The Cry Heard in Ramah

 

Monday, December 28, 2020

After the wise men were gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream.  “Get up!  Flee to Egypt with the child and his mother,” the angel said. “Stay there until I tell you to return, because Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.”  That night Joseph left for Egypt with the child and Mary, his mother, and they stayed there until Herod’s death.  This fulfilled what the Lord had spoken through the prophet:  “I called my Son out of Egypt.”  

Herod was furious when he realized that the wise men had outwitted him.  He sent soldiers to kill all the boys in and around Bethlehem who were two years old and under, based on the wise men’s report of the star’s first appearance.  Herod’s brutal action fulfilled what God had spoken through the prophet Jeremiah:  “A cry was heard in Ramah—weeping and great mourning.  Rachel weeps for her children, refusing to be comforted, for they are dead.”  Matthew 2:13-18

Known as the slaughter of the innocents, Herod’s attempt to stamp out any possibility of claims to his throne is one of the more heinous acts recorded in history.  This blot on humanity is on the par of genocidal despots like Hitler, Stalin, or the Rwandan regime’s purging of the Tutsi’s in the 1990’s.

The estimated number of children ripped from their parents’ arms and annihilated range from less than 10, to as many as 144,000.  Considering the population of the area, the lower number is more likely.  But that does not lessen the murderous impact of evil.  When it comes to holding-on to power, bloodlust is a staple.

In our day it is no different.  We tend to dress up the pig for public scrutiny.  Abortion is called choice, or family planning, but it is what it is…infanticide.  Our maniacal culture has made it legal, convenient, and safe…but only for the adult.

Centuries before Jesus was born, the prophet Jeremiah looked at the destruction of his homeland from a jail cell.  The Babylonian king’s defeat of Jerusalem, and the captivity of its people that followed were a low ebb of God’s people’s history.  There was a cry in Ramah for the defeated ones.  Jeremiah’s prophetic voice rose from his prison pit and spoke a word of hope to the captives. 

But now this is what the Lord says:  “Do not weep any longer, for I will reward you,” says the Lord.  “Your children will come back to you from the distant land of the enemy.  There is hope for your future,” says the Lord.  “Your children will come again to their own land.  Jeremiah 31:16-17

Jeremiah was writing about the devastation of Mt Zion’s city, Jerusalem, and her inhabitants.  We all await the return of prisoners, and those in far away Babylon (Iraq) were the subject of Jeremiah’s prayers.

Fast forward 600 years, and, unbeknownst to Jeremiah, his words are applied to the mothers and fathers of Bethlehem, whose children became the extermination project ordered by King Herod.  But what word could comfort the mother holding the limp body of her little son, put to death by a Roman guard’s sword?  Jeremiah says your children will come again to their own land.

Enter the child whose parents left in the middle of the night, bound for Egypt.  It is 30 years later, and he is back.  And his promise is to proclaim what God will do, release the prisoners, and set the captives free.  Jesus would face the executioner, and the executioner’s consequences, nailed to cross beams on the town garbage dump.  And he would face death’s reality by descending into its very jaws and the gates of hell, and he would lead the captives back to their home.

Even his name, Jesus, means God saves.  It means the cry heard in Ramah will not go unanswered.

For You Today

For those who trust in Jesus, believing in His resurrection power, there is no Rachel syndrome, refusing to be comforted.  These are they about whom another prophet, Isaiah wrote, comfort, comfort my people ^{(Isaiah 40:1).} 

If there is any hurt in your heart that refuses to be comforted, strengthened, healed, and made to walk in the light, remember the cry heard in Ramah became the shouts of joy filling Jerusalem.  This is the way of our God!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

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Title image:  By Domenico Ghirlandaio via Wikimedia Commons   W  Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©

For another post on this text see When Life Gets Broken