullay thou little tiny child
Bye, bye, lully, lullay

O sisters, too, how may we do,
For to preserve this day;
This poor Youngling for whom we sing
Bye, bye lully, lullay

Herod the King, in his raging,
Charged he hath this day;
His men of might, in his own sight,
All young children to slay.

Then woe is me, poor child, for thee,
And ever mourn and say;
For thy parting neither say nor sing,
Bye, bye lully, lullay.

[wisconsinconservative]

Amen! Thanks for posting Nick.

Merry Christmas to one and all!

[Tax-chick]

I wonder whether our readiness to refuse life to those who are less than physically perfect lays bare our own darkest fears and sense of inadequacy.

Of course. Why do so many people with no personal stake want Terri Schiavo dead? Because they're terrified of disability and helplessness.

May the Lord be glorified in the celebration of His Incarnation.