The Christ Child and the Herods Within Us

When Christmas Meets Darkness

Today is only three days after Christmas, one of the two great celebrations of the Christian year. The other, of course, is Easter. Birth and Rebirth — the two great movements of our faith.

But it feels strange, doesn't it? The decorations are still up. The tree might still be standing. The leftovers are still in the fridge. And yet today in church we're met not with angels and shepherds, but with this dark and troubling story — the flight of the Holy Family into Egypt and the massacre of the innocent children.

It's jarring. Only days ago we were singing "Joy to the World," and now we are reading about fear, violence, and loss. What is going on here?

Matthew won't let us turn Christmas into something sentimental. The light has come into the world, yes, but it comes into a world that pushes back. Whenever something new and life-giving begins, the old powers of fear and control rise up to resist it.

A Story That Echoes Through History

What's remarkable is that this kind of story — the story of a Child of Destiny, threatened at birth by a fearful ruler — turns up again and again in the great stories of humanity.

Think of Moses. Pharaoh, afraid of the Hebrew people, orders that every male child be killed. Moses' mother hides him in a basket and places him in the Nile, where he's found and raised by Pharaoh's own daughter. The baby who escapes death will one day lead his people to freedom.

There's an ancient Mesopotamian story of Sargon of Akkad, who was also set afloat on a river and later became a great ruler. In Hindu tradition, Krishna is born under threat from a wicked king who fears prophecy. The newborn is secretly taken to safety and grows up to bring righteousness and peace. Even Romulus and Remus in Roman legend are twin brothers condemned to die, set adrift on the Tiber River and raised by a she-wolf before founding the city of Rome.

These stories share a deep pattern: a child who brings light and renewal, an old power that feels threatened, a narrow escape, and eventually the triumph of life over fear.

More Than Old Myths

These are not just old myths. They tell us something about how life itself works. Whenever a new possibility is born — a new idea, a new movement, a new consciousness — it comes into a world that resists it. The Herod in these stories represents that fearful, controlling energy that wants to hold onto power. And the child represents the spark of something new: innocence, creativity, love, or divine awareness that is fragile and needs protection.

The story of Jesus' escape to Egypt is not only history — it's a mirror held up to the pattern of creation itself, and even to our own inner lives.

Because this drama happens in each of us. The Christ child, the divine spark, is born within us too. And just as surely, there are Herods in us — the parts of our ego that cling to control and fear change.

How God Always Works

The story shows us how love and truth always begin in smallness and vulnerability, and how they survive even in the face of great danger.

Writers like Richard Rohr and Cynthia Bourgeault help us to see that these infancy narratives aren't just about what happened once long ago. They're showing us how God always works.

Rohr talks about what he calls the "Christ pattern" — the rhythm of how divine life unfolds in everything: birth, death, and resurrection; loss and renewal. This is the pattern built into creation itself. Seeds fall into the ground and die to bring new life. Stars explode to create new worlds. Everything that is born is born through vulnerability.

Rohr reminds us that God doesn't work around suffering — God works through it. God's power is not about control or domination, but about transformation. Even as a baby refugee, Jesus reveals that the way of God is not through might, but through love taking flesh in the most fragile form.

Cynthia Bourgeault describes this as the evolution of consciousness. The birth of Jesus isn't just the story of one special person. It's about divine love coming alive within human consciousness itself. In each of us, she says, God's love transforms not by overpowering, but by surrender — by entering fully into the human condition, into you and me, by being with us in our darkness and turning it into light from the inside out.

God Begins in Smallness

So rather than asking, "Why would God let this happen?" this story invites us to see that God is already there in the midst of it, quietly bringing life where the world sees only death.

Both Rohr and Bourgeault remind us that God always begins in smallness. The infancy stories of Jesus are not exceptions — they're revelations of how God always works: through littleness, through vulnerability, through hiddenness.

The light that shines in the darkness doesn't come as a blinding spotlight. It comes as a candle in the night — small, flickering, but unquenchable.

That's good news, because it means God is already present in the overlooked places: in quiet acts of kindness, in small communities of faithfulness, in the patient work of love that no one notices.

Herod's Way and God's Way

This is the opposite of Herod's way. Herod's way is the way of power, fear, and control. It's the mindset that says: protect what's mine, keep hold of power, silence the threat.

God's way is the way of vulnerability, openness, and trust — the courage to let go, to be changed, to allow love to have its way. And in the end, Herod's power always collapses, but the power of love endures.

A Story for Our Time

This story could hardly be more relevant for our own time. We live in a world where the Herods are still active — corrupt leaders clinging to power, the super-rich shaping systems for their gain, corporations valuing profit over people and planet, and growing attacks on truth, justice, and democracy.

It can feel overwhelming. It can seem as though the darkness is winning. But this story reminds us that God's triumph never comes through force. God's power is not like Herod's. It comes quietly — through ordinary people who say yes to love, through communities that shelter the vulnerable, through acts of courage and compassion that seem small but have divine weight.

Every time we choose love over fear, truth over deceit, generosity over greed, the Christ child is being protected again — nurtured, kept alive, ready to grow. That's how God's kingdom comes: not with spectacle, but through steady, hidden faithfulness.

Dark Story, Full of Hope

So yes, this is a dark story, but it's also full of hope. It shows that even in the darkest times, God's life is being born and protected. The way of God doesn't mirror the powers of the world. It offers a life-giving alternative — one that trusts in love's quiet strength.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot overcome it.

That's the good news for today and for every age. God's power is found in smallness. God's love grows even in exile. And the Christ child still lives — in us, among us, and through us.