Thus says the Lord:
“A voice is heard in Ramah,
lamentation and bitter weeping.
Rachel is weeping for her children;
she refuses to be comforted for her children,
because they are no more.”
Jeremiah 31:15
A Sermon by pastor Dave Martin.
To be honest this passage is not something that I have spent a lot of time thinking about. The first thing is we need to know what Jeremiah is talking about. Ramah is a little town just outside of Jerusalem (about 3 miles north) and it is the place where during the Babylon invasion the captured Jews were taken to either be 1)killed or 2)take away as exiles to Babylon. Rachel is the mother of Joseph and Benjamin and is used as in this passage as “a mother of Israel” figure.
Okay so what does this have to do with Christmas? Matthew quotes Jeremiah in his gospel. In it he says…
Then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, 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.”
Matthew 2:16-18
So we see that just as the Babylons killed and sent the Jews into exile from Ramah so the Jews sent God’s own son into exile and killed children in the town of Bethlehem (about 5 miles south of Jerusalem).
Not all but a lot of the Jews during Jesus time thought very highly of themselves. They were Abraham’s offspring; God’s very own and special children and as such they believed they were better then the other people. During the time of Jesus birth the Romans had control over Israel. Now the Jews expected the Messiah to come and deliver them from the evil Romans. After all they were God’s special people and they were better then everyone else…
Now I don’t want to focus of the Jews to much because thats not the point that I get from it. Rather I want to now look at the church. We are now God’s chosen people and the question is do we think we are better then other people? Do we thank God that we are not like the sinners in the world? Not like the gays or not like a young unwed mother or not like an abortion doctor.. Do we have pride in our own righteousness? If so then we have fallen into the same sin as the Jews 2010 (I think 2014 is more accurate but 2010 is close enough) years ago.
This Christmas let us remember why Jesus came into this world. He came for sinners. He came for the broken for the captives. He came for all people to tell them that no matter what they have done (or thought) that they can be forgiven by faith in him and that he will free them from their bondage from sin..
He came to free me from my bondage to sin. He came to free me from the pride, lust and hate that fills my heart. He came to give us fellowship with Himself.
Share on Facebook
