“An angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, saying, “Arise, and take the young Child and His Mother, and flee thou into Egypt, and be thou there until I should tell thee; for Herod is about to seek the young Child, to destroy Him.” [Mt. 2:13] We hear in the Troparion from the vigil: “The King having been born in Bethlehem, the magi, guided by a star from on high, come from Persia bearing gifts. But Herod is troubled, and moweth down the infants like wheat; and he lamenteth, for his dominion will soon be destroyed.”
On this day the Orthodox Church remembers the first martyrs for Christ, the 14,000 innocents slain by Herod. And we also remember back in the day when Moses was hidden for 3 months to escape the decree from Pharaoh to kill all male Hebrew infants, so this heinous act is nothing new in the history of mankind. And what great things God accomplished through Moses.
We here today in the reading of the Gospel a plan put into motion by King Herod to slaughter all the male children under the age of two, in his attempt to find the child named Jesus. We mourn over this loss of life, and then St. Matthew reminds us of a saying of the prophet Jeremiah: “A voice is heard in Ramah, lamenting and weeping bitterly; it is Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted for her children, because they are no more.” Ramah is the place-name of a hill near Bethlehem, traditionally the burial place of Rachel, the wife of the patriarch Isaac, the son of Abraham and the father of Judah.
So what does this grim reminder have to do with the Nativity? Just how precious is the birth of Christ when so many innocent children were purged from this earth? The answer can be simply stated, that sin attempts to erase our innocence and strangulate our salvation. Free will has its consequences!
We know that King Herod was a ruthless man. He was appointed king by the Romans and squashed any attempt that would be a threat to his power. Victims were numbered in the thousands and included two of his wives and three of his own sons. So it is not surprising that he ordered the elimination of the current threat to his throne, the legitimate King of Israel and Judea, the Messiah. And later it was another of his sons who ordered the beheading of St. John the Baptist. Some trees bear bad fruit!
We here about “Peace On Earth” but we also hear about the martyrdom and persecution of Christians in Egypt, Gaza, Jerusalem and the Ukraine. And in North Korea, Yemen, Sudan, Nigeria, Pakistan, India, Indonesia, and China, In Open Doors’ World Watch List top 50 alone, 310m Christians face very high or extreme levels of persecution today. (www.opendoors.org/enUS/persecution/countries/) And let us not forget the severe price the Greeks and Russians have paid in the past.
And we today in 2026, those who claim to know the Christ-child, in this liberal-minded Christian nation, elect that a fetus is not a baby but a choice. The fetus is a threat, not to a king clutching power, but to their parents’ convenience and their freewill or “choice”; or for the benefit of science with the harvesting of their stem-cells or organs. Today, apparently King Herod still lives amongst us, and his fruit is repulsive!!
Here at the Nativity, we celebrate the birth of the Christ-child the Eternal Word of God becoming flesh and the great mystery of God. We here Prophet Jeremiah exclaim: “Thus saith the LORD; Refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears: for thy work shall be rewarded, saith the LORD; and they shall come again from the land of the enemy. And there is hope in thine end, saith the LORD, that thy children shall come again to their own order.” (Jeremiah 31:16-17)
What great things we are to accomplish through Christ, for the Lord is creating something new here on earth. A child is born and through Him, salvation can overcome the massacre of innocence through His birth, life and death. ”The Apostle John writes: “And the light shineth in the darkness, and the darkness overcame it not”. [Jn. 1:5] May that light illumine those darkened in the ruthless taking of life of the unborn, and may His love take deep root in our nation and place us securely on the path to salvation.
Holy Innocents, Pray to God For Us!!
Christ is Born! Glory to Thee who has shown forth the Light!
Fr. Gabriel Weller 1-11-2026
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