Christmas comfort for families with an empty chair
Christmas has a way of magnifying a family’s sense of loss. Because there are so many traditions in holiday celebrations, a missing loved one is not only noticed, but amplified. The chair where a grandparent was expected to sit might be empty, or a parent who walked away from his family might leave more than an empty chair.
Recently I have talked with a few families where 2020 will be their first Christmas since the unexpected death of a child.
Is there Christmas comfort for such families?
There is, and I think it can be found in an unexpected place— Matthew 2:16-18
:
When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he became furious, and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had ascertained from the wise men. Then was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah: “A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be comforted, because they are no more.”
It is horrible imagine this event. Bethlehem would have been a village of around 1,000 people. It was five miles from Herod’s home in Jerusalem. The soldiers would have arrived with some speed, and would have likely known to which houses they were headed.
Because of how the Jews measure age, “two-years of age and younger” ( Matthew 2:16
) is what English speakers call “one-year-old” or younger. I mention that just so you understand the innocence of these kids. They were babies. Most couldn’t walk. They couldn’t talk. They would have been in their beds or on their floors.
There were probably 20 or so babies that age in Bethlehem. Since it was the boys who were killed, it was likely ten or so who were murdered. Ten families devastated, ten families mourning the birth of the Christ.
When I read the passage, I can almost hear the hoof beats of the horses descending on Bethlehem, the gruff voice of the soldiers, followed by the screams of parents and siblings alike; the bodies for those dozen or so babies left on the street as Bethlehem lay stunned and outraged, but powerless to do anything about it.
Why did God allow this event to happen? Matthew answers this question by saying that it happened to fulfill the words of Jeremiah in Jeremiah 31:15
. And that makes sense; picturing the grief those Roman swords inflicted, a comparison to the weeping at the Babylonian exile seems apt. But limiting our answer to prophetic fulfilment deals with the question only from a theological perspective—which is helpful ( I blogged on that yesterday ), but not complete.
But today I want to ask it pastorally, or practically. Why did God design the birth of Christ to happen in this way?
We often romanticize Christmas. When we think of Christmas there is the temptation to picture the perfect tree, the perfect gifts, the perfect family. The table is set just right, the chestnuts are on the open fire, or what have you.
But that is not the world into which Jesus came. He didn’t come to the perfect world with perfect families who open perfect gifts.
Instead, he came into a broken world. He came into a world where grandparents are missing. Where parents do walk out on their family, where married couples have affairs, and where families are wrecked.
He came to a world where parents have to bury their children.
We know this is true because we read about the slaughter of the innocents, and our heart breaks imagining those tiny babies brutally murdered for no reason other than their birthdate.
So where does hope come from then? Hope comes from two places:
- Jesus knows the sorrow of Christmas.
Jesus came into this world surrounded by the suffering of sin. As the Christmas carol declares, “Tears and smiles like us He knew.” He knew them because he was born right into the middle of them. He knows the pain of loss that families can feel, and he carries that with him through his life on earth right into heaven, where he remains making intercession for us ( Hebrews 7:25
).
2. Jesus will right the wrongs at his second advent
When Matthew records the slaughter of the infants, he ties it back to Rachel’s trail of tears and the prophecy from Jeremiah 31:15
. There Rachel metaphorically weeps for her children, Joseph and Benjamin, who were taken into exile from the very spot her bones were buried. It would be difficult to think of a sadder passage in all of the Bible than Jeremiah 31:15
, and so it makes sense that Matthew connects the baby’s murder to it.
But when the babies were killed, Jesus still had his entire ministry in front of him, including his sinless life, his substitutionary death, and his bodily resurrection.
And, even today, he still has his second coming in front of him as well.
That is where Jeremiah 31:16
does give Christmas hope:
Thus says Yahweh: “Keep your voice from weeping, and your eyes from tears, for there is a reward for your work,” declares Yahweh, “and they shall come back from the land of the enemy.”
After describing a mother’s weeping for her children who were to be slaughtered, in the very next verse Jeremiah encourages those same mothers to dry their tears and cease their lamentations, because the Savior is going to return to earth, and right those wrongs.
Matthew knows this as well. It is as if he is saying to the weeping mothers: “Read on, o daughters of Bethlehem, read on!” There is a day coming when their little ones will be resurrected from the grave. Their babies, whose last earthly moment was in the hands of Roman butcher, will have another life in Bethlehem. They may have been too young to walk when they died, but their feet will still walk in Jerusalem. In fact, Jeremiah says that in the future, at the second coming, their mother’s will dance (!) at the sight of their little ones in the Promised Land ( Jeremiah 31:4
, 13
).
If you find yourself next to an empty chair in your house this Christmas, let me encourage you to draw Christmas comfort from these truths. Jesus is familiar with your sorrow, because he was born into it. But more than that, the day will come when your tears will be dried as Jesus reigns over a world where babies are resurrected, and his Kingdom will be established.
If the mothers of Bethlehem could shed Rachel’s tears, and yet find comfort in Messianic promises, so too can we.