Resurrection Lutheran Church, St Catharines

With all of its emphasis on family and gatherings of friends, Christmas is probably the most joyous time of year for most people most of the time. But also because of its emphasis on family and gatherings of friends (including the church family) Christmas is sometimes a very sad time of year. As much as we enjoy being together with those whom we do not see all that often, we are also reminded of those we do not see at all anymore, perhaps because they have died or because they have just gone away.

 

The Church Year calendar follows up the joyous celebrations of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with three successive days of missing people. December 26 is the Festival of St. Stephen who is the first recorded martyr in the Book of Acts (6-7), giving his witness to the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus as he was being killed by stoning. Next, on December 27 is the Festival of St. John the Apostle and Evangelist, who was sent into exile on the island of Patmos because of his testimony of Jesus Christ (Revelation 1), which he left to us in the most vivid of the New Testament writings: the Gospel according to John, three epistles, and the Book of the Revelation he received. And today, December 28, is the Festival of The Holy Innocents, the boys in Bethlehem two years old and under whom King Herod had slaughtered in his attempt to kill the one born King of the Jews whom the wise men had come to worship. These young boys were the first to give their lives for Jesus.

 

Now these three commemorations are not meant to keep us from being too happy over the twelve days of Christmas. They are not meant to put a damper on our celebrations. They are meant to remind us of the unbelieving world’s opposition to our joy and peace in Christ. And they are also meant to remind us of the victory over the wicked world, the devil and all that would take away our hope and happiness. They are meant to provide us with comfort in the midst of the sad realities of the effect of sin upon mankind, including the last enemy, death. Which is why God took on our human nature and was born into this world for us.

 

The voice of the LORD through the prophet Jeremiah says, “Keep your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears” (31:16). There is reason for you not to cry. There is reason for you to hold on to hope and peace and joy even amid the realities of loss in this life.

 

The wailing throughout the streets of Bethlehem is all too easy to imagine as you think of the soldiers going from house to house, breaking through the doors and hunting out any frightened and crying toddlers, pulling babies away from their mothers’ breasts, and ripping off the diaper cloths to see which ones were boys before taking their lives in the most brutish of ways. What could give any peace or hope to that?

 

Matthew tells us that this slaughter ordered by King Herod was the fulfillment of what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah: “A voice was heard in Ramah [that is the region of Bethlehem], weeping and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be comforted, because they are no more” (Matthew 2:18). Of course she refused to be comforted. Those mothers found no comfort as their boys were torn from them. Their deaths hurt so much because they will not be rocked or hugged or nursed or played with anymore. In midst of the sudden and senseless slaughter they were naturally overwhelmed with grief and sorrow.

 

In Jeremiah’s day long before, the mothers of Judah had to watch as their children were taken away from them into exile to Babylon, where they would remain for seventy years. So they never saw them again. They had to surrender them not only to death, but also to the loss of their Hebrew culture and faith. They were taken away into a land of foreign gods and pagan practices for three generations. How could there be any hope for a restoration or an end to their sorrow?

 

Jeremiah made reference to Rachel weeping for her children. It was in Ramah (the region of Bethlehem) where Rachel was buried. Rachel was the beloved wife of Jacob, the one he had intended to marry when her father substituted the older daughter Leah instead. Jacob also married Rachel anyway but then Rachel lived in grief as Leah was able to produce children but Rachel was barren. In a desperate act of competition the two wives also had their maids try to produce children on their behalf. That is how Jacob ended up with twelve sons.

 

And of the two born directly by Rachel, the first (Joseph) was so hated by his brothers that they eventually sold him into slavery in Egypt. And the birth of the second (Benjamin) resulted in Rachel’s death. She was parted from them both too soon. “So Rachel died, and she was buried on the way to Ephrath (that is, Bethlehem)” (Genesis 35:19). Where can there be any hope for Rachel to rejoice with her children?

 

Jeremiah pictures Rachel as if crying out from beyond the grave over the loss of her children: her parting from Joseph and Benjamin, the removal into exile of the descendants of the adjacent tribes of Benjamin and Joseph’s son Ephraim, and the slaughter of the baby boys around the site of her burial. Where is there consolation for such compounded grief and loss?

 

It is not with cold cruelty that the LORD says, “Keep your voice from weeping, and your eyes from tears.” He is not indifferent to your suffering or without sympathy and His own sorrow. He knows full well what it means to lose loved ones to death. We are told pointedly that Jesus wept not only over the death of His friend Lazarus (John 11:35), but also over the whole city of Jerusalem, knowing what would happen to it in the days following His ascension (Luke 23:28-31). He knew the horrors that would fall upon the mothers and children as the Romans besieged the city with their brutality and the citizens themselves would resort to unconscionable depravities against one another in an effort to survive. “Woe to those who are pregnant or nursing infants in those days.”

