Galatians 1.11-19

Matthew 2.13-23

Who is this ‘Rachel weeping for Her children’? St Matthew is drawing from the prophecy of Jeremiah to reveal the hidden, theological meaning of Herod’s cruel slaughter of the ‘innocents’ as the Church calls them. It is the mystery of Pascha – of the Light shining in the darkness that the darkness cannot put out.

Rachel is a Hebrew name. It means a ewe, a mother sheep. The Holy Virgin Mary is the Mother of Jesus Christ, the ‘Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.’ (Jn 1.29) Rachel, then, is the Ewe, the Virgin Mother weeping for Her Son, Jesus Christ, on the Cross. (Jn 19.25)

But, it says, ‘When Jesus saw His mother, and the disciple standing by, whom He loved, He saith unto His Mother, Woman, behold thy son! Then saith He to the disciple, Behold thy Mother!’ [Jn 19:25-27] The LORD says to His disciples at another time: ‘Let the little children come to me: for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.’ [Mat 19:14] But, if they come to the LORD Jesus, they come to His Virgin Mother; and so they come to Her as to their Mother.

Therefore, the Virgin Theotokos is the Mother of all the children. And, in this morning’s Gospel, She is the Rachel weeping for Her children, for She is the Mother of all these ‘holy righteous ones’ slaughtered by Herod.

Are you looking for your Mother? She is the Virgin Mother of Jesus Christ; She is the Theotokos, the Mother of God; and, She is weeping for us because our innocent soul has been slaughtered by the devil, the prince of the power of the air, who holds us in the bondage of death and corruption – death and corruption manifested in the passions that are in the world and in our soul because of lust [2 Pt 1.4].

An incidental detail related to the name Rachel, that may not be incidental. The name comes from an unused root that means to journey. Therefore, ‘Rachel weeping for Her children,’ tells us what the Virgin Mother was doing as the Holy Family fled to Egypt: She was weeping for Her children, all the innocents whom Herod slaughtered in the heartless cruelty of the antichrist, the prince of the power of the air, the devil, the antichrist that rules this world and is at work in the sons of disobedience, the antichrist that seeks to destroy in so many ways the woman (Rev 12.1-4ff.), because it is the woman who gives birth to the Son of God as a male child, and brings Him into the world through the Virgin, through the woman, as the Son of Man for the purpose of destroying the devil and delivering us who through fear of death were in bondage to him our whole life-long. (Heb 2.15).

Now, our Gospel this morning begins with Joseph being warned by an angel of the LORD in a dream to ‘flee to Egypt because Herod is seeking the child to destroy Him.’ ‘So, it says, Joseph arose, and took the young child and his mother by night, and departed into Egypt, and was there until the death of Herod, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt have I called my son. [Mat 2:14-15]

Dear faithful: this morning’s Gospel concludes the Royal Hours of Christmas Eve Day. That is, Herod slaughtering the innocents concludes the Story of Christ’s Nativity told from beginning to end in the Royal Hours on Christmas Eve Day. I want you to see that this Gospel of the slaughter of the innocents reveals in the Cave of Christmas the Tomb of the LORD’s Pascha! The same Light illumines both the Cave and the Tomb: the Light that is Jesus Christ the Wisdom of God, the Effulgence of the Father’s Brilliance (Wisd 7.26, Heb 1.3), the True Light coming into the world, the Light in whom is the Life of men shining in the darkness of the death of this world that the darkness of death cannot extinguish! (Jn 1.4-5)

The righteous Joseph took the young child and His Mother by night, it says. Now, there is another darkness and another night in Holy Scripture. This ‘other’ darkness is the beginning of the creation (Gn 1.2), it is the impenetrable depths of the LORD’s Sabbath Rest, the beginning of the New Creation shining in the darkness of the LORD’s New Tomb, as did the Light that shone forth from the darkness at the beginning of creation. And the ‘other’ Night is the darkness of the Virgin’s womb, the darkness of the Cave, and of the Tomb of the LORD’s Sabbath Rest. In the darkness of this ‘other’ night, the knowledge of God is made known, as the Psalmist says. (Ps 18/19.2) For it is in the darkness of this other Night – the darkness of the Virgin’s womb, the darkness of the Tomb, that we see Christ, the True Light of God who alone makes the Father known (Jn 1.18).

