122819 – Matthew 2. 13-23
December 28th every year is the celebration of the “Slaughter of the Holy Innocents.”
“Archeological historians” remind us that Bethlehem was a very small TOWN.
We hear these almost “HAUNTING words…”
“A voice is heard in RAMAH, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for HER CHILDREN and she would not be comforted, because they are NO MORE.”
Rachel you may remember was the MOTHER of Joseph and Benjamin…and was the favorite wife of JACOB. Rachel died, after giving birth to Benjamin, and she was buried on the way to Bethlehem. Jacob set up a pillar there on her grave.
Anytime anything bad happens to the children of ISRAEL, Rachel weeps…Rachel is sometimes referred to as being the “MOTHER OF THE NATION.”
Those are the words written by my favorite – Major Prophet, JEREMIAH, (by name…) The young teenager that NO ONE would listen to…NO ONE would heed his warnings…
He was just a KID. Still WET behind his ears. What does he KNOW? Why BOTHER with him?
And still the young prophet PERSISTED…
Why is RACHEL weeping at Ramah?
Because just as FORETOLD by Jeremiah on “numerous occasions” a great and mighty nation was coming down from the NORTH and would wipe out the people and carry them off into bondage and captivity IF they DID NOT change their ways…
And TURN BACK “AGAIN” to the Lord…their God.
BUT, they DID NOT. And would not!
They thought they KNEW BETTER.
Jeremiah was JUST A KID, why listen to HIM?
In the year 587/586 the people of IRAQ made their move. They were the “great and mighty nation” that would come down from the NORTH and ATTACK and LAY WASTE…just as Jeremiah had predicted…
BIBLICALLY they are also called the Babylonians or the Edomites…
In three HORRIFFIC and MEMORABLE waves they came down…PLUNDERING all the precious jewels and gold, ENSLAVING all the young men, taking with them THE WEALTH of the nation…slaughtering any and all RESISTANCE…and carrying off the MAIDENS as they saw fit.
They left behind only the ELDERLY and the VERY YOUNG, too young to enslave.
Jerusalem (the Holy City) lay in ruins…
When Jerusalem was DESTROYED by the Babylonians, those being taken CAPTIVE were all assembled in RAMAH before being moved in a FORCED MARCH to Babylon…
NOW, Ramah is five miles north of Jerusalem and Bethlehem is five miles south of Jerusalem.
Rachel could not be consoled as she watched the SONS and DAUGHTERS of her people marched off into UNCERTAIN CAPTIVITY and possible DEATH.
The SOLOMONIC Temple built by King Solomon of old was destroyed to its very foundation. The one foundational wall of it that remains to this day is the infamous “WAILING WALL.”
That was ALL that remained of the splendor “that was” the TEMPLE.
So, it was, in this self-same region in a 10 mile radius from Bethlehem to Ramah comes the soldiers of KING HEROD.
550 plus years later KING Herod manages this time to slaughter all of the “young males” under the age two within a 10 mile radius of Jerusalem….
He does so because he felt “exceptionally ENRAGED” because he had been TRICKED by the MAGI or the WISEMEN or the KINGS and he feared they might possibly be MOCKING HIM.
NO ONE makes a FOOL of King Herod, no one. No one MOCKS the king. No one TRICKS the king and lives to tell about it.
So a KING OF THE JEWS was born, was he?
And he was SOMEWHERE in the region of BETHLEHEM…
Herod could accept NO RIVALS. He was known throughout the land as being a power-mad-murderer. One wife, three sons, more than 300 members of the Sanhedrin (or Jewish Council) and on the day of his death, he arranged for a large number of people to be rounded up and executed so that there would be MANY MOURNERS on the day of his death.
The man was “an insanely jealous killer.”
And all the little boys in the area under the age of two were slaughtered, lest one day, one of them grows up as a potential RIVAL. And Rachel cried again…