Matthew 2:18“A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.”
Matthew quotes Jeremiah 31:15 in the above verse. Matthew is using it to voice the sorrow at the slaughter of the children by Herod in Bethlehem. Jeremiah was talking about the people being hauled off to captivity after being defeated by the Babylonians around 600 B.C. This type of pain and sorrow has no restriction in time or geography. Last Saturday was the third anniversary of the shooting at Sandy Hook elementary school. A group of mothers in our town was planning a gathering to remember this and promote the desire for better rules so that such a thing won’t happen again. As I talked with leaders about this the discussion focused on the politics of the thing and would we be seen as siding with the left or the right and would that alienate some and embolden others. This is the world we live in where people in the name of Jesus have difficulty coming together to say that we don’t want a world where children are shot and killed in their school. This Advent, whom do you hear weeping? With whom will you weep?
Logan Memorial Presbyterian Church 