The massacre of boys under the age of 2 by Herod is simply impossible to grasp. Speaking of the prophecy about Herod’s rage, Matthew 2:18 says, “18 A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children; and she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.” Just two verses earlier (in verse 16) Matthew writes of Herod’s anger: “He gave orders to massacre all the boys in and around Bethlehem who were two years old…” Herod was known, historically, to be quite the tyrant, so this should not come as a shock to those who know his history. Yet, it is quite the shock to those parents who lost their children on that dreadful night.
It should come without comment that we can and should weep when our children die. Children represent much to parents, and maybe that representation is seen most in the bundle of hopes and dreams they offer to us. Parents, through their children, are given the opportunity to live life all over again (go through our own childhood again), in the positive sense. Board books and fairy stories will become our “go to” books during this period of parenting young children. Playtime will come alive as we have “teatime” with our daughters, and go off to “great wars” with our sons and their toy soldiers. We can experience, again, the wonder of a fairyland, or experience the awe of a firetruck through the eyes of our children. Our children will laugh over those things which we no longer laugh, such as, a butterfly, a bird, a funny-looking cloud, and many other things.
As parents, we will have the opportunity to go back to the “basics of life” and learn how to eat all over again starting with mother’s milk, baby food, and then on to solid food. The many parts of earth that have become commonplace to adults will become quite wondrous to us, again, as our children experience these things for the first time. As our children learn about life for the first time, we will wonder how we experienced life at that age. We will wonder whether we hated smushed up bananas as our child does, or we will wonder what our first steps looked like compared to our own child’s first steps.
Finally, as our children grow up, we will experience the fear and excitement of learning how to mature and operate as an adolescent, and then as a young adult, in this world. We will wonder how we ever made it through the teenage years, and how we ever made it through our first jobs, for example, even while we wonder whether our own teens will make it through their first jobs! We will experience, through our own teenagers, the great ignorance they have in facing the world, and we will stand in absolute wonder how we ever survived past the age of 16! The progress of life will astonish us, and be relived, as we watch it happen through our teens’ lives.
All of this is said for this purpose: There are many hopes and dreams built into being a parent, and, yet, when we lose a child, these hopes and dreams are suddenly taken away from us. It feels cruel and unfair. We are angry and hurt. Thus, there is a reason (and plenty of other good reasons) to weep over the loss of our own children, as these families from the 1st century wept over the loss of their own children by Herod’s massacre. The text says that Rachel “refused to be consoled because they [her children] are no more.” We can understand Rachel’s sentiment, and we must weep with those who weep. We (my wife and I) lost twins in the womb in August of 2016, and we are grateful for those who wept with us, and we are grateful for those who still weep with us. Never cease to weep with those who are still weeping. Ultimately, we are especially grateful to God who promises the hope of a “Tearless Morn” (or, a “Tearless Morning” from the hymn by George Matheson, “O Love That Will Not Let Me Go”).
“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2 I also saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared like a bride adorned for her husband. 3 Then I heard a loud voice from the throne: Look, God’s dwelling is with humanity, and he will live with them. They will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them and will be their God. 4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; grief, crying, and pain will be no more, because the previous things have passed away.”-Revelation 21:1-4