On this day we prepare for the Feast of the Innocents, Childermas or the Children's Mass which takes place this evening.
As Hubert Humphrey said, "...the moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life -- the sick, the needy and the handicapped." (Hubert H. Humphrey, November 1977) How are we doing? How are we treating those in the dawn of life? Do our children have center stage often enough? Do our polices ask, "How will this affect the children"? If we take a year-end accounting of 2008 and ask how this year treated the children what would we say?
The Children's Mass is not just about how well we are treating our children but it mourns the ways society has neglected and abused the children. This evening is also called the Massacre of the Innocents and is based on a portion of the Christmas story that includes the coming of the magi. As recounted in Matthew's Gospel (the only gospel to include this story) Herod the Great, the king in Judea, was visited by the three magi (often called the three kings) as they followed the star. They told Herod that they were on their way to find the one who would be king of the Jews. The gospel records that when Herod heard this he was fearful for his political power. He then sent the wise men on their way asking them to return to him with news of this birth so that he, too, might pay homage. He is, of course, all the time secretly plotting to assassinate the infant king. The wise men, having been warned in a dream, did not go back to Herod. Then the scripture tells us Herod was infuriated and sent orders to have all children, aged 2 and under, killed. Joseph also had a dream and he and Mary flee to with the Christ child.
The gospel writer quotes Jeremiah 31:15 "Thus says the Lord: A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children." While the gospel writer sees this as a prophecy, it is most often interpreted as a lament for what happens to the children when they are the victims of war at the hands of the Babylonians. It certainly echoes the episode in the Exodus story when Pharaoh, out of fear for his throne, orders the killing of the first born males among the Hebrew people. And like the baby Jesus, baby Moses is spared.
Whatever one's interpretation we recognize that the Christmas story contains this brutal act, for which God does not intervene, raising the issue of theodicy, or the problem of evil. Why and how do evil things happen, especially to children, if one believes in a beneficent and all powerful God?
In his novel The Fall, Albert Camus, the author, has his main character suggest that this incident is the reason Jesus chose to let himself be crucified in his adult life. Did Jesus feel guilty for escaping while many others were slaughtered? While such a motivation does speak to a very human emotion among those who escape tragedy when others do not, there is nothing in the gospels that would suggest this as Jesus' motive. Later theologians, however, would say that Jesus' death on the cross is to redeem all such tragedies as well as the minor iniquities we all commit each day. Has evil been redeemed? For one who almost lost her child a year ago today, there is no quick and easy answer. If I had lost her, could I be hopeful? In the midst of the winter and extended darkness of a lost child is there hope? Another Camus quote says it better than I could, "In the depths of winter, I finally found there was in me an invincible summer." For today, I will trust in the return of the invincible summer.