Joseph took the Virgin Mother and Her young Child to Egypt, it says. Egypt is the name of Israel’s bondage under Pharaoh, and the Pharaoh is an image of the devil. And of this flight of the Holy Family to Egypt, Isaiah says: ‘Behold, the LORD rides upon a swift cloud (the Virgin Theotokos), and shall come into Egypt: and the idols of Egypt shall ‘quiver, totter, shake, reel, stagger, tremble’ at his presence, and the heart of Egypt shall melt.’ [Isa 19:1] I.e.,‘ hell will cry out groaning!’ as we will sing out on the Night of the LORD’s Pascha!

Therefore, raising our minds on high, i.e., mystically, i.e., in the theological reality of the Church, the Body of the risen Christ, to follow the righteous Joseph as he takes the Young Child and His Mother to Egypt by Night, we will find ourselves following Joseph into the heart of Christmas, which is in the depths of hell, in the depths of our own heart-hell (St Macarius the Egyptian). There, we come upon the beginning of the New Creation. For, we come to the ‘Door of Paradise,’ the young Child’s Mother, the Holy Virgin Mary Theotokos; and in Her womb, in the Cave of Bethlehem and in the Tomb of Golgotha, we come to the ‘Door’ that is Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God who is the Son of the Virgin Ewe. He is the ‘Door of the Sheep. Whoever shall enter in through Him, will be saved, and find pasture. [Jn 10.7, 9].

This morning’s Gospel, in other words, reveals to us how Christmas opens onto Pascha. ‘Rachel weeping for Her children,’ is, as I said, drawn from Jeremiah (chptr 31/38 LXX), from Jeremiah’s prophecy of resurrection. St Matthew sees this particular verse, it would seem, as cutting to the heart of the whole prophecy: ‘Thus saith the LORD,’ it says, ‘Let thy voice, O virgin of Israel (!), cease from weeping, and thine eyes from tears. For they [the slaughtered children] shall return from the land of thine enemies. There shall be an abiding home for thy children.’ What is that ‘abiding place’? The Church tells us this morning: the slaughtered innocents are the first martyrs for Christ. their abiding home is the Kingdom of Heaven in the loving maternal embrace of the Virgin Ewe, Rachel, Christ’s Holy Mother, the Theotokos.

So, if Christmas opens onto Pascha, then Christmas is the beginning of the New Creation that is finished on the Day of the LORD’s Holy Pascha (Jn 19.30). In the Cave of Christmas, the Creator God is born of the Virgin as a little Child in a new way. He comes forth as the New Adam from the womb of the New Eve. And in His Holy Pascha, the uncreated, eternal Light in whom is the Life of men is placed in a New Tomb, in which no man had ever been laid. And even as He is placed in the Tomb (as Adam was placed in the Garden in the beginning) on the evening of the Sabbath, He shines out from the darkness (Lk 23.54), just as He shone forth from the darkness of creation in the form of the Law, in whose light the world came to be. For He is the True Light in whom is the Life of men. And when He is placed in the darkness of the Tomb on the night of the Sabbath, He is not destroyed. Rather, death is destroyed by His death, and on those sitting in the region and shadow of death the Light of Life dawns.

The Light is not extinguished, neither is His voice silenced. For

the heavens declare His Glory. The firmament proclaims His handiwork. Day to day pours forth speech. Night proclaims knowledge to the Night. The song of His Gospel goes out to the ends of the earth, its proclamation to the ends of the universe. There is no speech, there are no words of His Gospel whose melodious sound is not heard. For He placed His Body in the sun, and like a Bridegroom He came forth from the Tomb as from a bridal chamber. His exodus is from one end of the heavens to the other, and there is no one who is hidden from the warmth of His uncreated and eternal love (Ps 18/19.1-6)

And now the Spirit and His Bride, the Church, are crying out: ‘Come to the Light!’  For God is with us! In the darkness of this world’s suffering and misery, the Light of eternal life shines and is not put out; His Light illumines all. His Cross conquers all, for God is born of the Virgin and is now our brother, our kinsman. In our flesh and blood (Heb 2.14), God is with us! Let us understand! We are no more children of the darkness. We are children of the Day, children of God, children of the Light. O LORD, God With Us, glory to Thee! Amen! Most holy Theotokos, save us!