The Christian life is full of opportunities to walk past the manger. Mankind has the tendency to use, so to speak, the birth of Christ as a kind of initiation ceremony in which people are given a spring-board-of-faith believed to propel them into a glorious future of niceness in the world. Before long, being nice becomes really hard. But for as overly-nostalgic as the manger scene is depicted no one can overlook the horror of Herod’s “slaughter of the innocence” (Matthew 2:16-18). A terrible act of fear-fueled, totalitarian narcissism that nearly wiped out a generation of children in that region. If the arrival of Christ was intended to usher in an era of hope, that hope was quickly dashed against the rocks of mankind’s obvious, overwhelming and stagnating hatred for its own.
Had the innocents been protected, perhaps we could take some kind of lessons-learned from the arrival of Christ. But they weren’t. And their martyrdom services to remind us that just as quickly as the presence of Eternal Love was made known to man, the darkness of hatred and evil was their to combat its effect on the human heart. It seems walking past the manger isn’t so difficult for some to do.
What does one do with such a story? What is there to see in this season of “showing” that counters the darkness of Herod and so many other’s sinfulness?
Perhaps we hear the wrong message in Epiphany. We feel the love of God and we rush past the manger to begin the good work of the Christian life. We work hard to satisfy the cravings of the righteous life and even we, like Herod dismiss our own selfish motivations, inadvertently stepping on the innocent. But it’s not the recognition of our own sin that retains the satisfactory life of righteous that God demands. It is only Christ that saves self-determined sinners from themselves.
How about this: In a season of Christ’s showing and our seeing don’t look past the manger! Dwell on it. Dwell on it today. Dwell on it forever! Reflect on the lowliness of Christ, the humility of the Creator, the willing weakness in which he arrives and the inspires hope of his presence on earth and not your ability to fix your or anyone else’s sinfulness. See yourself through Christ’s eyes: you are the innocents slaughtered by Herod’s hand and you are Herod, grasping for earthly power, knowing that it will never be enough.
Epiphany is not a compulsion, a propulsion or a revelation of to-dos from God. It is a season to see completion, fullness and satisfaction brought by Christ for you. Draw close to the Son of God knowing that he is our only hope. We are the innocents of our day. We are the Herods of our day! We are the one’s in need of saving. We are the one’s that have been shown our great need for a Savior and the Savior’s great love for us.