I have been reminded this week about a
remark someone made to me once. Nothing you probably haven’t heard too. Just that
all the things that happen in our lives – the happy things, the sad things, the
crazy things, the boring things – they all stay with us and remain a part of
who we are and always will be. Our life experiences – all of them, not just the
ones we choose, make us the men and women we are. The good, the bad, and the
indifferent. We can’t do anything about that. All we can do is choose how we will
remember it, and that is a choice.
How we choose to remember the things
that have made up our lives, it matters.
The ways in which we remember things
are important for how they shape us, how they give our life meaning. The act of
remembering is about telling the story of who we are.
That is what the Bible does. It tells
the story of who we are. All of it.
And there are parts of it we like
better than others. In the Christmas season we can’t resist the warm and cozy
promise of it. The newborn baby, “no crying he makes.” At least, according to
the song. We make the stable and the rough manger seem like desirable
locations. In our imaginations we see the scene through soft filters and warm
colors. We crop out any of the less attractive, more awkward parts that we
would find in a stable with live animals.
We are so content in this scene that
we usually fail to remember what happens next.
But Matthew does not let us forget it –
not at all.
A voice was heard in Ramah, Rachel
weeping for her children. She refused to be consoled because they are no more.
We know her story from the book of
Genesis. Rachel was the one desired by Jacob, the one for whom he happily gave
seven years of labor to her father Laban for her bride price. But Rachel was then
left behind because her older sister, Leah, had to be married first. Laban
tricked Jacob into marrying Leah. Then, if he still wanted Rachel, he could
work another seven years for her. Which Jacob did.
Rachel’s life was hard, and her
suffering was great. She was plagued by years of infertility. She longed with
every fiber of her being for a child. She watched with envy as her sister Leah
was blessed with many healthy children while she remained barren. After many
years she bore a son, Joseph, then another, Benjamin. But the birth of Benjamin
was hard. Rachel died in childbirth. She was buried far from her home. Her two
sons grew up without a mother.
The story of Rachel we hear in Genesis
never mentions her tears, but we know she had reasons to weep.
Genesis doesn’t say anything about
Rachel weeping, but we hear it later from the prophet Jeremiah. The Israelite
exiles, on their bitter march to Babylon, pass by Rachel’s grave and hear her
weeping, weeping for her children who are no more, weeping for all that
Israel’s children have lost.
And then, again, we are reminded of
Rachel’s tears in this second chapter of Matthew. Rachel still weeping, for all
the little children who were destroyed by Herod’s wrath.
It is not a part of the Christmas
story we often choose to remember, even though it’s right there in Matthew 2,
right after Mary and Joseph open the gifts from the wise men. Right after
Joseph has another dream in which he is warned to flee, and so they do, and find
safe haven from Herod. In Egypt. We imagine them living there securely. But we
ought to remember that they were refugees, and there is little about that you
would call secure.
We lightly skip over this part of the
Christmas story in the same way we tend to skip over our own losses when we tell
our stories. We don’t talk about the things in our lives that made us afraid
because who wants to hear about that? Nobody. Not even we want to remember the
things that made us afraid.
But Matthew doesn’t skip over it, and
there is good reason for that. It’s because everything that happens to us, the
happy and the sad, even the terrifying, all stay with us and become a part of
who we are and always will be. and on the whole, that is not a bad thing.
It is not bad, because to remember our
own sorrows may give us compassion for those who are suffering their own
sorrows now. To remember our own fear may give us empathy for those who are
living in fear now. To remember our own suffering may make us merciful toward
those who suffer now.
Remembering the bad can be good. But,
again, it sort of depends on how you choose to remember it.
Jewish tradition says that a person
should recite 100 blessings each day; and there are blessings for everything
under the sun – the good, the awkward and embarrassing, and everything
else. “I will recount the gracious deeds
of the Lord, the praiseworthy acts of the Lord, because of all that the Lord
has done for us,” we hear from Isaiah.
So we can have these words of praise
right next to Herod’s slaughter of the innocents. We can have the wise men
kneeling in worship before the Christ child right next to Rachel’s loud
lamentation. Rachel will not be consoled for the losses, yet there is hope. In
this world there is sorrow and there is joy, both. There is pain and there is hope,
both. There is no amount of Christmas joy that wipes out the sadness of the
world, but there is no amount of sadness that erases the joy we know in Christ.
We need them both. When we remember
the sorrows of our lives they can move us to action – actions to bring more
justice and mercy to the world. And this is why seeing the sacred reflected in
all things, being the sacred in ourselves, is followed by doing the sacred,
where we respond to all that we have seen and all that we have been given.
Rachel still weeps for her children.
The children of Uvalde, still grieving. The children of Haiti suffering a new
outbreak of cholera. The children of Ukraine, in the midst of war. Suffering
continues. But this is exactly why Christ was born. He became fully human to
identify with us in every way, from beginning to end, reminding us at every
step, that we are not alone. God is with us.
Blessed be the Lord our God for this
gift.
picture: ChurchArt.Com
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