keeping Herod in Christmas

even a fearful fool has a place

Holy Innocents. (Celebrated on December 28.) Why are these murdered little boys called “holy”? (vv. 16–18) Why are these lives, taken by a paranoid tyrant, referred to in such a sacred way? Is it because they are the first, and helpless, martyrs to Christ?

There are other holy innocents. Every age has its Herods, those who open their mouths and bare their teeth — slick, ravenous ones who are merciless in their cowardice and violence. (Note: there were several Herods in the New Testament.)

Holy innocents abound. They are the ones forced into labor and denied the empowerment of education. They are the hidden ones, girls and the occasional boy, perhaps in our neighborhood, deceived and ripped from safety and trafficked for sex. They have guns put in their hands and are beaten and ordered to fight.

And yet, holy!

No matter what Herod does, in the end, his plans come to nothing. They cannot stand before the word, filled with poverty and power. The weapons of his warfare fail in the face of the one who comes.