When life is unfair ...

It was an unthinkable tragedy: all the male children under two years of age slaughtered by sword bearing soldiers carrying out the decree of an awfully insecure ruler called Herod. Wailing and crying could be heard from one corner of the little town to the other. Mothers refused to be comforted. Blood from innocent babies who had never raised a fist to any tyrant flowed through Bethlehem’s streets. The little town known as the House of Bread now was a river of blood. That was 2000 years ago.

Why all the babies? Why not just one or two? Herod had good sources that told him a new king had been born in Bethlehem. His source? Magi from the east. Threatened by such a notion and not knowing which child was the king, he decided to eliminate all boys under the age of two. In that way, he would be confident he had done the job thoroughly.

Except! Except one baby boy was able to be scurried away in the night before Herod’s soldiers arrived to do their murdering. It seems the boy’s father had been warned in a dream to get his kid out of town. He packed up their few belongings and with his wife and child, Joseph “got out of Dodge.”

One boy under the age of two was saved. One mother did not wail for the loss of her child. Jesus’ life, in a strange sort of way, now took on increased meaning as his life must count not only for himself but also for all the slain boys of Bethlehem.

Unfair! It certainly seems unfair to me: that the only mother of a male child under the age of two not wailing her lungs out was Mary. Just one.

Ask the families of the Sago Mine disaster if it was fair that just one miner made it out with his life. Only two children of 13 miners go to bed tonight with a father alive. Only one wife won’t wail for her husband. Is it right or fair? These are deep and possibly disturbing questions to ask someone. Some may think this is holy ground not to be disturbed.

One child made it out alive from Bethlehem and one miner made it out alive from the Sago Mine. Some might suggest fairness demanded that all come out dead. That there would be no survivor.

But the Gospel of Matthew tells us that the one child that made it out alive from Bethlehem’s slaughter went on to redeem the whole world. Does that fact make us feel any better about the murder of the other children of promise? Of course not.

Just as it does not make anyone feel better that Randal McCloy, father of two, holds onto his life. So, where is the difference and how do we look at senseless deaths in the mine shafts of Sago or the streets of Baghdad or in the little town of Bethlehem?

How? Once we bury our dead and once we mourn thoroughly for our loss, we return to a focus on life. Meanness, jealousy for the living one, bitterness against a tyrant or a mine company all belong to a culture of death. And death will begat death for sure.

Ours is a culture of life. We celebrate life and lift up life wherever we find it. We love. We live. We forgive. We look hopefully into the future. That’s the only way the mama and papas of Sago or Bethlehem are able to get on with life!