Kings against Kids (Matthew 2), Christmastide and ICE Raids
Feast of Epiphany (January 6th, 2026)
Thirty years ago, my then-young Jewish godson dubbed the Christmas season “the days of craze.” He wasn’t wrong: the consumer-industrial complex’s relentless seductive-compulsive huckstering drives us crazy by effectively drowning out the good (if subversive) news of Mary’s Magnificat and angelic pronouncements that God’s sovereignty trumps empire. Sadly, the distraction continues through the “Twelve Days of Christmas,” long domesticated by that goofy song about gift-giving. Admittedly it’s fun to sing—especially when performed in group parts acting out each gift (as we did again at our Farm Church Solstice gathering this month). Unfortunately, it contributes to obscuring the real story of this holy season.
Christmastide (Dec 25-Jan 6) is the shortest season of the church year: just those twelve days. But it speaks powerfully to our historical moment through two Feast Days, whose stories are inspired by the Hebrew Bible. One commends courageous resistance to authoritarianism, the other warns against official piety that masks death-dealing policies.
- The Feast of Epiphany (January 6th, on which the Eastern Church celebrates Christmas) commemorates the three Magi, drawn by a star to the Holy Child’s side. Matthew’s account (Mt 2:1-12) alludes to Numbers 22-23, in which a Canaanite king summons a prophet “from the east” to curse Israel, but blessing is pronounced instead. Similarly, Herod is betrayed by Magi “from the east” who recognize Mary’s Child as “King of the Jews”—Herod’s own title! Unpersuaded by Herod’s pious pretense of paying homage, they slip out of the country without providing him with the Child’s location.
- What ensues is Herod’s indiscriminate slaughter of children, commemorated earlier on Dec 28th, the Feast of the Holy Innocents (Epiphany thus its “prequel”). This sobering holy day was instituted by the Latin Church in the fifth century to discourage a drift toward celebrating the Nativity in innocuous and triumphal terms as the faith became increasingly controlled by the Roman Empire.
These biblical tales provide a much-needed corrective to the holiday season’s saccharine sentimentality and cacophonous commercialism.
The Innocents fell on a Sunday this year, but few churches chose to follow it or the poignant narrative of Mt 2:12-18. Matthew riffs on Exodus 1-2, in which baby Moses’ life is similarly threatened by a paranoid potentate, but saved by an “underground railroad.” The parallels are instructive: the “threat” of an infant prophet unleashes a
military policy of infanticide after royal attempts to channel violence covertly (i.e. through Pharaoh’s midwives or Herod’s astrologers) fail because of those characters’ refusal to cooperate. (Right: Meister des Codex Egberti, 10th century; photo: Kerald.)
Their acts of conscience to protect the innocent are simultaneously risky acts of political disobedience. And the Empire inevitably strikes back. “Rachel weeps” (Mt 2:17f = Jer 31:14) over an absurd mismatch: emperors vs. infants! Yet as imperial minds plot genocide, God’s messengers enter the world at risk: floating down the Nile in a basket (Ex 2:3), spirited out of the country on back roads (Mt 2:14). It is the presence of Power vs. the power of Presence: God with us. (For a more detailed study of these texts, see here.)
These two Feast days of Christmastide compel us to re-center our attention on those who are at risk in a world ruled by autocrats, interrupting our privileged reveling to remind us of the manifold ways in which human lives are caught in the cross-fire of cruel policies. In Palestine or Venezuela, Ukraine or Niger. And here in Ventura County, through ICE abductions that shatter families and place whole parts of our community in fear.
That’s why BCM joined Ventura County Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice this month in composing and publicizing an interfaith sign-on letter protesting ICE’s raids in our county. It reads:
(Image left: Pacifica Radio NYC.)
On October 29, 2025, the U.S. Department of Justice launched an unprecedented attack on VC Defensa, a grassroots organization committed to immigrant and community safety, support and civil and human rights in light of recent violent and often illegal ICE raids and deportations throughout Ventura County. The DOJ issued a press release accusing VC Defensa activists of “impeding” ICE officers, and set up a sting operation in Oxnard to arrest members of VC Defensa’s rapid response team (see more here).
As concerned people of faith and goodwill, we are compelled to speak and act publicly against governmental attempts to criminalize groups providing effective organizing in our community to protect immigrants and other vulnerable people from immoral government overreach in immigration raids and arrests.
We stand with all those across the United States who oppose the escalating campaign of fear and repression by heavily armed and masked ICE agents, and who support the civil and human rights of immigrants and their families. We appreciate that since January 2025, the hotlines managed by VC Defensa and 805 Undocufund have served as key point of contacts for members of our communities who are living in fear of arrest and detention by ICE, Border Patrol, and other law enforcement agencies due to real or perceived irregular status.
VC Defensa and 805 Undocufund, whose volunteers include members of our faith congregations and organizations, respond to hotline calls within minutes, are at the scene to help quickly quash rumors, verify and document ICE arrests when they occur, and provide families with needed information about anyone detained. Both organizations provide food to families who are suddenly without their key bread winners, and they have led dozens of “Know Your Rights” trainings in churches, libraries and other public and private spaces, equipping hundreds of volunteers to help protect our neighbors.
Our Abrahamic traditions call us to act. During this Advent and Christmas season, Christians remember how Jesus of Nazareth was an undocumented refugee who suffered displacement and marginalization by a hostile regime. Hebrew scripture emphasizes, “The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as one of your citizens; you shall love them as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I, the Eternal, am your God.” (Leviticus 19:33) And in Matthew 25:35, Jesus says, “For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me.”
We call for an end to intimidation tactics by the Department of Justice, FBI, CPB, ICE, state and local law enforcement against members of our community. And we stand in solidarity with the community services provided by VC Defensa and 805 Undocufund, because in our democracy, neither federal, state, nor county authorities have the right to target or criminalize community organizations that lawfully defend civil and human rights.
[To sign on, go here. See a recent piece in Sojourners about other church responses to ICE raids in California, and a report on the most recent (12/16) abductions in Oak View here.]
