You all know what they say about confession, don’t you? “Confession: it’s good for the soul but bad for the reputation!” Nonetheless, on this very cold second Sunday of Christmas, I, your rector, feel the need for confession. I feel compelled to come clean.

You see, my friends, I fear that I have been a bad Episcopalian and a horrible priest this year because, today is only the tenth day of Christmas, and well, we have already taken down our Christmas tree at home. The tree, the manger, the whole shebang. It’s all gone! I’ve even unplugged the Christmas lights on the house instead of standing firm and being the only one in the neighborhood to shine my lights all the way until Epiphany. And to make matters worse, not only did we take everything down early, but we took it all down waaayyy early . . . right at about 8 o’clock on December 27 . . . just two days after Christmas!

Now of course, being the good Episcopalians you all are, I know that you know why this is such an egregious and flagrant blasphemy on my part: We are supposed to push against the culture during Christmas. We are supposed to hold off our festivities during Advent, prepare our souls with diligence and reserve, and then jump in and revel in Christmas for twelve whole days while the rest of town packs up their decorations and the clerks at the mall count up their receipts. That is what we are supposed to do.

But hey, by December 27 our Christmas tree was deader than dead thanks to a few mishaps with the watering schedule. Needles were everywhere, we were going out of town, and it just seemed like a house fire waiting to happen. So for better or worse, your hypocrite priest’s Christmas tree is long gone, waiting next to some chipper in a whole pile of trees, where it will be shredded into mulch and returned to the earth. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, and may God have mercy on my soul!

But you know, I have to say that pushing all the tinsel, lights, and rich smells out of our house a little early this year has not been entirely bad. In fact, I think it may have cleared some room for us, not just in our home, but in our hearts . . . a little more space, a little less clutter. It has provided a chance to take things more seriously, to push beyond the face value of Christmas, to go beyond the sweetness on the surface, and to see that this holy season isn’t just about all that’s tender and mild. This season is also about those things that are dark and difficult in life, for as it turns out, God has something to say about those things, too.

In today’s Gospel reading, we have definitely moved on from the sweetness and cuteness of baby Jesus in the manger. You see, this Christmas story--the story we hear today--has nothing to do with tenderness and beauty, and everything to do with fear, violence, and power. This Christmas reading is about King Herod. 

King Herod was the puppet king over the Jews. He was a man of Jewish descent, but he had sold out completely to the Roman Empire. Sure, he had done lots of good things for the Jews, including rebuilding the Temple and giving God’s people a place to pray once again. But when the rubber hit the road, Herod’s heart belonged to Rome, and he looked out only for himself. 

One of Herod’s official titles was King of the Jews, so imagine his shock when a group of vagabonds--these wise men from the Orient--come knocking on his door one night, asking for the new King of the Jews. When he heard that someone might be challenging his power and his throne, he panicked. Herod panicked so much, in fact, that as Matthew says in the verses that are not printed in your bulletin today, “He was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under.” This man was so scared of a little baby, that he slaughtered every child in an entire city. 

This event is the day that we in the Church call the “slaughter of the innocents,” and frankly, for understandable reasons, it is not something we talk about very much. There is a feast day on December 28--the Feast of the Holy Innocents--where we’re supposed to remember this terrible occasion, but you will never hear this story on a Sunday. The verses are always omitted. Honestly, they are probably omitted for no other reason than the fact that it seems uncouth and impolite, to think on such unspeakable things so close to Christmas, just after we have pinched the cheeks of baby Jesus and put him to bed. But for better or worse, it is yet another important part of the Christmas story that we discover when we push past the cuteness on the surface.

So if we have to deal with this story as we wrap up the season of Christmas, what are we supposed to make of it? What good does it do us to hear it? 

Well, the good news is that most of us are not as horrible as King Herod, so for that you can give yourselves a nice pat on the back. (It’s good not to be an evil dictator.) But the truth is that while none of us are as bad as Herod, almost all of us do know something of what it’s like to react from a place of fear or panic when we feel our status slipping. We are taught at an early age by our culture that we are supposed to win, that we should take care for ourselves first, and that we deserve to be as high on the ladder as we can possibly go, even if it means throwing someone else under the bus. If you don’t believe that is the pervasive culture these days, then I encourage you to turn on your television any night of the week and flip to one of a hundred reality television shows. There you will see the teachings of Herod being played out over and over again for the sake of our entertainment. Undeserved pride, preservation of status, and reactions based in fear are just part of who we are, and it seems that God isn’t too pleased with that.

You know, the baby Jesus lying in the manger is a precious sight to behold, but today’s Gospel story teaches us something surprising and important about that baby. That baby did not come into the world simply to be precious and cute. That baby came into the world to challenge us, to humble us, and to remind us that life is actually better, fuller, more meaningful, and sometimes even easier . . . when we do not try to place ourselves at the center of the universe.

So this week, as you take down your tree and pack up your manger, I challenge you to look one last time at the face of that tender baby there in the manger, and remember the full story. For as you do, you will also remember that while he did not necessarily come to transform the whole world into a perfect place, he did come to transform you. Unlike Herod, may we have the courage to allow such transformations to take place within us, that it might not be our own power to which we cling, but the power of him who came to serve.