Holy Innocents

Good Shepherd

2004 Pass Rd, Biloxi, MS 39531

Draft Jer 31:15–17; Rev 14:1–5; Matt 2:13–18; Ps 54; antiphon: v. 4   –     12/28/25

Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father, and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Thus says the Lord: “A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are no more.” It used to be that whenever I hear this verse of Jeremiah I was confused as to why God says it is Rachel who is weeping if this prophecy refers to the death of the Holy Innocents because Bethlehem is a village in Judah, and Judah is a son of Leah, not Rachel. But, you see, God is wise, and just as Augustine on Christmas Eve saw Christ amongst the genealogies because of the heretics questioning the Bible’s reliability, here God gives us something which at first seems a contradiction so that we might look deeper into His Word and see more of Christ. Remember that as Augustine said there is nothing in the Old Testament which happened that is not a foreshadowing of what was later to happen during the life of the Christ. And that is also the case here with what Jeremiah recorded.

Since God through Jeremiah would have us search for Rachel weeping, we must turn to the book of Genesis where, rather than the mother we find the father in sorrow: And Jacob their father said to them, “You have bereaved me of my children: Joseph is no more, and Simeon is no more, and now you would take Benjamin. All this has come against me.” (Gen 42:36) What is Jacob speaking of? His belief that Joseph was rent by a ravenous lion many years ago—Simeon yet lives, but as prisoner of this cruel Egyptian ruler who will not return him unless Jacob send, as he thinks, Rachel’s only living son Benjamin into danger. Jacob and Benjamin have wept in the place of Rachel for the loss of son and brother, for Rachel, as you may recall, had perished in childbirth with Benjamin. What, though, does this all foreshadow in the life of Christ? Matthew tells us Jeremiah intends the weeping of the mothers in Bethlehem who bewail the murder of their sons, but of what comfort and purpose are the deaths of this score of more innocent boys and what relation do Jacob’s tears have to the Holy Innocents that together joins these events to the life and work of Christ?

And Joseph rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, “Out of Egypt I called my son.” God has given us another clue. Matthew quotes Hosea 11:1 as the prophecy which Joseph, Mary, and the Holy Child fulfill. But to what event was God originally referring when He gave those words to Hosea? To answer that we must go again to Genesis, but this time the very end of the book: And Joseph said to his brothers, “I am about to die, but God will visit you and bring you up out of this land to the land that he swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.” Then Joseph made the sons of Israel swear, saying, “God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones from here.” So Joseph died, being 110 years old. They embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt. (50:24–26) God would not call Israel out of Egypt for several hundred more years, by which point Israel had been unjustly enslaved. But, yet again, what relation does Joseph’s prophecy on his deathbed and Hosea’ own have with the life and work of Christ?

The answer lies in the life, suffering, and accomplishments of Joseph, as well as the life, suffering, and failure of the tribe of Israel. Throughout Genesis we see in the person of Joseph a prefiguring of the promised Messiah, we could almost say that Joseph’s very life was a prophecy. He is the most beloved of his father, he is set apart from his brothers, his brothers betray him and mock kill him presenting the supposed blood of his death to their father, they sell him for twenty pieces of silver, by their selling him into slavery God prepares a home for Jacob and his sons so that they will survive the coming seven year famine, upon Joseph’s first appearance his brothers do not recognize him so he smites their consciences with a harsh command and the loss of Simeon, in their second meeting having brought Benjamin whose name means ‘son of my right hand’ he speaks comfort to them and opens the way to life out of starvation. Each of these events, and probably many others I am missing, correspond to events in the life and work of Christ, even the name of Benjamin seems to refer to Christ’s ascension into heaven in Acts 1 where He takes up the power and authority of God the Father’s right hand. The big differences are that Joseph is a son of Rachel and himself a sinner, while Jesus is a descendant of Leah and Himself holy and righteous; Joseph also only saves his family and that from a famine, while Christ saves the whole world and that from eternal damnation. God’s reference to Rachel weeping in both Matthew and Jeremiah is no contradiction but rather a hint that we ought to look deeper into Scripture, and what have we found but the life of Rachel’s son a little story of the Christ. She lost her son and wept through her husband and other child, yet Joseph was returned as though from the dead.

