[A presentation for a roundtable discussion on “Tragedy and Epiphany” hosted by the Centre and Library for the Bible and Social Justice, the Alternative Seminary and Bible Remixed. The topic was bringing together the story of the Magi and the slaughter of the innocents in Matthew 2 within the context of the tragedies of this season of Epiphany.]

It is all about the children.
It has always been about the children.

The children aren’t just the collateral damage
in the violent affairs of adults.
They aren’t simply the unfortunate casualties
of the machinations of empire.

No, the children pose a threat to the power structures,
the children hold hope for a future that is unpredictable,
not the controlled future of the empire.

Unless … the children can be socialized into
faithful and docile citizens.

Unless … the children can be held under such bondage
that they can never imagine a different future.

But if that doesn’t work,
if the residential schools don’t manage
to educate (or beat) the Indian out of the child,
well, then there is only one other alternative.

Snuff out the future,
eliminate the threat,
and strike terror into the heart of the population,
by murdering the children.

It’s all about the children.

Pharaoh drowns the children in the Nile.
Herod kills every child under two in Bethlehem.

Matthew knows that it’s all about the children.

Notice how often he names them:

Where is this child born
king of the Jews?

Rachel weeping for her children.

Seven times.

Child,
child,
child,
child,
child,
children,
children.

It’s all about the children.

It is not for nothing that idolatry and infanticide go hand in hand.
You see, idols have an insatiable appetite for child sacrifice.

Whether it is on the altar of ancient Moloch
or the altars of imperial power,
the ideology of economic growth,
the idols of nation, tribe, race, and religion,
the demons of racism, misogyny, homo and trans phobia,
or the imperative of technological progress, 
the children are always offered up to these false gods.

So what do we do as we stand before
Rachel weeping for her children?

What do we do, overwhelmed by the wailing
of the mothers of Gaza?

What do we do,
faced with the grief of
missing and murdered
Indigenous women and girls?

What do we do with another school shooting,
another Black man who can’t breathe,
another Latino teenager gunned down on the street
or toddler separated from their parents at the border?

What do we do with all of this anguish?

Well, if Rachel refuses to be consoled
because her children are no more,
then the last thing that we should do
is to offer cheap consolation.

The last thing we should do is insist
that she be consoled,
when she refuses to be comforted.
That would be a form of pastoral violence.

No, if we are to stand with Rachel,
then we must stand with her in that grief.

We have nothing to offer Rachel without tears.
We have nothing to offer Rachel, but to sit with her,
and to share her heart-breaking lament.

. . .

I have buried three babies.
It is the hardest thing I’ve ever done.

Three.

Not the whole population of toddlers of my village.
Not the untold number of children killed in Gaza
and the West Bank over the last 75 years.
Not all of the children murdered in the Holocaust.

Three.

And those three represent the most devastating
pastoral experiences of my life.

And, while I certainly offered no quick consolation for those parents,
and it was important for me to sit with them and simply listen,

– simply bear witness to their pain,
simply weep with these inconsolable parents –

there came a time when words were needed.

Words to name the pain.
Words to stand in the grief.

Words that are never easy,
never ready to hand.

So, sometimes you need to look for those words from someone else.

And just as the story of Epiphany needs the testimony
of marginal figures like some mysterious astrologers from “the East,”

– some discerners of the times, of the seasons, of the stars,
some dubious “wise” men, known for their drinking and frequenting of brothels,
some social disruptors, threats to the royal order –

so might we need to turn to contemporary Magi,
poets, storytellers, songwriters
to help us find the words to describe
the tragedy that permeates our Epiphany.

Of late, I’ve been attending closely to the witness of Leonard Cohen.

Like the Magi of our story this evening,
Leonard discerned the times,
traversed paths of danger,
and knew that he had nothing to say,
if his words did not attend to the tragedy,
the despair, and the horror
of our contemporary lives.

The Magi came looking for a child,
and Cohen also knew that it is all about the children,
and he knew that where there are children,
there is invariably loss and sorrow.

That is why he sings,

I greet you from the other side
of sorrow and despair
With a love so vast and so shattered
it can reach you anywhere.

A cradle unfilled.
A cradle robbed.

A cradle, a playground,
a street, a school, a hospital,
stained in blood,
empty of children.

If there is to be any response to such a tragedy,
if there is to be any “other side
of sorrow and despair,”
then it will need to come
from “a love so vast and so shattered”
that it can hear Rachel’s weeping,
because it knows the shattering of such violence.

Perhaps it could be a love that has danced at Auschwitz:

Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic ’til I’m gathered safely in
Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove
Dance me to the end of love

In the panic of the gas chambers,
can there still be love?
In the horror of slaughter,
can there be any safe gathering?

In the depths of war,
is there an olive branch?
In the domicide, the murder of home,
can there be any homeward dove?

