Rachel Weeping For Her Children
The mission of The Sage Forum is to encourage, equip, and empower women over 40 to mature in faith and grow in wisdom. We send out a newsletter at the beginning of each month focusing on a different theme relevant to women in the second half of life.
Today’s Sage Forum Extra! is a short mid-month reflection meant to offer you a word of encouragement. Today’s Extra! is penned by Sage Forum contributor Carole Duff. Learn more about Carole at her website.
A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be comforted, because they are no more. Matthew 2:18 (ESV)
I opened the front door and ushered the grieving mother into the entryway of our home. At first, she stood motionless, her gaze clouded and distant. Then she blinked and spoke slowly, recounting the what-ifs of that morning. What if her daughter had gone to work earlier with her husband? What if she’d petted Pup-Pup and left a little later? The mother’s voice trailed off. She glanced around as if looking for answers. Other delays that might have happened, decisions that would have changed events. What if the young man hadn’t fallen asleep driving home from work at ten that morning? Her daughter had no time to react. No time.
In my womb, in that moment, our five-month-old babe quickened.
The mother thanked me for letting her, a total stranger, spend the night. After her son-in-law identified his wife’s body and called his mother-in-law long distance, he’d purchased a bottle of Jack Daniels and holed up in another friend’s back bedroom. “The mother can stay with us until he sobers up,” my husband and I had offered.
It was late, and the mother who was my own mother’s age was tired from her travels. I showed her to our back bedroom where I’d made up the sofa bed. Bathroom with fresh towels here. Light-switches here and here. Please don’t hesitate to ask for anything. Good night.
Silence then muffled sounds. I stepped from our bed in the dark and tiptoed to the entry. Down the hall, gut-wrenched sobs, anguished cries, and grief-stricken wails escaped the sheets and blankets. The mother weeping for her only child, like Rachel wept for her children, refusing to be comforted because they were no more. I stroked my swelling belly as our first child stretched and rolled.
***
When Matthew quoted the prophet Jeremiah in his gospel, he tied the sixth-century BC past to his first century present. In Jeremiah 31:15, Rachel, representing the mother of Israel, had wept for the death of her children at the hand of Nebuchadnezzar and the subsequent exile of the Jews to Babylon. In Matthew 2:18, the cold-blooded act of killing all the innocent baby boys—age two and under, in and around Bethlehem—was a calculated attempt to kill Jesus, the long-prophesied King of the Jews and a threat to Herod’s power.
The grieving for those many babies lost in the search for Jesus was intense, as the losses had been in Jeremiah’s time. One cannot help but think about other massacres, past and present. Yet Israel survived the Babylonian Captivity, Jesus survived Herod’s murderous wrath, and faithful Christians will endure, too, though none of us are not immune from this world’s trials, though we do not suffer alone even in the darkness of sudden, searing loss.
***
My first born is in her forties now and has a daughter of her own. But I’ve never forgotten that mourning night when “what if” succumbed to “what is” in this world. I also know that when slaughters of innocents happen, it is not the end of the story. Hope will prevail, even in the darkness. Always. Because somewhere a mother, hearing Rachel’s cries, feels the babe in her womb quicken.
Prayer: Dear Heavenly Father, Thank you for Your constancy, especially during these hard times, Thank you for Your mercy and for the provision of Your Son, our Savior. Amen.
For further reflection: Many Christians who follow the liturgical calendar are currently the season of Lent, which is an invitation to consider our humanity, our need for God, and our longing for resurrection. What is the relationship between your tears of lament or grief and your longing for new life?
Photo by Julia Kadel on Unsplash