God is our healer, a very present help in times of need. We all know that. Yet there are some hurts that are too great to be easily dismissed through the normal spiritual relationship fallen mankind has with creator God. Such a hurt forever marks us. It is carried from day to day as a great wound – like a missing part of our heart. Healing will no doubt come, but we can know that full restoration is a lifetime away. The scar will show all our lives.
Herod’s harsh order to kill all the infant boys in greater Bethlehem has been carried out. The people have suffered a great loss. Their grief is not limited to the walls of their homes. It echos through the streets and reaches the highest heaven, as though part of their collective soul has been ripped out. Such pain is not inconsequential. Such mourning does not go unnoticed – God in heaven hears their cries. “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.”
Read carefully how He notes what He hears, “a voice is heard” – “weeping” – “great mourning”. God is keenly aware that people have suffered loss. More than that, “Rachel weeping.” The Lord knows the sufferer by name.
Is it that God has not even tried to comfort them? No. In His quiet way, He has spoken to them, by His Spirit He has affirmed His love to them, yet, Rachel remains “refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.” The situation continues. Rachel’s grief is so great, that the still small voice of God cannot be heard over her sobs.
The next words in Matthew’s account are therefore all the more poignant, “After Herod died.”
It is not without purpose that the Lord included that phrase just there. Evil – even evil incarnate – has but a season. Though it seems to last a long time, it is eventually brought to an end and dismissed forever to perish in the fires of hell. God’s elect have no such restriction – we were made for eternal relationship with our eternal God. Evil’s time always closes to be sealed forever, but healing and restoration ever await us. This is God’s truth, and we endure our grief only by focusing on God’s truths. Indeed, God’s Word tells us to encourage each other by reminding ourselves of the conclusions He is bringing about, “For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage each other with these words.”
May be always be so, until that wonderful day we leave grief and evil behind forever.
Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous fall. But you, O God, will bring down the wicked into the pit of corruption; bloodthirsty and deceitful men will not live out half their days. But as for me, I trust in you.
King David (Psalm 55:22-23)
PPLICATION: Thankfulness, intentionality
Meditate on our end with the Lord. Your suffering is not unnoticed – you are God’s elect. Praise Him for His faithfulness to us, His planned restoration for us, and His judgment of the wicked. Rejoice in His promises to us, even in spite of your circumstances. Let God triumph over grief, uncertainty and fear.