🦁 4th day of Christmas
Readings: Psalm 148; Jeremiah 31:15-17; Matthew 2:13-18.
From the TRNG Room;
Reflection
Good morning and welcome to the fourth day of Christmas. This is Brother Logan Isaac, broadcasting from Albany, Oregon. This morning's readings come to us from Psalm 148, Jeremiah 31, and Matthew 2. And it's also the Feast of the Holy Innocence. And I've been on vacation, so I hadn't, I hadn't been able to record.
But keep your eye on your RSS feed. I might record days one through three and upload them later. And backdate them, but anyway and Jeremiah, keep in mind, Jeremiah is called the weeping prophet because he was called to preach destruction to Israel, the last remaining of the two kingdoms the kingdom of Judah.
He fails to persuade them to do God's will and they are destroyed, the temple is destroyed and many Israelites are carried away into exile in Babylon. Ten tribes of the Northern Kingdom had already been destroyed by the Assyrians and lost forever. And this is the remnant, right? And something to keep in mind is that it wasn't everybody that the Babylonians carried off.
It was the elite, it was the influencers, it was the wealthy the influential. Those that The, the main group, the main body of the Babylonians exilic project. Those who were normal everyday Israelites were left, and they eventually would become the Samaritans. They were there for one generation for 40 years before they were restored, as Jeremiah prophesied.
But the temple was destroyed. Jehoshadak, who was the high priest at the time had no temple in which to practice. And it was his son, Joshua, son of Jehoshaphat, who would rebuild the temple when they returned. But in the meantime, Jeremiah and the reading for Matthew focuses on the destruction, the pain the weeping and the mourning that occurs as they're carried off into exile.
And Matthew parallels The exile by sending Joseph and Mary and Joshua, son of Mary, off to Egypt to imitate, to parallel the Egyptians the state of bondage they were in when they were in Egypt. And as I read this, yeah, even the passage from Jeremiah and Rachel weeping for her children.
I was in operation Baton Rouge in October, 2004 in Samara. And on the second night I remember We were occupying this hospital and of course people are bringing loved ones in to be seen and the hospital isn't operational. And I remember the mixed emotions that I think were going on when we were given a tour by one of the doctors, administrators. I don't know.
And we were looking for a place to sleep and the only rooms they showed us were covered in blood on the floor. And on the one hand, yeah, there's no room, but also like, he didn't have to show us. I think he was reminding us of the consequences of our country's actions. And so we, we instead stayed at a house across the street or across the courtyard from the main entrance to the hospital.
And one night I was, or at one point in the night I was on fire watch or night guard or something. And there was a woman dressed in black with face covering. And she was just sitting on the steps and just Wailing because her child had died, she'd outlived her own child. And I I was told to get her to move and I, I didn't really.
beCause I didn't want to disturb her, I think it's, I don't know. And that's what I think of when we hear about, you know, the massacre of the Holy Innocents. Rachel weeping over her children. The effects of war are, are They're traumatic but they also, they also impart awful knowledge. I now know what a woman sounds like when she wails for her dead children.
It makes this passage very real, for lack of a better word. It enlivens the Bible and not in necessarily in a way that I would like, but it makes it more real. And it's this horrific tragedy that I participated in. thEy'll never, you know, wash away the events. The guilt and responsibility is something else.
But it's, it's a, it's a mixed blessing. It's a bittersweet thing because who wants to know what that feels like? I haven't lost a child, I've got two. But I've come closer to understanding what it's like as I sat with that woman as she cried out to God. And so I think one of the things that soldiers and veterans can contribute to the church is bringing the reality of those experiences before their community to remind them as pastors and priests and ministers may preach this text.
Don't forget that this is real that for many people, you know, there, If you haven't had this experience, it might be just words on a page. But if you have had this experience, it can be it can bring those memories and those feelings and those experiences back to the surface. And I think that can be a good thing.
I think that some pain is redemptive. That, you know, this idea, this instinct that we have to avoid all pain and suffering sometimes works against us. That sometimes you know, like the, the demigods and heroes of Greek and Roman myths, like sometimes suffering just happens and we need to do our best to learn from them, to not shun them away or stuff them in a little hurt locker or something.
But to allow them to remind us what it's like to feel. Because. I think the instinct not to want to hurt is the same instinct that hardens our hearts. And that is something that I think is more dangerous than, you know, the presence of evil in the world. It's the presence of evil in your own heart.
And the inability or the refusal to acknowledge your own capacity for doing harm. And these experiences, these pains that we carry in our body and in our minds, I think are meant to hurt. to keep us from repeating those pains, those experiences, those traumas for other people. So don't forget them. Don't let them master you.
But don't try and hide them away as though they never happened. Remember so that they don't get repeated on anybody that you might love.
