Sean Major-Campbell | Holy innocents still dying in Israel, Palestine, and Jamaica

WE ARE still in the season of Christmas. It lasts for 12 days: continuing through to the sixth day of January or the Feast of the Epiphany. The message from His Grace, The Most Rev Dr Howard Gregory, Archbishop of the West Indies, Primate and Metropolitan Bishop of Jamaica and The Cayman Islands, is most pertinent in timely and sober reflection:

“It cannot escape our attention that as Christmas 2023 approaches, there is an unprecedented level of carnage and death of thousands of innocent children in the war being conducted in Gaza. Earlier this year, we also witnessed similar acts of violence, kidnapping and death directed against children in the war between Russia and Ukraine. These are the most newsworthy of the wars currently being fought across the world, but more wars are going on simultaneously with the consequent displacement, migration and death impacting the lives of children and adults at levels the world has never known.

“The tragedy is that the ‘civilised world’ looks on in silence, even as the war chest and the expenditures on military equipment and military technology are advancing by trillions of dollars. Even more tragic is the fact that sections of the Christian community find within their understanding of the faith the imperative to stand behind these wars as acts of divine ordaining and avenues to peace.

“How can we celebrate Christmas with themes of joy, happiness, and peace in such a context? We need to remind ourselves that the Christmas story contains themes of light and darkness, and what we are witnessing in our world are manifestations of darkness. In our national context today, it speaks of poverty, crime, violence, and death, domestic violence, injustice, and social and economic inequalities.”

It is amid this reality that a message of hope is still affirmed. The archbishop also observes that “the truth is that images and experiences of darkness have never been absent from human history, and in particular, among people of the Judeo-Christian tradition. Indeed, it is present in the Christmas story which we celebrate at this time. The good news is that while the image of darkness is very real, it is only by the presence of the contrasting image of light that we can find our way through and beyond its boundaries.

The Christmas story is not a stand-alone event that happened at a point in time. Its origins are in the tradition and experience of the people of God and the fulfilment of the longing and hope of a people who trust in the compassion, justice, and saving intention of God for all of humanity as the source of light to the world. This is particularly significant as this expression of divine intent demonstrates a God who is the beginning and the end, a God who creates and who will redeem, and whatever the evidence to the contrary, a God who will gather up every loose end. Nothing will be lost; nothing will be meaningless.”

We do well to sit with these reflections from Archbishop Howard Gregory. A recollection of reality marked by war, pain, injustice, oppression and various manifestations of darkness, while seeing also the message of hope and new life and possibility. I am reminded of the well-known chorus, I am a promise, which we often hear children singing as they declare that they are a great big bundle of potentiality.

The message continues, “Luke 2:1-14 sets out for us the event which is at the heart of our celebration of Christmas. Joseph and Mary, expectant parents, like any normal parents-to-be, have wonderful plans for the birth of their child, but find instead, that they are relegated to the place with the animals. Does this not sound like the conditions under which pregnant women are giving birth in Gaza today?

With all of the hardship, gloom and anguish, there is cause for celebration as new life breaks forth, and we are then introduced to the central figure of Christmas, the baby Jesus. At the heart of Christmas stands an infant who from his birth was treated as an outsider, excluded, and on the fringe. It was an infant, who, from the outset, faced the evil and the murderous intention of Herod.

The infant is always a symbol of the vulnerable and the weak in society, and yet, it is through a helpless babe that God chose to reveal his presence and activity on behalf of his distressed and oppressed people.

In a world in which military, economic, technological, and social power rule, we must remind ourselves that our God did not have to match Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar, or Herod and their military and political power to win the day. Nor will our God need to match or defeat the powers of darkness of our time with anything other than the light which comes from the birth of a seemingly vulnerable baby.

Perhaps, we might consider the fact that our Lord continues to come to us in the faces, the smiles, the innocence, the cries, or even the screams of the vulnerable infants and children we see on our television each day, and all the children who are victims of violence in our world.”

Somebody needs the archbishop’s reminder today and for the year ahead. “… Through the Incarnation, therefore, God shows himself as a God of the abandoned, the rejected, the downtrodden and the despairing, and is present wherever men and women experience themselves and their situation as one of darkness.

Christmas, then, is not about the celebration of a trouble-free world, but, even in this world of violence, suffering, challenges, and depression, it is an affirmation of the hope which is ours because of the Incarnation which took place in the birth of Jesus.”

Oh that 2024 be a better year for the care and protection of all our children.

Fr Sean Major-Campbell is an Anglican priest and advocate for human dignity and human rights. Send feedback to seanmajorcampbell@yahoo.com or columns@gleanerjm.com