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SUMMARY:Family Communion
DTSTART:20251228T100000Z
DTEND:20251228T111500Z
DTSTAMP:20260418T125429Z
UID:12762552025-12-28 10:00:00+00:00achurchnearyou
CATEGORIES:
DESCRIPTION:Family Communion for the First Sunday of Christmas: celebrant 
 the Revd Tola Badejo.\n\nFirst reading: Hebrews 2.10 – 18\nGospel: Matth
 ew 2. 13 – 23 \n\nThe Epistle to the Hebrews explains that Christ 'had t
 o become like his brothers and sisters in every respect'\, meaning that he
  had to share all the worst things human life can deliver. The Gospel rela
 tes the terrible\, but sadly by no means unique\, episode called the 'Mass
 acre of the Innocents'\, in which Herod ordered the killing of every child
  in and around Bethlehem who might have been the prophesied 'King of the J
 ews'. \n\nThere is no evidence beyond Matthew's Gospel to show that this m
 assacre really happened\, but that fact is potentially disturbing in itsel
 f. Bethlehem was a small community\, and the number of boys under two woul
 d not have been large. From the viewpoint of contemporary historians\, the
  crime would have been insignificant compared to the atrocities Herod undo
 ubtedly committed\, or the brutal violence meted out on a regular basis by
  those with the power to do so. The idea that something so appalling could
  be pushed to the side of people's consciousness must make us reflect on o
 ur own ability to look the other way when events are too disturbing. \n\nW
 e can see some of these mental processes at work in the original version o
 f Pieter Bruegel's 'Massacre of the Innocents' painting\, which now doesn'
 t show a massacre. Bruegel based the scene on contemporary events in the S
 panish Netherlands: the Hapsburg emperor took exception to its depiction o
 f his own soldiers as the perpetrators\, and insisted that all the images 
 of dead and dying children be overpainted with something less shocking\, s
 o that now we see the agonised response of the children's parents but not 
 the reason for it. If anything\, this makes the painting more universal an
 d more powerful.
GEO:0.037423;51.469833
LOCATION:Kidbrooke\, St Nicholas
URL:https://www.achurchnearyou.com/church/671/service-and-events/events/12
 76255/
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