The Holy Innocents

Shortly after the birth of Jesus Christ in Bethlehem of Judea, a righteous man named Joseph took his wife Mary and the Baby Jesus and fled to Egypt. Why? The man who ruled Judea, Herod the Great, wanted the child dead. Furious that the wise men did not aid him in his plan to kill the foretold king and fearful of losing his supremacy, King Herod ordered the death of every male child in Bethlehem and all its borders who was two years old and younger (Matt. 1:18—19, 2:13—18).
During its joyful celebration on December 28, the fourth day of Christmas, the Church acknowledges the grim reality of sin by remembering “the holy innocents”—infant children who were brutally murdered over 2,000 years ago.
Dear reader, what does the existence of deliberate, unrestrained violence like this mean to you?
Physical violence violates the Fifth Commandment in which God unmistakenly declares: “You shall not murder (Ex. 20:13).” In the original Hebrew language, the word translated as “murder” also covers causing human death through carelessness and negligence. More than a command to abstain from hurting or harming our neighbor, Martin Luther explains that God’s Law orders us to actively help and support one another in every physical need (Small Catechism).
Holy Scripture teaches that God, the One who created life, hates the shedding of innocent blood. God has declared, “I will require a reckoning for the life of man (Gen. 9:5).” We are to fear and love God above all things so that we love and care for other people, not murder them or allow others to do so.
Within a week, the Minnesota Department of Health is supposed to publish its annual report on induced abortions in 2023. A reputable source, the Guttmacher Institute, estimates that a total of 14,500 human lives were ended in the State of Minnesota—a 30.9% increase from 2020. Minnesota is not only the Land of 10,000 Lakes—it is the land of more than 10,000 abortions.
Although our civil authorities and many citizens of Minnesota support it, the taking of innocent life cannot be morally justified. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church has rightly observed, a procured abortion is “gravely contrary to the moral law.” Although the Minnesota Attorney General has been vocal that he will defend a person’s legal “right” to an abortion (indeed that is his job), that does not mean people must forgo seeking to repeal these laws which are supported by erroneous arguments. Abortion is inhumane and fundamentally unjust. Human might does not make right; God’s Law is superior to human laws. The function of civil laws is to restrain evil in society, not promote it. Civilization ultimately breaks down when people choose to rebel from God’s commands. “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death (Prov. 14:12).”
Writing on the life of the German church leader and social reformer, Martin Luther, the internationally known scholar James Kittleson observed, “Nothing could so enrage…and move him so quickly to action as patent injustice. Wherever he saw injustice, he also saw an attack on the faith.”
Though many today fail to recognize the relationship between saving faith and justice, the one holy Christian and apostolic Church cannot be ignorant. Not only is God righteous and just; God’s will is for everyone to know and do what is right and just (Prov. 21:3).
It was St. Joseph, “a just man,” who not only knew but did his duty: he protected the lives which were entrusted to him. Amid the evil of our day, when so many wrongfully seek to destroy little ones whom God has created, may we ask the Holy Spirit for the courage and the love to do all that God has commanded and save them.