Christmas Infanticide

      I like to listen to Burl Ives, to play with the kids in front of the fire, and to sip coffee.  Yet, nothing ruins my "Christmas spirit" like reading the Bible.

      Upon hearing of the true King’s birth in Bethlehem, King Herod tries to kill Jesus by killing all the local boys Jesus’ age.   Matthew quotes Jeremiah: "A voice is heard--Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more…” Jeremiah continues, “This is what the LORD says: "Restrain your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears…for your children will return to their own land."

     Follow Matthew’s extraordinary use of Jeremiah:   first, the mourning Mothers of Bethlehem  are said to be like their ancestor, Rachel.  She, too, wept for her kidnapped sons, Joseph and Benjamin. Yet, in Genesis these boys are restored to the ancestral family.  In Jeremiah’s day, as the mothers of Israel watched their children being kidnapped, Jeremiah tells them not to cry because God will see to it that they someday will come home.  

      Matthew’s Christmas is about God entering a world of mass infanticide.  Matthew depends on the Mothers of Bethlehem knowing that Rachel’s suffering came to an end. Mathew’s Christmas story is one of a vulnerable God entering a world of suffering as a sign that death will not finally prevail. As Joseph and Benjamin were spared, as the youngest generations from the exile returned, now even murdered children will return home for Christmas! 

       I write this while warmed by a fireplace, smiling at a healthy child.  But the gospels call me out of comfort into a grieving world.  Somewhere there is a grieving mother named Rachel, who needs the real Christmas Spirit.  For her, a Christmas that is only about family togetherness is cruel.  She needs to cling to the belief that in her eyes God, himself, cries oceans of tears.  She needs a grace that wipes her eyes with the steely assurance that her suffering will end in resurrection.   She needs people to act like Jesus and enter her world of suffering as a death-defying sign.  For her, a flimsy, "holly-jolly Christmas" won’t cut it.