Then we have Israel the tribe prefiguring Jesus. God rescues Israel from certain death in the famine by sending him to Egypt just as the child Jesus was rescued the same from the murderous clutches of Herod. God then calls Israel out of Egypt to the land He has promised them, but they must first pass through the waters of the Red Sea and thus be figuratively washed of their slavery to Egypt, so Christ passes from Egypt and as a man goes to the baptism of John, not for His own sins, but rather the inverse of Israel’s baptism, to take up all sins. Israel wanders in the desert for forty years, so Christ after the baptism and revelation to John the Baptist fasts for forty days and forty nights in the wilderness being tempted by the devil. God instructed Israel to build the Tabernacle that He might dwell among them within it, and yet not destroy them, Jesus is God in Man manifest, yet because He has humbled Himself by taking on the form of man He does not reveal His glory. There are doubtless many other instances in the history of Israel that correspond to events in the life and work of Jesus, which I would encourage you all to search out, but I hope just the few I have mentioned will open the books of the prophets to you so that you understand when Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel or the others speak of Israel they are likely speaking not of the tribe, but rather of the Christ who is all of Israel wrapped up in one Man. Isaiah chapters 52 and 53 are the most poignant example of that.

So then we come to the Holy Innocents, the score or so boys two years old or younger who die in Bethlehem. Who and what are they? They are the vanguard of the martyrs for the Gospel. The first martyr of the Church of the Old Testament is Abel who was murdered in envy by his older brother. Abel stands as witness to the Law of God and the consequences for those who keep it or break it. The last martyr of the Church of the Old Testament is John the Baptist who perishes in faithful witness to God’s Law and himself acts as the close of the power of the Law that it might make space for the Gospel to come in Christ. St. Stephen is the first martyr of the Church of the Gospel, he, as his name implies, crowns the witness of the Church with martyrdom and begs not the condemnation of his killers as the Law would demand but their forgiveness. The Church throughout history has likewise always treated the Holy Innocents of Bethlehem as martyrs for the Gospel. Abel was martyred for his faithfulness to God’s commands. John was martyred for his faithfulness to God’s commands. Stephen was martyred for his faithfulness to God’s Gospel in Christ. These Holy Innocents were martyred in defence of God’s Word made flesh. They precede the Christ like a faithful vanguard. And yet the tears of their mothers are not in vain.

Jeremiah records further: Thus says the Lord: “Keep your voice from weeping, and your eyes from tears, for there is a reward for your work, declares the Lord, and they shall come back from the land of the enemy. Of course, Jeremiah means first that Joseph returned alive to Jacob and Benjamin for Rachel, but what of in the life and work of Christ? The Lord God has promised that He will not abandon any who die for the faith. Rather, Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints. (Psalm 116:15) Those young boys have gone to the land of the great enemy, death, yet He for Whom they died will raise them again on the Last Day and restore what was lost to those weeping mothers. There is hope for your future, declares the Lord, and your children shall come back to their own country.” God will take them from the land of death to the new heavens and the new earth. So on that note, we should not mourn as those who have no hope, For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. (1 Thess 4:13–14)

But to the main lesson in today’s sermon, see how the Bible interprets itself. See how seeming contradictions turn rather to a deeper understanding of God’s work. See how again and again God revealed His plan of salvation to His people in their very lives. And learn from this that you need not be shaken by the accusations of atheists and proponents of the demonic religions because God’s Word is true and can and does prove itself true over and over again. No attack from witty professor or strong voiced shaman has ever prevailed against the faithful witness of Scripture that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God and that He is both God and Man, that He died for the sins of the world including yours and rose again, and that He has placed His name upon the foreheads and hearts of those who believe in His death and resurrection. Further, in God’s Word there is hope for the future. Just as the Holy Innocents will be restored with joy to their mothers one day, so your hope of eternal life with God is certain, and what is more even in this life God watches over you His faithful. He will deliver you out of every trouble and in the end He will be victorious over your enemies as Christ on the cross was victorious over the deaths of those boys. Amen.

Now the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen