The Courage of Joseph : Matthew 2:13-end

The Holy Innocents and the Paths of Fear, Faith and Formation

The 28th of December, is a solemn and significant day in the Christian calendar.

It is the day we honour the memory of the infants killed by King Herod, after the birth of Jesus.

Those children are known today as the Holy Innocents.

On this day, we are brought face to face with one of the darkest moments in Scripture.

Because Herod was a man ruled by paranoia and insecurity.

He was frightened of losing what he had, and of anyone who might unsettle the fragile world he’d built around himself.

That fear drove him into suspicion…  into violence… and finally into the killing of the little ones of Bethlehem.

This is a terrible reminder of what happens when fear becomes the map by which a life is lived, and Herod walked his whole life on such a;

Path of Fear

But, anxiety is still rampant in our world today.

Because we live in a fast-changing society that is edgy, fearful, and quick to judge.

I suspect it was similar in the time of Matthew’s gospel too —  just with a different set of worldly rules. 

Into that world, governed by Herod, stepped Joseph — walking a very different path to him.

Joseph Walked on the Path of Faith 

Father Darren helped us see this more clearly in his sermon last Sunday.

He reminded us that Joseph was a good and faithful man — faithful to God’s law, careful in the way he lived, and genuinely compassionate.

But he was also, understandably, afraid when he discovered Mary was pregnant.

Then an angel came to him with the words, ‘Do not be afraid,’ and referred him to Isaiah’s promise that God would come to earth – and live amongst us.

Fr Darren emphasised that Isaiah’s promise of God being with us;  ‘is not a theological concept — it is a lived reality’.

Then Reverend Indira spoke, on Christmas Day, of how we can see God’s love in action all around us in selfless acts of kindness, carried out in ordinary and everyday moments.

She told us ‘God is with us in the shape of kindness’.

I’ve been reflecting on their words this week, and it’s helped me see more clearly how we can catch glimpses of God being with us  —  in the kindness we see around us, as well as in our own natural instinct to help others.

For example: the automatic impulse to protect a child…  to comfort someone who is hurting…  or to defend a stranger. 

But, I don’t believe these natural reflexes are accidents of biology. 

I believe they arise from a deep-seated intuition; a sensing of God’s own fingerprint of love, pressed gently into each heart.

As a quiet sign that we were made by Love, for Love.

And Joseph lived in that place  

When God spoke, he listened. When danger came, he responded by taking the baby Jesus to safety in Egypt.

While Herod destroyed lives to protect himself, Joseph risked his own to protect the life entrusted to him.

Joseph demonstrated what faith and trust look like in motion —  quiet,  steady, and courageous. 

And using these God-given strengths, he was eventually able to take the young Jesus from Egypt to be raised in safety at Nazareth.

The Path of Formation

But fortunately today, not many people are as bad as Herod, or sadly, as good as Joseph.

And today, most of us walk on a middle way, let’s call it the Path of Formation.

This is the path where fear and trust mingle.  A path where we sometimes act unwisely… and sometimes listen well.

A path where we are not who we were, but not yet who we will be.

I was chatting with a friend in the park recently, who told me that God’s presence in his life, over many years, had been transformational. 

He was really grateful, he said, that he had found the right way and wondered how his life would have developed without it.

I was pleased for him, and thought: this is a great example of how God meets us on our journey and slowly shapes us into people who can take the next faithful step.

But make no mistake, the Path of Formation is not dramatic or heroic.

It is a path of small decisions…  quiet prayers… and the steady work of ordinary everyday faithfulness. 

And as we are faithful to God, so too is he faithful to us.

The path of foremation is the path where we learn to notice fear, without letting it lead us;

and to sense God’s presence without moving away.

It’s the path where God forms us — not in one great moment, but in a thousand small ones. 

Reflection

As we remember the Holy Innocents — the children caught in the crossfire of Herod’s fear — we are reminded how easily fear can distort a life, a community, even a whole world.

And how much the world today still needs people like Joseph: people who will protect and act with courage in the face of fear.

Because Joseph didn’t wait for certainty. He trusted, and he responded. And that kind of trust still matters.

And, we don’t choose the world we are born into, any more than Joseph or the Holy Innocents did.

But we do choose the direction of our next steps. And those steps shape us.

So as we stand on the threshold of a new year, with all its talk of new resolutions, perhaps our direction for 2026 is really quite simple:

to keep trusting that God is with us, to keep taking the next faithful step, and to resist the various fears that shrink our lives.

And as this year ends and the next begins, let us learn from Joseph’s quiet courage.

And may God continue to shape us into people who carry light into a world that still knows too much darkness.