"Flight into Egypt," by Jean-Léon Gérôme (1897)
the weakness of the infant Christ
Let’s say up front that the demoniac, the spirit of antichrist, hates humanity. It hates humanity because humanity bears the image of the Word of God the Father. The Word (Logos) expresses Love, the complete “pouring out” of self for the other, which is precisely what Satan and the entire spirit of antichrist is opposed to.
As He is the image of the Father borne by humanity, Christ is the heart, the essence of humanity, the Son of God Who became the Son of Man.
And there is nothing more human than an infant human.
So it is no wonder that the demoniac raged against the very possibility of the Christ Child. All of its rage for all time had been waged against this moment. And at the Nativity, here it was.
All babies bear a special image of Christ. This “special image” is the humility of the Baby Jesus, but also His innocence, His infant winsomeness, His utter vulnerability that stimulates in us (as it did in the Virgin Mary and the Righteous Joseph) protection, nurturance, and courage against the worldly foe. This vulnerability is due to the fact that Son of God willingly took the risk of submerging His Divinity under the limitations of His Humanity. He became weak as a real infant. He became limited by human pregnancy and birth and breast-feeding. And, what is perhaps most amazing (even scandalous), He actually became dependent upon the Theotokos who bore Him, upon Joseph who protected Him, and upon His community who shielded and raised Him throughout His childhood and youth.
It is almost unthinkable that the God Who is Absolute and Transcendent should come so close to us (i.e., “immanent,” as opposed to “transcendent") and become even the very most opposite of Absolute — that is, He became dependent.
Every baby calls us to the eternal memory of the Child Christ, when the omnipotent God became weak, when the omniscient God took upon Himself relative ignorance, when the omnipresent God entered into our localized humanity, in time and space, in family and culture. Every infant and child reminds us, in the mystical Present, of our youthful Lord.
While it is extremely difficult for us to even think about the infinite God becoming a very finite baby, for such Love to give All Away, it is totally unthinkable for Satan and the antichrist swarms of the demoniac. This possibility is not only scandalous for the demoniac — it is met with the most extreme insane hatred.
Herod as demoniac tool
John Lord Acton wrote in 1887 that “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Political power, or “domination,” is one of the most spiritually perilous possibilities in life. It is best to avoid it. It is never right to seek it out. It takes an enormous effort for a king, president, or any politician to not be overcome by satanic pride. Domination is the opposite of the self-sacrificial servanthood of Divine Love. That is exactly why Lord Acton was profoundly right about the total corruption of absolute power — extreme power is utterly magnetic to the demoniac.
No one showed this more clearly than King Herod. When the Magi showed up in Jerusalem and asked “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews?” (Matthew 2.2), Herod “was troubled,” along with all the city. He consulted with the Jewish religious scholars, who told him that Bethlehem was the prophesied place of the birth of the expected Christ. So Herod sent the Magi there, only to confirm the place and the birth.
The Magi went and adored the Christ Child. But Herod meant only to “destroy him” (Matthew 2.13). Herod could not tolerate any loss of his power. He could not permit even the prophesied Messiah to take anything away from his domination.
This is a sure sign of the demoniac in political power — the utter panic, the immediate desire to hold on to power and wealth, the willingness to “do whatever it takes” to protect that power and wealth, to see all others as threats to one’s own status quo — threats that must be destroyed.
The Magi were warned in a dream to bypass Herod. When the self-absorbed king realized that he had been “stood up” by the Magi, he fell “into a furious rage, and sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem who were two years old or under” (Matthew 2.16).
This horrific slaughter of infants, while certainly not unprecedented in either the ancient or modern world, is virulently demonic. Such destruction of weak and helpless human life, such harsh violence unleashed upon infants who naturally arouse in human nature feelings of compassion, softness, and protection — such violence cannot be manufactured by human nature alone, no matter how fallen. Such horrific violence must be augmented by the demoniac.
This is true of all mass slaughter and widespread destruction across history. Human nature by itself, as created, no matter how fallen, cannot be so violently horrible, so insanely aggressive toward the image of Christ, without the abetting agency of the antichrist demoniac.
God only creates in goodness — even Herod. But for Herod to massacre 14,000 children, Herod needed to be aided by the spirit of antichrist, which was invoked by his furious rage and a lifetime of power madness.
St Matthew interprets this heartrending calamity as an echo, or “re-appearance,” of an earlier catastrophe that occurred not so far away, but centuries before. It was the leading off of thousands of Jewish prisoners, many of them children, by the Babylonian invaders. The Prophet Jeremiah had written these heartrending lines about this point of departure for the prisoners:
“A voice was heard in Ramah,
wailing and loud lamentation,
Rachel weeping for her children;
she refused to be consoled,
because they are no more.”
Ramah was a point north of Jerusalem where the children were marched far away to Babylon. Rachel was the beloved wife of Jacob, mother to Joseph and Benjamin. She died early in childbirth and was buried near Bethlehem.
