Matthew 2:13-23
Morning Prayer
So, Does God arrange for innocents to be killed just so his prophecies can be fulfilled? Are we just puppets on God’s all-controlling strings? Is God really that much of a control freak, that slaughtered infants and toddlers are just “collateral damage”?
No, no and no. Note that when Joseph and Mary escaped to Egypt with Jesus, “This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet.” But when the male children are killed in Bethlehem, Matthew only says, “Then was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah.” It was not God’s command that the children of Israel suffered exile, or that the children of Bethlehem suffered at the hands of a tyrant. But still, the innocents are dead, and even if God did not cause it, neither did he do anything to stop it. What are we believers in this God supposed to say to defend this God? That God doesn’t care, or that God is powerless?
We are neither God’s puppets or God’s pets. We e called to be God’s partners. As Jesus said, “No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you” (John 15:15). But to be a partner is to be free to join in that partnership, or reject it. True enough, but is that enough to ease the grief of the bereaved and suffering?
No, but what we can always offer is our presence, and willingness to share the burden of grief, unanswered questions, and the waiting for God’s love to unfold in our broken lives, slowly but surely.
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