Bishop Arthur J. Serratelli

In 1223, St. Francis of Assisi created the very first Nativity crèche in the town of Greccio, Italy. He staged the birth of Jesus, using people to play the role of the biblical characters. His novel idea not only excited the imagination of believers, but it also inspired them and increased their devotion in celebrating Christmas. Within a few years, Pope Nicholas IV (the first Franciscan Pope) commissioned a permanent Nativity crèche to be set up in Rome in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore. Within a hundred years, every church in Italy had its own crèche.

Today, Nativity scenes appear in every shape and size. They appear in churches, in homes, shopping centers and in other public places. People recreate the first Christmas in Nativity scenes with figures of Mary, Joseph and the child Jesus. Some add angels along with the shepherds and wise men. Others create elaborate scenes with workmen and craftsmen, families and children from their own country. From simple articles of devotion to works of art, manger scenes reflect the culture and people of every land. Each manger scene is an act of faith in art.

Typically, most Nativity arrangements include two figures not found in the gospel accounts of the birth of Jesus. Neither Matthew nor Luke mention the presence of the ox and the donkey. Yet, there they are in our Christ­mas mangers. Their presence in our manger scenes recall the prophecy of Isaiah: “The ox knows its owner, and an ass, its master’s manger” (1:3). At his birth, Jesus is placed in a manger, a feedbox for animals. It is, thus, no stretch of the imagination to visualize these animals near the place where they are fed. Now where God’s creatures find their food, in a manger, we find the One who is the Bread of Life, the One who nourishes us with himself. Thus, the manger of Bethlehem is the first altar on which is placed the Body and Blood of Christ.

With all the figures found in our manger scenes, there is the representation of one individual that is always left out. Unlike the ox and the donkey not mentioned in the gospels, this individual is mentioned. In fact, he has a major role to play in the Christmas story. But, no one ever puts him in their Nativity scene. He is Herod, the brutal ruler who ordered the slaughter of the Holy Innocents.

The wise men from the East come to the Christ child much later than the shepherds. As soon as the angel announces Jesus’ birth, the shepherds hurry from their fields to find the child wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a nearby manger. But the magi come from a distance.

It certainly took the magi more than a month and a half to follow the star and find the Savior of the world. Forty days after the birth of Jesus, Mary presents her child in the Temple in Jerusalem. She makes the offering of the poor, two doves (Lk 2:22-24). The wise men must have come after this event. Otherwise, she would have made a much richer offering from the gifts that they had brought.

The star led the magi to Jerusalem. There they inquired of Herod where the new-born king was born. When told that the Scriptures point to Bethlehem, they depart and leave Herod troubled. When the wise men do not return to tell Herod where the new king is, Herod calculates the age of Jesus from what the wise men had told them and then ordered the slaughter of all male children in Bethlehem and its immediate vicinity, two years old and younger.

Herod was ever fearful that someone would usurp his throne. No one was safe from his brutality. When he perceived that his own sons, Alexander, Aristobulus and Antipater as threats to his kingship, he had them killed. To such a brutal, unscrupulous man who murdered his favorite wife, Mariamne, his brother-in-law, his mother-in-law and his wife’s grandfather, the death of 20 or less young Jewish babies meant nothing. But, it did mean something to Matthew.

At the birth of Jesus, the loud shrieks of mothers lamenting their sons cut down by Herod’s cruel sword interrupt the sweet songs of angelic voices and the gentle lowing of the ox and braying of the donkey. Matthew would not have us forget that the Son of God enters a world plagued with evil, a world fraught with sin and senseless violence. Herod and his massacre of the Innocents belongs in the retelling of the first Christmas, because the Christ child comes to redeem the world in all its brutal ugliness. The Cross casts its shadow over the crib.