 

But it is not all in vain that we endure the hardships and griefs of bearing children into the world. It is not all to end in death and loss. As the LORD tells you to “keep your voice from weeping, and your eyes from tears” He explains why. “For there is a reward for you work” (Jeremiah 31:16). That is, there is blessing to be had. The psalmist says, “the fruit of the womb is a reward” (Psalm 127:3). There is a reward for the hardship and heartache that goes along with bearing children even into a world of wickedness and death.

 

It is not that we get a good feeling for having done something of benefit. The comfort does not come from all that we have suffered in the name of being a parent or helping others to give birth and raise their children. It is not as if the time that we have together before we are parted somehow outweighs the loss we feel when they are gone. That is not what the LORD refers to.

 

“Thus says the LORD: Keep your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears, for there is a reward for your work, declares the LORD, and they shall come back from the land of the enemy. There is hope for your future, declares the LORD, and your children shall come back to their own country” (vv. 16-17). There is hope. They shall come back.

 

For the mothers of Jeremiah’s day, whose children were taken away into exile, this was a prophecy that there would be a return from the exile. Those taken away into Babylon would have a chance to return. In fact, it was so assured that the LORD told them they better start setting up road markers for them to come home. They will return from the foreign land and its pagan gods to the waiting arms of their relatives and the festal gathering of the faithful.

 

When soldiers returned home from the Great War the streets were decorated with ribbons and bunting. There were brass bands and people lining the streets waving pennants, cheering, and giving loving embraces. The LORD sets the same kind of scene for the return of the exiles to their homeland. Of course, with the return of soldiers there are always those who do not come home. Some are killed in battle and all the mothers receive is a telegram delivered by some solemn officers and the army chaplain. But there is none of that included in the picture that the LORD gives of the return of His people. There is something greater going on than the return of a remnant.

 

The LORD gives the comfort and consoling picture of a return that is complete. No one is missing. There are no exceptions. “They shall come back from the land of the enemy” (31:16). Of course Joseph came back from being sold into slavery in Egypt. They carried his bones back to be buried in the land of his father. But that is not the extent of the LORD’s promise either. It is greater than that. “They shall come back to their own country” (31:17).

 

The New Testament letter to the Hebrews mentions that “by faith Joseph, at the end of his life, made mention of the exodus of the Israelites and gave direction concerning his bones” (Hebrews 11:22), and then speaks of all of the many faithful people for whom the promises did not seem to come to pass.

 

But the letter goes on to explain: “Women received back their dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better life. Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated—of whom the world was not worthy—wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth. And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect” (Hebrews 11:32-40).

 

“They should not be made perfect apart from us.” Rather, we should be made perfect together, through Jesus Christ, who rose from the dead to everlasting life. This is the source of the LORD’s comfort and consolation and why he tells us, even amid the reality of death and departure, not to lose hope. “Keep your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears.” Jesus Christ is risen from the dead and it is His delight to restore to us and to Himself all those whom we think that we have lost.

 

Remember, “As He drew near to the gate of the town, behold, a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow, and a considerable crowd from the town was with her. And when the Lord saw her, He had compassion on her and said to her, ‘Do not weep.’ Then He came up and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And He said, ‘Young man, I say to you, arise.’ And the dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother” (Luke 7:12-15).

 

Also: “And when He came to the house, He allowed no one to enter with Him, except Peter and John and James, and the father and mother of the child. And all were weeping and mourning for her, but He said, ‘Do not weep, for she is not dead but sleeping.’ And they laughed at Him, knowing that she was dead. But taking her by the hand He called, saying, ‘Child, arise.’ And her spirit returned, and she got up at once. And He directed that something should be given her to eat. And her parents were amazed...” (Luke 8:51-56).

 

This hope is given to us also so that we might not grieve as those who have no hope: “For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep.... For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 4:14, 16-17).

 

When the LORD bids us not to weep or to cry, it is because He wants us to remember the glorious consolation and hope that He has provided for us through His own death and resurrection for the life of the world. It is His desire and within His power and according to His promise that “your children shall come back” from the land of death to the land of the living God.

 

And if He is able and willing and desires to do this for those who have been taken away by death, He also desires that those who have gone away into a world of pagan unbelief will come back to the land of the faithful who hold to His promises in Christ Jesus. We ought never give up hope for their return also. As the Lord gives life to the dead, so He also gives repentance and life to those who are dead in their sins of pagan rebellion. The Lord remembers them. He remembers that the death of Christ is for them as it is for all sinners. He remembers that He has made them His own dear children. And so He keeps the way open for their return and constantly calls out to them. Do not give up hope that He will lead them home also.

 

In the midst of such grief even as the loss of the babies of Bethlehem, the Lord has provided hope for your future. And that is not just a part of the Christmas joy, it is the real joy itself. “There is hope for your future... and your children shall come back.” That is why Jesus was born into this wicked world, and why the baby boys in Bethlehem stood in the way of Herod’s rage. Jesus has come to be the Saviour of the world. God has given His Son so that we might have our children.