January 4, 2026
Christmas 2
The Rev. Dr. Elaine Ellis Thomas
St. John’s Episcopal Church, Essex, CT
Jeremiah 31:7-14; Psalm 84:1-8; Ephesians 1:3-6; 15-19a; Matthew 2:13-15, 19-23
One of my favorite cathedrals in all the world is the Romanesque-Gothic Duomo di Santa Maria Assunta in Siena in the Tuscany region of central Italy. It has a distinctive black and white striped interior representing the colors of the coat of arms of Siena, once one of the most powerful cities in Italy. A striking feature of the interior of this cathedral, in addition to the black and white striped columns ,is its inlaid marble floor, created by master artists over a period of centuries and depicting stories from the Old Testament.
There is one scene from the New Testament on this floor. Having seen it once on a trip to Siena several years ago with Tim, when I approached it last year at the end of my pilgrimage through Tuscany, I felt a rising sense of dread. You see, this massive section of the floor shows the Slaughter of the Innocents as rendered by Matteo di Giovanni. It is not a sanitized version of the story. You can see the terror on the face of the mothers, the brutality in the movements of the soldiers, and the babies. Oh, the babies. All slaughtered because an insecure and fearful king heard from the magi that a new king had been born in Bethlehem. Because this is what tyrants do – they lash out in a murderous rage when they feel their position threatened, even at the cost of innocent lives. This 15th century depiction of the massacre in marble does not shy away from the horror of this scene. And as much as we might want to look away, we need to bear witness to this.
Interestingly, we did not hear the Holy Innocents part of the story this morning. It’s contained in the three verses left out of the appointed reading from Matthew. In fact, this part never appears in the Sunday lectionary, only on the Feast of the Holy Innocents which falls three days after Christmas. While it’s an awful thing to hear, it is, I believe, a necessary part of the story.
You see, the whole point of the incarnation is not that everything had to be perfect for God to be born into our midst. No, God was born into a messy, broken, violent world where an enraged king wants to do away with him before he’s even weaned, sending him, along with Mary and Joseph, into Egypt as refugees and, unable to go back to where they came from, they settled in safer place, far north of Bethlehem in a city called Nazareth. But “safe” is only a relative term, because even Nazareth was part of the Roman empire, and the threat of upheaval and violence was never very far from the surface.
So, no, God was not born into perfection then, and God certainly is not born into perfection now.
Two years ago in Bethlehem, a Liturgy of Lament was held in the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem where the speaker was renowned Palestinian pastor and theologian (The Rev. Dr.) Munter Isaac. At that point, about 20,000 Gazans had died in retaliation for the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel on October 7. In his address entitled “Christ in the Rubble,” he lamented the silence of global faith leaders in the face of the anguish of the Palestinian people in what the U.N. and human rights organizations labelled, even then, an unfolding genocide. This is, in part what Isaac said:
In our pain, anguish, and lament, we have searched for God, and found him under the rubble in Gaza. Jesus became the victim of the very same violence of the Empire. He was tortured. Crucified. He bled out as others watched. He was killed and cried out in pain – My God, where are you?
In Gaza today, God is under the rubble.
And in this Christmas season, as we search for Jesus, he is to be found not on the side of Rome, but our side of the wall. In a cave, with a simple family. Vulnerable. Barely, and miraculously surviving a massacre. Among a refugee family. This is where Jesus is found.
If Jesus were to be born today, he would be born under the rubble in Gaza. When we glorify pride and richness, Jesus is under the rubble…
When we rely on power, might, and weapons, Jesus is under the rubble…
When we justify, rationalize, and theologize the bombing of children, Jesus is under the rubble…
Jesus is under the rubble. This is his manger. He is at home with the marginalized, the suffering, the oppressed, and displaced. This is his manger.[1]
My friends, whether it is Gaza or Ukraine or Sudan or Venezuela, it is the poor, the powerless, the sick, and the weak who suffer most. The One born in Bethlehem is the One we call the Prince of Peace, and yet we humans cannot seem to resist perpetrating violence under whatever pretexts suit our purposes. It is not the way of Christ; it is not the way of love. As our Quaker friends are fond of saying, “there is no way to peace; peace is the way.”
Our consolation in all of this is only this: that wherever there is suffering, there is the manger. That is where God shows up. It is not unrealistic optimism to hold fast to faith in the midst of trouble, because time and again, we are told that God is near to the brokenhearted (Psalm 34:18). “I will turn their mourning into joy, I will comfort them and give them gladness for sorrow” (Jeremiah 31:13b), Jeremiah wrote. In the letter to the Ephesians we heard a little while ago, we read, “I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you…” (1:16-18, emphasis mine). The hope to which we have been called is not pie-in-the-sky, because we know what kind of world we live in.
And we also know that Jesus came. God pitched a tent among us and promised never to leave or forsake us.
Frederick Buechner describes grace, in part, this way:
The grace of God means something like: Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are because the party wouldn’t have been complete without you. Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid. I am with you. Nothing can ever separate us.[2]
It was into this world that Christ came. It was for us that God took on human flesh. Yes, terrible things continue to happen, and we are never alone in it, because God pulled up a chair to be in it with us. And we, in turn, pull up chairs to sit with others who need our care. That’s the way this thing called faith works. And sometimes we’re the chair puller-upper, and sometimes we’re the one curled up in a ball under a blanket in need of someone to pull up that chair.
Of the many gifts we may have received for Christmas, the best one is not to be found under the tree. It is knowing that we are not, and never will be alone, because God is here, and we experience that love through those around us who pull up a chair when we need it. What a gift.Inlaid marble mosaic floor, Slaughter of the Innocents,
[1] https://redletterchristians.org/2023/12/23/christ-in-the-rubble-a-liturgy-of-lament/
[2] https://www.frederickbuechner.com/hope-through-grace