"Rise, take the child and his mother, flee to Egypt,
and stay there until I tell you.
Herod is going to search for the child to destroy him."
Herod was known from history to be suspicious to the point of violence to anyone who would lay claim to his throne. His pretense to desire to pay homage to the new born king was actually only his attempt to find him out so he could eliminate one more potential threat. But the magi correctly understood his evil intentions and didn't return to Herod to convey where they had found him. If things had stopped there it might have been explained as merely human cruelty but a more diabolical motivation became apparent when Herod ordered the massacre of all boys under the age of two in and around Bethlehem. Jesus was not merely the victim of political corruption but also the target of the unseen forces of evil from the very first. Those forces would make use of corrupt kings and religious leaders throughout the lifetime of Jesus until, in Judas, they finally found the success the sought.
As the rightful king of Israel, and in fact the world, Jesus was always going to be the target of those who cherished their own power above all else. And he was so good, such light in the darkness, that the powers of darkness were always going to try to snuff him out. But our Gospel reveals that, while the forces of evil and the worldly powers connived in planning against the child, God himself had a deeper plan.
Joseph rose and took the child and his mother by night
and departed for Egypt.
He stayed there until the death of Herod,
that what the Lord had said through the prophet might be fulfilled,
Out of Egypt I called my son.
As Moses had been protected from the slaughter of young children so too was Jesus protected. As Israel was called out of slavery in Egypt so too would Jesus, as a new Moses, lead the spiritual Israel of the Church out of slavery to sin and death. Even the apparent casualties on the side of goodness and truth turned out, mysteriously, to be sharers in victory beyond what anyone would have guessed.
A voice was heard in Ramah,
sobbing and loud lamentation;
Rachel weeping for her children,
and she would not be consoled,
since they were no more.
In fact her children were not no more, but already reigning with the king for whom they died. Jesus had taken the lot of the outcasts, the unwanted, and the underserved. He had allowed the hatred of the world for the lowest and the least to fall on himself. In doing so he raised and elevated all of those who were thus oppressed and persecuted, making them, in some sense, martyrs for him. Because he had taken on their lot, they no longer suffered that lot alone or for nothing, even if the eyes of the world could only see tragedy with no decipherable meaning.
We who have been blessed to live to adulthood are not as innocent as the Holy Innocents we celebrate today. We've tarnished the complete victory won by Christ by our collusion with the forces of darkness in the world. In fact, we too prefer at times to protect the throne of our hearts from the possible incursion of some rumored rightful king. But God did not come only for the innocent. He came especially for sinners, to seek and to save the lost. Where we have embraced darkness God himself stands ready to shine his light once more.
But if anyone does sin, we have an Advocate with the Father,
Jesus Christ the righteous one.
He is expiation for our sins,
and not for our sins only but for those of the whole world.
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