Rachel Weeping      

            The scripture passage of Matthew 2:16-18 often gets lost between the sounds of angels singing and camel hooves moving over desert sands.  This story is found in the gospel of Matthew right after the wise men leave the stable and return to their own countries by another way.  With only twelve days separating Christmas morning and Epiphany (when we traditionally hear the story of the wise men’s visitation and remember the Light being shared with the whole world, not just the Jewish community of Bethlehem) there is little time for the unpleasant story.  This coming Sunday is the first Sunday after Epiphany and we will have already moved on to when Jesus was baptized in Jordan’s water.

            It is not surprising that we skip over this story in the Bible.  It is painful.  It is unimaginable, or so we say.  It is unthinkable, or so we say.   Maybe we skip over it because there is an element of us in it that we don’t want to admit.  We would rather blame Herod.

            When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the wise men.  Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah:

            “A voice was heard in Ramah,

                        wailing and loud lamentation,

            Rachel weeping for her children;

                        she refused to be consoled,

                                    because they were no more.

            What does that have to do with us, you may ask.  Isn’t this just a page filler so we can get Jesus out of Bethlehem and back to Nazareth where he can grow into adulthood?

            The Bible is nothing if not sparse on “page fillers”.  It is filled with short passages that carry profound messages.  This is one of those passages.

            On the surface it is a story of a petulant ruler who, when he didn’t get his own way, he had a tantrum and took it out on the general population.  His hold on power was far from secure.  He was indebted to his position because of connections and concessions to Rome.  He wanted to be the “big man on campus”.  That would never be with Rome in power.  When he heard about the possibility of God’s Anointed One being born and even existing, he knew that was a threat to his power.  If his scheme had worked the baby Jesus would have been quietly executed and the threat to Herod would disappear.

            It did not work out that way and Herod took out his anger on the children.

            That story, by itself, is horrific enough.

            Yet we dismiss it as past history to our own peril.  History has shown us that whenever someone feels threatened (or a group of “someones”), there is a tendency to want to dehumanize those that are presumed to be the cause. 

            Herod has shown his ugly face in the instances of:

·      the beating and lynching of  black Americans because of the color of their skin and their supposed threat to a white way of life

·      the gas chambers and the concentration camps that were designed to eliminate all Jewish people from Europe

·      the death march on the Bataan Peninsula

·      the Internment Camps in the United States

·      the Killing Fields of Cambodia where more than a million people were killed by the Khmer Rouge Regime

·      the Gulags of Stalin’s Russia

·      the Rwandan genocide of Tutsi by the Hutu government

·      the Bosnian genocide committed by Bosnian Serbs

“Herod” has sometimes been a ruthless ruler.  “Herod” has also been the “average person” who has been complicit as these obscenities keep going on.

            There were signs that something horrific would happen in each in every case.  The Gospel writer known as Matthew records that when King Herod heard that the “king of the Jews” had been born he set about asking questions and getting information.  The chief priests and the scribes provided Herod with the probable location, Bethlehem (from the book of Micah).  That bit of information was the source of a great deal of grief.  People knew when black men were in danger of a rope.  The crowds helped round people us and cheered the assassins as the deed was done.  People in Germany, and throughout Europe, knew what was being carried in those long box car trains.  Some courageously tried to shield their Jewish neighbors at the risk of  their own lives.  The world saw the swastika emblazoned everywhere and heard the hateful speech.  There was no disguising the intent of that symbol or that hate language.

                                         

            We honor the Veterans who fought in World War II at county fairs and in parades.  Many of them saw the horrors of the swastika and hate language.  We join with Israel in the words “Never Again”.

            And yet – here we are in 2017 – and the hate language continues.  The swastika has taken a prominent place as a symbol of hate painted on the side of a schoolhouse that once was the setting for teaching black children or on the outside of the Jewish Reform Seminary in Cincinnati. 

            We need to read and reread this small scriptural passage and remember that we are in the position of complying with the horrific desire of those who spew this hate and fly this symbol.  We help spread this disease of hate by our silence.  And, make no mistake about it, our silence has deadly consequences.

            Herod’s desire was to kill the Christ Child.  He wanted to snuff out the Light of the World.  He wanted the world to be centered in him personally.  He wanted to thwart God’s Own Plan.

            Thanks be to God, Herod did not win this one.  But the “Herods – powerful and ordinary” have won far to many times.  Too many lights have been snuffed out.  Too many Rachels have wept at the loss of their loved ones.  Too many people have been without consolation.

            We cannot be silent.  We cannot let the “Herods” win. 

            Love came down at Christmas – a Love beyond our comprehension – a Love for you and for every single person in the entire world yesterday, today, and tomorrow.  Let us let the Light of Love shine so strongly that it overcomes those who fear so much they are filled with hate.  Let us not be silent in the face of hate.

Grace and peace,

Rev. Clara