Friday's Faith - Collective Wail

Friday's Faith

Collective Wail

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, "Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw His star in the east and have come to worship Him."

When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. When he had called together all the people's chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Christ was to be born. "In Bethlehem in Judea," they replied, "for this is what the prophet has written:

But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler who will be the shepherd of my people Israel.'"

Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. He sent them to Bethlehem and said, "Go and make a careful search for the child. As soon as you find Him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship Him."

After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen in the east went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. On coming to the house, they saw the child with His mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped Him. Then they opened their treasures and presented Him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh.

And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.

When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, "Get up," he said, "take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill Him.'"

So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: "Out of Egypt I called My Son."

When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi...

~Matthew 2:1-16 NIV

*****

Collective Wail

Even at birth, the king wanted His head

the night he ordered all Bethlehem's firstborn males dead.

Grieving mothers throughout the land

wept for their children, refusing comfort.

A grievous sound rose up through the land

When mothers cried out as their hearts did contort.

Jesus' life was saved that one dark night

while Mary's heart must have been filled with fright...

But You, O Lord, knew His day was to come.....

Did You grieve like me when Your will was done?

...A sound was heard in Ramah

weeping and much lament.

Rachel weeping for her children,

Rachel refusing all solace,

Her children gone, dead and buried.*

My heart grieves that familiar sound,

As tonight my baby girl lies in the ground...

*****

"If the grief cry were simultaneously expressed by each parent who has lost a child at The Compassionate Friends Convention, I would imagine that such a collective wail would go up, that it would bring down the entire building."

~Tommy Prince

Pictures: CartoonStock.com and FotoSearch.com

*Matthew 2:18 ~The Message (Translation of God's Holy Word) This verse marks the fulfillment of the prophecy made by Jeremiah hundreds of years before, found in Jeremiah 31:15

Poem - Collective Wail - Angie Bennett Prince - 9/23/10