The Hero

MATTHEW 2:
¹⁶ Then Herod, when he saw that he was deceived by the wise men, was exceedingly angry; and he sent forth and put to death all the male children who were in Bethlehem and in all its districts, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had determined from the wise men. ¹⁷ Then was fulfilled what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet, saying:

¹⁸ “A voice was heard in Ramah,

Lamentation, weeping, and great mourning,
Rachel weeping for her children,
Refusing to be comforted,
Because they are no more.”ves

Like most, I too struggle with many passages of the Bible. This is one of them. Many have written off any idea of believing in God because of these types of passages. And quite honestly, I can understand why.

The commonest of all questions posed by the skeptics and the unbelievers: "how can a loving God...?"

How do we answer this one that will actually satisfy the questioner enough to walk away with "understanding"? How many of us really understand this ourselves?

We struggle with passages like this one because within most humans are morals and values that are pretty much commonly shared. Of course there are exceptions like those with such severe personality disorders that conscience is as foreign to them as sprouting wings and flying is to the rest of us. One of the things the unbeliever shares with the believer is a profound sense of right and wrong. The believers really don't have any leg up on the unbelievers when it comes to morality. For those in the church who've perpetrated that myth there will one day come an extremely rude awakening when judgment occurs.

We cringe in horror and confusion ourselves when we encounter such passages. Something in the moral fiber of God's creation; of those made in His image and likeness (obviously including unbelievers) is repulsed by the idea of a God whose plan includes the killing of children and the subsequent life of incomprehensible pain for the surviving parents and family. And we are repulsed for good reason. Death is repulsive, especially the death of a child.

I've seen it where well meaning fools tell the recently bereaved that "everything happens for a reason" thinking they are somehow helping the person who is just beginning to try to come to grips with something they were never even made to come to grips with in the first place. Man was made in a pure state of sinless perfection. It is not in our DNA, our makeup or in the image and likeness of God to adequately deal with this repulsive thing called death. I really love it when people talk vainly about idealistic concepts like "closure" or "acceptance" when it comes to our "dealing" with death. It is all wishful thinking or a whistling past the graveyard. I too have suffered from the loss of those who I love and I "accept" that their not here any longer but even after many years, the pain from the loss is at times just as painful as it was during the funerals. Something about the deaths I am referring to continues to strike me as simply wrong. It's not like I'm in denial about the reality of death, I know it all too well. There is just something about it that feels out of whack with the natural order of things. I know it's considered to be "natural" but it wasn't a natural occurrence in the garden when God breathed His Spirit into dirt and brought it to life. The primary consequence of sin is as unnatural as it is for people to bestow "worship" on Satan (more on that wack job next post).

Death is our enemy (John 11:28, 1 Corinthians 15:26). And the only hope that man has to adequately deal with death is the conquering and overcoming of it by the death and resurrection of Jesus. I have counseled those who were reeling with trying to come to terms, grips, whatever the heck you want to call it, with the loss of someone. Even many years after the death people still struggle tremendously and there are no counseling methods or models that can come barely close to the work of healing that Christ provides. And even that requires dealing with feelings and pain that we were not made to deal with.
So it is for very good reason that we struggle with passages such as this one. But I believe that one of the reasons God includes these passages in His word is because God is truth and truth challenges and confronts us not just with God but with ourselves as well. The God I know loves to bring me face to face with the truth. Even when that truth is extremely painful. I believe that God included passages such as these not just to reflect so much on what He allows as they reflect more accurately what we asked for and insisted upon.
You might be surprised right now. You might be asking yourself when in the world did I ask to have to deal with death? When did I ask for incomprehensible pain, loss and suffering in my life or for anyone else? When did I ask to wake up and wonder if it is a just a bad dream only to be reminded that no, it's not a bad dream, that FILL IN THE BLANK is gone. Just exactly when did I ask for that?
The difficult and painful truth is that we asked for death. God warned us. When we choose to be our own gods and follow ourselves or the influence of a snake instead of Him we invited death into our lives. When we placed our wills above His we asked for funerals and graveyards and incomprehensible pain. When did we ask for that? When God told us not to do and we did. When God told us to do and we didn't. When we made a god of ourselves and our intellect and understanding to be supreme intelligence of our universe and went against His holiness we ended up having to exist with insane madmen like Herod who went berserk when things didn't go his way and was so threatened that he ordered the execution of hundreds if not thousands of innocents. We unjustly and unfairly blame God for these events. Our blame is misdirected. We are to blame.
God showed me recently that all of it, every single little speck of our being and lives all comes down to trust. Who do we really put our trust in? The voices around us?  The voice within us? Whenever our trust is directed anywhere else other than at God we are asking for death. The condition that God has always placed on man in order to be "right" with God has always been about trust. Not about religion or what church you attend or even if you attend church. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes (trusts) will not perish but have everlasting life. John 3:16. Abraham was declared righteous because he trusted God. I am declared righteous only because I trust God and His salvation that comes only through the atoning work of paying for that penalty of sin; which is death; via the cross and then the glorious blessing and hope from the resurrection.
Did Herod trust God? Not only did he not trust God he hated God. And I am 100% sure Herod was being influenced by the supreme hater of God; Satan. Who else would be behind lying besides the father of lies? Satan. Who else would've been on a campaign to eliminate the Savior when He was a child? Who else would be behind the massacre of innocent children?
No one less than a blood lusting madman hell bent on bringing pain and suffering to those who God loves. And who does he use? People who not only distrust God but are far more concerned with themselves and their position in life than they are in anything else. People who make themselves into their own pathetic little gods.
This is what God has allowed. He followed through on His promise. He always does. He allowed us to have things our way. But He also allowed His Son to suffer, die and rise again as the final and only solution to the penalty of sin which is death. God allowed us to have faith and hope and trust that He is powerful enough to have defeated our enemy. The loathsome thing none of us was made for. The horrible thing that is unnatural. The thing we asked for
God gets none of the blame and all of the glory. Glorious is He who snatched us from the sting and penalty of death by providing Himself as sacrifice.
This is why He is my Hero.