Sermons at St. John's Presbyterian Church

Suffering of the Innocent

 

Transcribed from the sermon preached January 16, 2011

 

The Reverend Max Lynn, Pastor

Scripture Readings:  Jeremiah 31: 10-17, Matthew 2:7-23

 

If you haven’t noticed I keep coming back to this passage in Matthew.  I pointed out last week that the Magi visit Jesus in a house, not a barn as in Luke, and did you notice that the family doesn’t start out in Nazareth and travel to Bethlehem for the census, they only go to live in Nazareth after returning from Egypt.  But those differences are not why I return.

 Today we add the suffering of the innocents and the voice in Ramah, Rachael weeping for her children. She is not going to let God or Herod off the hook. We like to skip this part and go right to Jesus’ baptism; it doesn’t fit well with Away in the Manger and Silent Night.  Herod brings us the dark side of the Christmas story.   Van Horn calls Herod the "Ebenezer Scrooge without the conversion, the Grinch without a change of heart.”  Evil doesn’t roll over and give up, and mothers don’t stop grieving just because the Messiah has come.  But what we get is a God who cries with Rachael, and gives hope and strength to go forward following the Messiah, the Liberator, the Prince of Peace, the King of Eternal Life. On meditating upon this passage, I begin to get the sense there is a special connection between Rachel and God – as if Rachel cries God’s tears out loud.

We see here in Matthew that Jesus is the new Moses, the new Israel; the Virgin nation of God, with the Spirit, has finally given birth to the Son of God.  The birth narrative is a recapitulation of the history of Israel, in a nutshell.  Herod, like Pharaoh, threatened by an heir to the throne, kills all the boys under two.  As Moses escapes Pharaoh, so Jesus escapes Herod.  Jesus goes to Egypt and comes out again, as Israel did.  Thus he arrives, like Moses, to liberate his people, and lead them into a new relationship with God, with each other, and even with their enemies.  Like Israel is to lead the world to relationship with God, so Jesus now opens all to be born again, heirs, sons and daughters of God.

 In his history of the period, Josephus says nothing about this slaughter of Herod's, although Herod was certainly a slime bag.  When he came to power in 37 BC, Herod murdered the entire Sanhedrin. 

Herod also murdered two of his own sons.  And fearing he would not be mourned when he died, he ordered hundreds of executions just before his death so there would be people mourning. The order was not carried out, but you get the idea confirmed in Matthew, that Herod, though King of Israel, was a power hungry and evil man like Pharaoh.

We also know from Josephus, that right after the birth of Jesus and the death of Herod in 4 BC, a messianic revolt was put down by the Romans and 2,000 rebels were crucified. (Josephus, Antiquities 17.295).  But, according to Matthew, the baby Messiah, Jesus, survived. So Matthew may be taking symbolic liberties with the history surrounding Jesus birth, but it is true enough to know Jesus didn’t enter a warm fuzzy Christmas card world.  There is a dark side to Christmas. 

 Jesus enters a world of real pain, of serious dysfunction, a world of brokenness and political oppression where innocent children are put at risk from sin and suffer at the hands of those who fear loss of power.

[17] Then was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah:
[18] "A voice was heard in Ramah,
wailing and loud lamentation,
she refused to be consoled,
because they were no more."

Remember Rachel’s tragic love story?  Jacob was in love with her and didn’t want to marry her sister Leah.  To earn the right to marry her he served two seven-year terms as servant. Finally they get to be together, but then Rachael didn’t have kids.  Finally she confronted Jacob and God, “Give me children or I will die” and she gives birth to Joseph, which means, “let there be another.”  But as she is giving birth to the other, she dies, but not before naming him Benoni, “son of my sorrow.”  Rachel is the first mother in Scripture who dies giving birth. Jacob doesn’t go for that name and switches it to Ben-Jamin, “Son of my right hand.”  Frederick Niedner notes that the “Second name lifted the burden from father and son, but is also silenced the dying mother’s voice.” (Frederick Niedner. Rachel Weeping. The Christian Century, December 14, 2004, p. 17.)

For generations Rachel remained silent in her tomb near Bethlehem, then as Babylonian soldiers gather offspring of Rachel, at the fort in Ramah to march them off to captivity, Jeremiah hears her wailing cries rising from the grave.  She refused to be consoled, because they were no more. Here in Matthew, her cries are heard again.

