Struggling with the awful
news of killings in a peaceful Connecticut town – 27 victims
including 20 little children in the heart of the Christmas season –
I recall another terrible killing two thousand years ago, of little
boys two and under, not long after Jesus’ birth in a Bethlehem
stable. “A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation, weeping, and
great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be
comforted, because they are no more.” (Matthew 2.18, quoting the
prophecy of Jeremiah 31.15)
Joseph heard the angel’s warning and
led Mary and baby Jesus to safety in Egypt. But the killing of the
baby boys around Bethlehem is there, every year, to remind us starkly
of the evil in the world that the Lord came on earth to overcome,
through His own living and victory in temptation.
This awful episode usually
remains in the background as we prefer to focus on the positive, the
happy and joyful – hopes for the future and human wishes to move
closer to “peace on earth, good will towards men.” (Luke 2.14)
It feels different this Christmas time. Reading about the murders in
a happy little elementary school for 5-9-year-old boys and girls, I
can’t help but feel also the horror of Herod’s attack on
innocence around Bethlehem, and the tragic pain that parents and
siblings went through, as they are going through now in Connecticut.
With greater intensity than in other years I feel the reality of evil
in the world, and in hell, that our Lord came on earth to counter,
through His victorious love and truth.
Why at Christmas? The Lord
always brings love. Evil is never from Him. When in His providence
evil is allowed, it is because He created us to live in states of
freedom, to make choices as of ourselves. Our environment is
governed by His laws of providence, but is not arbitrarily changed at
every turn to avoid or negate the consequences of bad human
decisions. Such arbitrary manipulation of our environment would work
against our choosing freely, and we would lean closer to choosing
what feels good now, and leave God by Himself to clean up the messes
from human decisions. To live truly freely, we exist in an
environment that also has freedom and is not under God’s constant
manipulation and change. And tragedies like the elementary school
killings, like Herod’s slaughter of innocents, do occur.
Let us remember: the
Lord’s loving providence without exception seeks to bring goodness
out of all evil. No tragedy occurs where God does not enter into all
people to inspire feelings of loving others, insights of truth, and
human changes for the better. He forces inner change on no one, but
endeavors always to lead us in our pain to higher understanding of
reality, to spiritual growth inside us, and to heightened caring for
our neighbors. Herod’s killings show us truly why God’s Word
needed to come in the flesh. Tragedy at Christmas, while bringing
anguish, can deepen our inner thought, and move our focus to what is
truly important about Christmas – God coming on earth.
Everyone who reads this
will grieve from the recent tragic news. And we all can also take
the time to reflect and to act, in our own personal ways, to carry
out goodness from the Lord in our daily surroundings, with fuller and
better love towards others.
Dan
Goodenough, December 15, 2012
Reprinted with permission
Jeremiah 31
15 Thus says Jehovah: A voice was heard
in Ramah, lamentation, and bitter weeping; Rachel weeping for her
sons refused to be comforted for her sons, for they were not.
16 Thus says Jehovah: Withhold thy
voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears; for there shall be a
reward for thy work, says Jehovah; and they shall return from the
land of the enemy.
17 And there is hope for thy last
times, says Jehovah, and sons shall return to their border.
