The news reports this fall on the execution of children by Isis guerrillas left us all speechless.

We received a number of desperate emails crying out for prayer. It was—and remains—horrible.

All this lingers in my mind as I re-read an often-overlooked portion of the Christmas story:

Herod was furious when he learned that the wise men had outwitted him. He sent soldiers to kill all the boys in and around Bethlehem who were two years old and under, because the wise men had told him the star first appeared to them about two years earlier. Herod's brutal action fulfilled the prophecy of Jeremiah: "A cry of anguish is heard in Ramah—weeping and mourning unrestrained. Rachel weeps for her children, refusing...