Anglican Orthodox Church Worldwide Communion
by Bishop Jerry Ogles
Sermon, 1st Sunday after Christmas (Holy Innocents), 28 December 2025
"Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently enquired of the wise men."
The Collect.
O ALMIGHTY God, who out of the mouths of babes and sucklings hast ordained strength, and madest infants to glorify thee by their deaths; Mortify and kill all vices in us, and so strengthen us by thy grace, that by the innocency of our lives, and constancy of our faith even unto death, we may glorify thy holy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
This Sunday we observe a special confluence of two Holy Days - the 1st Sunday after Christmas, and Holy Innocents. We will exam both in their relationship to the Advent of our Lord at Christmastide.
I need not remind any of this congregation the profound love our Lord bears for children - the most innocent, as well as the most exploited, class of humanity - on God’s good earth. “Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 18:3 How do we become as little children? It is not the natural state of man to be as little children - it is a spiritual gift imparted by the Holy Spirit. It requires humility and surrender to the spirit over the desires of the flesh. Those are two qualities of the little child.
As our Collect for the Day points out, the children of Bethlehem glorified Christ in their death being first of all martyrs for Christ. They perished as victims, yet, Christ would die to make our eternal living possible. In our 1stEpistle, we read of the standing of the Lamb of God on Mt. Zion. He is surrounded by a large host bearing the Namer of their Father written “in their foreheads” - not ON their foreheads as the yellow journalist of fiction depict them. It is the frontal lobe of the brain in which decisions of judgment and morality are conceived. Those who have, without mental reservation, committed their lives to Christ have that seal in their foreheads. Those who follow Christ follow Him all the way just as the lambs follow their shepherd. Thos depicted in Revelations are termed the first-fruits unto God just as you and I, if chosen of the Lord, are fruits of the latter days.
In our Gospel from Holy Innocents (Matthew 2:13-18), we find that the Wise Men had been warned of God not to return to Herod with the news of the Lord’s birth. Herod was irate since he had inquired of the first appearing of the Star - a question which would help him to compute the age of the Holy child in order to insure that He would die with the others in Bethlehem.
The greed for power and pelf dominated the soul of Herod. Such a corrupted soul enabled him to order the death of every child of two years age and below (in order to insure that Christ would be among them) with complete moral impunity. Do you believe that to be the last attack on the Christ-Child? No, it was not. Even in our day event the mention of His birth is shunned by those who desire to be free of the authority and rule of Goad as Sovereign over them. At first, Santa Claus was invented to take the place of the birth of Christ in the minds of our youth. This figure was supposed to know all about the hearts and souls of children knowing when they had been ‘naughty or nice.’ That was not a complete victory, so they conceived of erasing His very name from the Holy Day by referring to the day as Xmas (disregard the argument for the Greek symbol). This, too, was not a complete victory, so they began referring to the Christmas Season as Winter Break - in fact, anything will do but CHRISTMAS in the demented minds of His adversaries.
The same kind of mind that would slay innocent little children still rules in the depraved minds of some scholars and rulers of our day. The globalist concept of government MUST exclude Christ if unlimited power is to be surrendered to New World Order.
In Jeremiah 31, we learn of God’s promise to His people Israel (all those of every race that have believed in Christ as the seed of Abraham). Though those in national Israel have sat in darkness, those without the knowledge of that promise among the gentiles suffered even more smothering darkness in the absence of hope. It is by the unmerited love of God by which we are all drawn to His Throne of Mercy and Grace: “Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.” Jeremiah 31:3. Finally, we are reminded of the women of Ramah - the land of Bethlehem where the blessed Rachel wept and died. She had been barren until the Lord blessed her with Joseph, and then with Benjamin. She died at childbirth in Ramah. “Thus saith the LORD; A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation, and bitter weeping; Rachel weeping for her children refused to be comforted for her children, because they were not.” This reference to Rachel weeping for her children applies more strongly to the children who were murdered by Herod at Bethlehem of Ramah.
There are a great many wicked of our day that will face a day of grave pain and suffering - in fac, an eternity thereof - at the coming of Christ for their abuse of innocent little children. Never in the history of the world has that abuse reached such unbelievable magnitude. “But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.” Matthew 18:6
It is a imperative Command of the Lord that we not offend little children: “Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven For the Son of man is come to save that which was lost. How think ye? if a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and goeth into the mountains, and seeketh that which is gone astray? And if so be that he find it, verily I say unto you, he rejoiceth more of that sheep, than of the ninety and nine which went not astray. Even so it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish.” Matthew 18:10-14
Though we observe sin all around us abounding, yet, we are not to despond. We are not to venture from the Truth, the Way, and the Life; but stay on the Narrow Way and minimize, as much as is in our power the evil that exist around us. “Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!”
