Weeping

Jeremiah 31:15 This is what the Lord says: “A voice is heard in Ramah, mourning and great weeping, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.”

Emotions can be a mixed bag. They give us the ability to experience life on different levels. Without emotions, life would be a bland mixture of obligations and accomplishments but without the corresponding sorrows and joys. There would be no ‘ups’ to life. We would experience life as one continuous non-emotional state.

Some of that would be wonderful right now. If we could market it to the crowds who are emotionally enraged, or to the government to be administered to the crowds, it could bring some peace and calm. We are seeing what happens when emotions are allowed to rule the day. Thinking and reasoning has gone out the window. Only raw emotion is left.

Ancient Israel was in the final stages of their decay prior to the judgment of the LORD and their exile to Babylon. They have refused, as their ancestors had refused with few exceptions, to repent and allow the LORD’s rule in their lives. Starting in the Garden, humanity has chosen to determine right and wrong apart from the LORD and have suffered the consequences of that decision.

So Jeremiah is sent to deliver a final warning to this rebellious people. And part of that message is the message of hope: someday your descendants will return to this land and the blessing of the LORD. But they were having a hard time hearing that hope.

Why is that, you might ask. Well, think about it. The enemy has surrounded your city. You can see the encampments of soldiers and equipment being gathered and strategically placed. You can see the preparations for their attack. Everything you see signals defeat is imminent.

And yet there are those who keep preaching that everything is OK, that the enemy isn’t going to be successful, that the crown of God’s good green earth, Jerusalem, will not be taken. But your eyes see something different.

So the LORD drops this verse in the middle of this encouragement. On the face of it it doesn’t seem to fit. How are this verse encouragement? It just sounds as though this is the opposite of hope. This verse is even quoted about the children of Bethlehem who are killed after the birth of Jesus.

But part of what we miss is that the town of Ramah has a history. Samuel the prophet used Ramah as the base for his ministry. Part of the ministry was the anointing of David as the future king. So even as Saul is reigning as king and trying to eventually kill David, Samuel is putting in place the hope for the future. His actions in the present positively push the future in the right direction.

And this history would have been in their minds as they hear this message from Jeremiah. They would have also remembered that the town of Ramah was completely destroyed, its stones and timbers carried away as punishment.

Jeremiah was bringing to their mind’s eye this history, because in their present moment Jerusalem, the city where David reigned as king, was about to become a rubble and desolate place. The enemy was going to carry away from Jerusalem everything of value. Then the rest was to be burned and destroyed.

Sometimes we get so focused on the present moment that we miss the hope promised. The pain of the present overshadows the present and future hope of God’s intimate presence. He has promised His presence with us, no matter what the circumstances. Even in the dark moments after Jesus birth when the government is threatened and they take action, the LORD still offers hope.

The birth pains of this moment in history are not the last chapter of history. The LORD still stands over history and is guiding it toward the restoration of Heaven and Earth when justice will reign. Have hope! We will make it through this moment.