Rehashed Sermon, good thoughts and I wanted to pass them along

Jeremiah 31:15

Matthew 2:18

Genesis 29:30, 35:16

Rachel cries because love does not last.

All the good things in life fade: family, friends, places we love. They all fade and cease and there is nothing good or glamorous about it. We hate and we should hate it. Death is not natural, because the end of life and love is not natural. It is common, but we can’t accept it as natural, because something deep within us hates it and we know we should. This is why Rachel cries. The end of a life, the end of a nation, the untimely deaths we see all around us.

We see Rachel cry three times throughout the Bible.

First in Genesis 35, she cries at her death. Remember she was Jacob’s favorite wife and pregnant with her second child. The family had just recently relocated to his homeland for a better life. And in such an abrupt and untimely manner, it reads, she had great difficulty with her pregnancy and died. A son born and a love lost.

How do you make sense of something like that, other than by crying?

She cries again in Jeremiah 35:15. This time it is the loss of a nation. The capital was destroyed; homes and buildings were crushed all in the name of empire. Everyone lost a loved one or lived to see them stripped and humiliated. How do you make sense of this, other than by crying?

The third time we see her cry is in Matthew 2:18. At this point, a king decides to kill babies to hang on to his power. He sees that the next king has been born and he kills all of them within an age bracket and within a town. What sense does that make? What, a life born only to die? She cries and she refuses to be comforted.

Rachel is full of sorrow and we see that Rachel’s tears are our tears as well. Life ends and love dies. The places we remember crumble. Something inside of us fights this, but why if death is only a part of life?

One of the very few comforts I know is that someone hates death more than me and you. God himself hates it. In John 11, Lazarus dies. Jesus wept bitterly for his friend. He hates death. He hates the loss of love, because love should continue forever. There is nothing sweet in this. We find that Rachel’s tears are not only our tears, but God’s as well.

Because God cries for this, he also has something to say about it. He doesn’t stand back with his arms crossed, nonchalantly looking away from the pain of it all. He is not passive like that.

Here is what God says while Rachel cries in Jeremiah 35, [Dry your eyes and cry no more], they will return from the land of the enemy. So there is hope for your future, declares the LORD.

Death is an enemy to all of us because he takes and refuses to be satisfied. He is an unnatural enemy one that we cannot defeat. But Jesus in his work died for us. He was sent away to the enemy’s land and defeated him by dying on our behalf. What love for us. And his death gives us life. His death takes away love lost because there is a hope that it can continue. There is hope that life continues in a land that will never fade or die. The hope of our hearts is true, it is not just a sentimental wish, but love can continue forever. And Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection not only makes this possible, but also give us evidence of the truth.

Jesus doesn’t just say I found the way to this everlasting life, but instead he says, I am the resurrection (John 11:25). 1 Peter 1 reads, “In his great mercy…[God provided] a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance [beautiful land] that can never perish, spoil, or fade – kept in heaven for you.”

Why do things happen as they do, I cannot say? Sometimes all we can do is cry. We can’t make light of or just try to forget the pain. Instead we cry. Rachel cries for hope, Jesus weeps over death, and we join them in the sadness, waiting for the day that all will be revealed and the beautiful land in which we hope will all be brought about by our Lord and Savior Jesus.