Weeping for the Children
CW: death, murder. A lament to God; the indictment of children’s bodies
I am writing this on the 11th anniversary of the Sandy Hook massacre, the day when 20 first-grade children and 6 adults were shot to death during a school day. Remember them. Remember that it doesn’t have to be this way—lobbyists and politicians, devotees of gun rights beyond common sense, and our learned helplessness have made it so.
When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up,” he said, “take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.” So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: “Out of Egypt I called my son.” When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. 17 Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled: “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.” After Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who were trying to take the child’s life are dead.” Matthew 2:13–20 NIV
Each Sunday this month in church we’ve sung “Oh, Come, Oh, Come Emmanuel” and I choke up on these words:
O come, Desire of nations, bind In one the hearts of all mankind; O Bid our sad divisions cease, And be for us our king of peace.
Every word, every note, every breath is a prayer. I shut my eyes and pray for war no more. I long for sad divisions to cease and for real peace—not the machinations of effective oppression—to reign.
Womanism has been tutoring me, especially during this Christmas season. I have been sojourning from the land of the austere “comfort” of absolutes and authoritarianism—where faith is demonstrated by never questioning, never looking too hard at texts or theologies that disquiet and disturb, and knowing my place. I am learning to walk in shoes of honesty and questioning, and learning to follow a Shepherd who loves me enough to listen and acknowledge, and to walk with me and guide me through both dark valleys and green pastures. I was spiritually formed to cower in fear in God’s presence and worship out of a sense of appeasement and obligation. I was taught that my highest goal was to be useful (as a woman this meant to be a gentle, obedient, a wife and mother). (Many thanks to Robert for helping me to clarify the process I am going through, through his work in this piece.)
The cloud of witnesses from the Bible say different. There are pages of lamentation and questioning, imprecations and supplications from prophets and kings and enslaved people alike. So many people in that cloud (ancient and contemporary) were considered faithful even as they transgressed religiosity for honesty (or just plain transgressed).
Sometimes drawing near to God meant being truthful about their anger, danger, disappointment. Hagar was able to name God in the middle of hers. Selah.
And though I am sure there were gentle and obedient women in the Bible, God rewarded the lies (the lies!) of Shiphrah and Puah, the assertiveness of Rahab, the tent peg of Jael, the audacity of Hadassah, the bravery of Abigail, the discernment of Elizabeth, the good-news feet of Mary Magdalene, and the apostolic witness of Junia. They were all very, very useful but I think God rewarded them for their good sense in a bad situation, and for their incredible love—even when that love was self-preservation. Selah.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to When and Where I Enter to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.