The Christmas carol "The Twelve Days of Christmas" is a holdover of days gone by when the celebration of Christmas began on Christmas Day and continued through Epiphany (January 6th). Today is the sixth day of Christmas (six geese a laying?), only half way through the traditional Christmas celebration. But, as far as most people are concerned, Christmas is over. With our attention turned to the new year's celebration and the stores already putting out Valentines products, Christmas is quickly becoming little more than a memory (albeit a memory kept alive through gift cards and credit card bills).
In light of our culture's quick disposal of Christmas, we might think that "the death of Christmas" refers to the way it has lost its purpose and power. For most people around us, Christmas is a fully secularized holiday with Jesus playing a minor role (if any role at all). Is it any surprise that once Jesus forces His way into Christmas on Christmas morning that people quickly wrap up the holiday and move on to the next celebration? But "the death of Christmas" refers to something else, something that makes Christmas powerful and effective, not weak and empty like the Christmas our society has crafted.
In today's Gospel we are confronted with the first death of Christmas: Herod's slaughter of the innocents. In the tradition of the Church reflected in the hymn "Sweet Flowerets of the Martyr Band," the baby boys who died by Herod's sword were the first martyrs of Christendom. Just as it had been prophesied, their blood was shed in testimony to the birth of the Messiah. Their brutal slayings are a vivid reminder to us that Christmas ushers in a period of fierce spiritual battle as Satan seeks to destroy the One who came to save us from sin, death, and everlasting punishment. How did Jesus save us? Not by remaining a helpless, little baby, but by growing up to be a man under God's Law, living through the hardships of life in our fallen world, and then dying in our place. The Cross is the final, full, and complete "death of Christmas." Through it you have a reason to celebrate Christ's birth without ceasing and a message to share with a world that doesn't know the peace Christmas brings.