We understand Rachel. If God helps the family of Jesus escape, why not the rest?  On the road to peace and justice, why is it that innocent suffer?  For one people to get a homeland, why are another dispossessed?  Why do janitors and businesswomen, firemen, mothers and fathers die on 9/11?  As we hunt down Osama Bin Laden, the mothers of Afghanistan must ask, why must our children die?  Is this God so bent on partiality?  What we learn from the gospel story, from the fact that Jesus lived through childhood to love, speak, heal and die as a young adult, is that in the midst of suffering and oppression, God is there loving and forgiving us and leading us onto a new day, a new world where all children thrive in peace. We see, try as they may, the forces of darkness, our own darkness, cannot extinguish the cries for justice, nor extinguish the eternal life and love of God. 

In 1963, The Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham was used as a meeting-place for civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King, Ralph Abernathy and Fred Shutterworth. Tensions became high when the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE) became involved in a campaign to register African American to vote in Birmingham.

On Sunday, 15th September 1963, a white man was seen getting out of a car and placing a box under the steps of the church. Soon afterwards, at 10:22 a.m., the bomb exploded killing 4 girls and wounding 23 others.  Only a week before, George Wallace, the Herod of Alabama had told the New York Times that to stop integration Alabama needed a "few first-class funerals."

I finish today with excepts from MLKs Eulogy for the Martyred Children:

Eulogy for the Martyred Children
September 18, 1963. Birmingham, Ala.

This afternoon we gather in the quiet of this sanctuary to pay our last tribute of respect to these beautiful children of God. They entered the stage of history just a few years ago, and in the brief years that they were privileged to act on this mortal stage, they played their parts exceedingly well. Now the curtain falls; they move through the exit; the drama of their earthly life comes to a close. They are now committed back to that eternity from which they came.

These children—unoffending, innocent, and beautiful—were the victims of one of the most vicious and tragic crimes ever perpetrated against humanity. Yet they died nobly. They are the martyred heroines of a holy crusade for freedom and human dignity.

And so this afternoon in a real sense they have something to say to each of us in their death. They have something to say to every minister of the gospel who has remained silent behind the safe security of stained-glass windows. They have something to say to every politician [Audience:] (Yeah) who has fed his constituents with the stale bread of hatred and the spoiled meat of racism. They have something to say to a federal government that has compromised with the undemocratic practices of southern Dixiecrats…  They say to each of us, black and white alike, that we must substitute courage for caution. (Mmm) They say to us that we must be concerned not merely about who murdered them, but about the system, the way of life, the philosophy which produced the murderers. Their death says to us that we must work passionately and unrelentingly for the realization of the American dream.

…May I now say a word to you, the members of the bereaved families? It is almost impossible to say anything that can console you at this difficult hour and remove the deep clouds of disappointment which are floating in your mental skies. But I hope you can find a little consolation from the universality of this experience. Death comes to every individual.

I hope you can find some consolation from Christianity's affirmation that death is not the end. Death is not a period that ends the great sentence of life, but a comma that punctuates it to more lofty significance. Death is not a blind alley that leads the human race into a state of nothingness, but an open door, which leads man into life eternal. Let this daring faith, this great invincible surmise, be your sustaining power during these trying days.

Now I say to you in conclusion, life is hard, at times as hard as crucible steel. (Mmm) It has its bleak and difficult moments. Like the ever-flowing waters of the river, life has its moments of drought and its moments of flood. (Yeah) Like the ever-changing cycle of the seasons, life has the soothing warmth of its summers and the piercing chill of its winters. (Yeah) But if one will hold on, he will discover that God walks with him, (Yeah. Well) and that God is able (Yeah) to lift you from the fatigue of despair to the buoyancy of hope and transform dark and desolate valleys into sunlit paths of inner peace. (Mmm)

Let us pray: God who sent your child into this dark and dangerous world, we pray for children, for our children and for children the world over that they may know your light.  May they know the love of both parents, of trustworthy and nurturing and challenging women and men, may they have milk and food to help them thrive, hygiene and medicine to keep them well, a sheltered time of innocence to learn and grow into healthy adult intimacy, and teachers and mentors to empower them reach their potential.  O Lord, May our children learn to recognize your spirit within them, that even when they make mistakes, even when times are tough, even when they suffer, they may trust in your unconditional love and purpose for their lives.  Mother of all, we thank you for all of those who extend their love and resources to shelter, protect and nurture children.  Comfort us with your grace, that even as we face our imperfections as parents and mentors, and are frustrated with the challenges of raising children in a difficult and challenging world, we may know this is a sacred calling, that our children are your children, and your love for us and them will not end.   By your Spirit empower us to work together with our children for a world where equality, peace and justice prevail.  Grant us the courage to change the things that should be changed, accept with grace what cannot be changed, and the wisdom to know the difference.