Rachel Weeping

I'm normally really good at compartmentalizing. 

I acknowledge grief or anger as I read my morning scripture, pray and journal while I finish my coffee, then set feelings aside as I move on with my day. 

Some days, though, those feelings follow me through the day. Yesterday, January 6, was such a day.

I kept remembering the strangeness of January 6, 2021, playing back bits of conversations with family members who wished they could have been there, who admire others who made the journey, who think an assault on our government was a high point of Christian witness. 

Jacobus de Voragine, Legenda aurea,
Tuscany, ca 1260

I found myself puzzling over the way Donald Trump emboldened bad behavior in other world leaders, grieving the ongoing war in Ukraine, the horrors still unfolding in Israel and Gaza. 

From there it wasn't far to lamenting the continuing tragedies at our southern border, now the world's deadliest land route for migrants.

Yesterday was Epiphany, the day liturgical churches commemorate the magi traveling to follow the star that led to Bethlehem. Normally Epiphany reminds me of light: the bright star in the darkness, the wise men carrying unexpected gifts.

This year I found myself in a darker place, thinking instead about Herod, the petty tyrant the magi visited as they traveled in search of the new-born king. I found myself thinking of the part of the Christmas story we intentionally omit when we talk about the star and shepherds and magi and angels. 

When we enact our annual Christmas Eve family pageant, we always end with Matthew 2:1-12. The magi arrive in Jerusalem, asking "Where is the One who has been born King of the Jews? We saw His star in the east and have come to worship Him.” 

The scribes, remembering the prophecy of Micah 5:2, point them toward Bethlehem, where they find Jesus and leave their gifts, then, warned by an angel, travel home by a different route. My son and two grandsons act as shepherds then magi, with paper crowns from the English Christmas crackers supplied by our English in-laws. 

We end our pageant with the first verse of "We Three Kings," then head for Christmas cookies and eggnog. 

But the story doesn't end there. The next six verses should be required reading in every church, every year, if only to shape our hearts on questions of immigration: 

When the Magi had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up!” he said. “Take the Child and His mother and flee to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the Child to kill Him.”

So he got up, took the Child and His mother by night, and withdrew to Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Herod. This fulfilled what the Lord had spoken through the prophet: “Out of Egypt I called My Son.”

When Herod saw that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was filled with rage. Sending orders, he put to death all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, according to the time he had learned from the Magi. Then what was spoken through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled:

“A voice is heard in Ramah,
weeping and great mourning,
Rachel weeping for her children,
and refusing to be comforted,

because they are no more.”

No one knows how many children were slaughtered in Bethlehem. There's no historical record, but plenty of evidence attesting to other ruthless murders initiated by Herod to maintain control and eliminate competitors. 

We may also never know for sure how many children have died at the US border, or in the bloody attacks in Israel and Gaza. 

I haven't read much by Brian Zahnd, but have heard friends speak of him, and stumbled on his blog while thinking about those slaughtered children, and the refugee baby carried into Egypt. In The Slaughter of the Innocents: The Dark Side of Christmas (December 28, 2018), Zahnd says:

history books tell us that most of civilization has been lived in the time of kings like Herod — that is, in the time of tyrant kings. I’m talking about the time of Herod, the time of Pharaoh, the time of Nebuchadnezzar, the time of Augustus, the time of Nero, all the way into modern times — the time of Hitler and Mussolini, the time of Franco and Salazar, the time of Pinochet and Putin. It’s tragically true that most people have lived their lives in the time of tyrant kings. 

The post is worth reading for more background on Herod, an explanation of the reference to Rachel, and the geograhic proximity of Bethlehem and Jerusalem. 

As Zahnd reminds us, there have always been tyrant kings, ready to sacrifice others to preserve their own power. 

There have always been refugees fleeing tyrants and war. 

There has always been darkness, and danger, and death. 

But that's not the end of the story. I find hope in Zahnd's conclusion:

Jesus’ invasion by birth into the dark time of tyrant kings gives us a choice: we can trust in the armed brutality of violent power or we can trust in the naked vulnerability of love. It seems like an absurd choice, but only one of these ways is the Jesus way. We have to choose between the old way of Caesar and the new way of Christ. It’s the choice between the sword and the cross. We have to decide if we’ll pledge our allegiance to the Empire of Power or the Empire of Love, but we can’t do both.

Following the Jesus way of loving enemies and doing good to those who hate us isn’t necessarily safe and it doesn’t mean we won’t ever get hurt, but it does mean the darkness won’t prevail.

Pieter Brueghel the Elder, The Massacre of the Innocents
Belgium, ca 1565

 Earlier Epiphany posts:

What the Magi Found, Dec 28, 2011 (on mystery, faith, poetry)
Balaam's Oracle, Magis' Star, Jan 5, 2014 (on a talking ass and other strange events)
Epiphany and Filoxenia, Jan 4, 2015 (on refugees and strangers)
A Jungle Gym Epiphany, Jan 10, 2016 (on belief and unbelief)
Epiphany: Power and Prayer, Jan 8, 2017 (new year thoughts on evil and the call to live as agents of light)

You can read Zahnd's full post here: The Slaughter of the Innocents: The Dark Side of Christmas.