The loud lamentation is for all children who’ve been destroyed (“they are no more”) by the insane rage of the spirit of antichrist … for all children destroyed or hurt by so many wars, by school shooters, by the abortion industry, by confinement in refugee camps and detention centers, by abuse, by adult madness, anger and despair.
The Orthodox Church confidently states that all children who are oppressed and destroyed (and all children who repose) go to be with Christ in Paradise (i.e., the “bosom of Abraham”). This is immediate. There is no delay. It is only in the fellowship of Christ that the evils of the antichrist world are resolved, and all wounds are healed.
Nevertheless, Rachel (and the Theotokos) weeps today, as she continues to cherish the Infant Image of the Child Christ, wherever, and in whomever, she beholds Him.
The voice in Ramah has not stopped.
the Magi
Christian tradition says that the Magi, or Wise Men, were scholars and astronomers from Persia. Orthodox hymnody says that they maintained an ancient set of prophecies from Balaam himself, who, many centuries before, had encountered Moses and the Israelites during the Exodus out of Egypt. In that encounter, the non-Israelite said these mysterious words:
I see him, but not now;
I behold him, but not near.
There shall come a star out of Jacob,
and a scepter shall rise out of Israel.
And it shall crush the forehead of Moab
and break down all the sons of tumult
(Numbers 24.17)
By a science and art that is now lost to us, the Magi were able to ascertain, from the study of the stars, that the Son of God was to be born as King of the Jews. They followed “his star” all the way from Persia to Bethlehem. And when they arrived at the Cave, “they fell down and worshiped him” (Matthew 2.11) and presented gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
The gold is interpreted as a sign of true Kingship over the world. The frankincense is a sign of the true and only Priesthood. And the myrrh is a sign of the death that would save all mankind, and all creation.
It is amazing that the study of the stars provided the Magi with such expectation.
The Magi were powerful indeed, especially in Persia. But they were not confined or corrupted by this power. Their desire was to study the truth, and to meet the source of all truth, the Word that gives meaning to all words.
It is likely that there was an a wide Wisdom Tradition, spread through the ancient Middle East and the trade routes of the Mediterranean, centered upon the Second Temple of Jerusalem — the Temple constructed after the return of the exiles from Babylon in 516 BC, and stood until its destruction by the Romans in 70 AD. It is beginning to be clear to scholars that the Greek philosophers, especially Pythagoras and Plato, were well aware of this Wisdom Tradition of the Second Temple, and relied upon it heavily. The Hebrew influence was felt in Babylon, and Persia, as well.
This Wisdom Tradition was not mere intellectualism, or the scholarly sophism that we rightly reject as anti-spiritual rationalism today. This Wisdom contemplated deeply upon the mysteries of Creation, and beheld the wonder of the mysticism of the Second Temple.
The coming of the Messiah, with the characteristics of the Son of God as Savior, was the central expectation of this Second Temple mystic Tradition.
It is out of this Tradition that the Magi from Persia knew how to interpret the signs in the night sky with expectation for the Son of God to become the Son of Man.
Also, in this same Wisdom Tradition, the Magi were able to interpret the dream they had received after their adoration of the Infant Christ and their recognition of the Theotokos. From this interpretation, they recognized the demonism of Herod and his mad lust for power, and his murderous designs upon the Christ Child.
So they bypassed Jerusalem, and traveled back to Persia by another way.
Joseph the foster protector
It remains for us to become wise like the Magi and to recognize the Star of Bethlehem, wherever it shines, and it surely shines today, indicating the paths of righteousness wherein lies the way of Christ.
It remains, too, for us to reject and struggle against all the many Herod’s of this world, for there are indeed many. Too many seek power and riches and fall into the demonic rage of self-protection and aggrandizement. Pride is the curse and leprosy of Satan, and much of the world — especially the First World — is infected.
But most of all, it remains for us to follow the poignant example of the Righteous Joseph. Even in old age and as a widower, Joseph patiently and humbly followed the holy guidance of the angels. He protected the utterly dependent Holy Child and Holy Mother. He took them as refugees into the idolatrous land of Egypt. He worked hard for his little family there, to provide for their needs. And when the angel came and said it was safe to return — because the mad king had finally died — then he did so, and returned to Nazareth in Galilee.
None of this would have happened had not Joseph prayed, had he not practiced the ways of righteousness, had he not given himself away in love. It took holiness to be visited by an angel. It took courage to shelter his two charges against the ravenous insanity of Herod.
Above all, Joseph made peace. In his house, he built an oasis of peace in a fallen world of sin and violence. His prayerful faithfulness became a hedgerow of protection against the demonic tide.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.
Yes. Joseph was one of the peacemakers, truly, to foster the Prince of Peace.
It took Joseph, an aged carpenter, to fashion a home that could shelter a young holy girl who is “beyond compare more glorious than the Seraphim” …
… and a Baby Who is God.