Is this the end of love?
Is this the erasure of love?

Or might the end of love remain?
Might love still be stronger than hatred?
Might the telos of love remain,
even in Rachel’s inconsolable tears?
Isn’t that why she weeps?

And so Cohen sings on:

Dance me to the children who are asking to be born
Dance me through the curtains that our kisses have outworn
Raise a tent of shelter now, though every thread is torn
Dance me to the end of love
 (“Dance me to the End of Love,” Various Positions)

Against all odds, against the evidence,
the call to life is inexorable,
and the children are asking to be born.

In the face of the brutality,
the dance of love remains, even behind the curtains
that our kisses have outworn.

In the face of domicide,
the call to homemaking cannot be silenced,
as we continue to raise tents of shelter, though every thread is torn.
. . .

But, maybe this is too quick.
Maybe this is a song that could not be sung at Auschwitz,
just as it could not be sung in Bethlehem or Gaza.

No, this song needed forty years before it could be written.

You see, this artist who has seen the nations rise and fall,
heard their stories, heard them all,
has also seen the future,
and it is murder.

In what some might see as a shockingly “pro-life” sentiment,
Cohen discerns the crises of our times when he sings:

Give me back the Berlin wall
Give me Stalin and St Paul
Give me Christ
or give me Hiroshima
Destroy another fetus now
We don’t like children anyhow
I’ve seen the future, baby:
it is murder. (“The Future,” The Future)

In this oracle of civilizational collapse,
when the false absolutisms of the past will be desirable
to the chaos that is to come,
Cohen returns to the children,
to infanticide, to murder.

But again, maybe even this is too quick.
Rachel already knows about murder.
And we already know about genocidal chaos.
We don’t need an oracle to tell us what we already know.

So maybe we need to move beyond the stark descriptions
and return to inconsolable wailing.
Maybe we need to move beyond discernment
to prayer, to lament, to the questioning of God.

And so the poet prays:

Tell me again
When I’ve been to the river
And I’ve taken the edge off my thirst
Tell me again
We’re alone and I’m listening
I’m listening so hard that it hurts
Tell me again
When I’m clean and I’m sober
Tell me again
When I’ve seen through the horror
Tell me again
Tell me over and over
Tell me that you want me then
Amen, Amen, Amen

I’m listening, Lord.
I’m listening so hard that it hurts.
What does the Holy One have to say?

I’m clean and I’m sober.
I’m no longer numbing the pain,
and I’ve seen through the horror,
so tell me again,
tell me over and over,
tell me that you want me, after all that has happened.

Tell me, God of promise,
is this the way that covenant with you works?

So …

Tell me again
When the filth of the butcher
Is washed in the blood of the lamb
Tell me again
When the rest of the culture
Has passed through the eye of the camp
Tell me again
When I’m clean and I’m sober
Tell me again
When I’ve seen through the horror
Tell me again
Tell me over and over
Tell me that you love me then
Amen, Amen, Amen (“Amen,” Old Ideas)

Tell me again, when the horrors of Auschwitz
have met the genocide of Gaza.

Tell me again, when the goddamned horrors of the camp
have met the blood of the children polluting our land.

Tell me again, if you dare,
tell me again, that you love me then.

. . .

Or perhaps that is asking too much.

Perhaps love is tired.
Perhaps love is worn out.
Perhaps the end of love is … the end of love.

What began in love dissolves into regret.
The joy of creation has reached its eventide.
The tools of humanity are all turned to violence.

The sea so deep and blind
The sun, the wild regret
The club, the wheel, the mind,
O love, aren’t you tired yet?
The club, the wheel, the mind
O love, aren’t you tired yet?

The blood, the soil, the faith
These words you can’t forget
Your vow, your holy place
O love, aren’t you tired yet?
The blood, the soil, the faith
O love, aren’t you tired yet?

Holy One, lover of creation,
covenant Maker,
Faithful One,

in light of all that has happened,
in light of the deep disappointment,
in light of all the bloodshed,

tell me, aren’t you tired yet?
Is that the issue?

Have you reached the end of your love?
Are you worn out, done with it all?

And then our contemporary Magi
pushes it as far as it will go,
with these devastating lines:

A cross on every hill
A star, a minaret
So many graves to fill
O love, aren’t you tired yet?
So many graves to fill
O love, aren’t you tired yet? (“The Faith,” Dear Heather)

What are we to say
when the faiths of the Book,
the people who are rooted in the covenant of love,
have filled so many graves,
and there are more graves to fill?

Isn’t this the exhaustion of love?
Isn’t this the end of love?
Isn’t this the ultimate atheism?

You see, friends,
it has all gone wrong,
and today is not a day
for any hallelujah’s,
neither cold, nor holy, nor broken.

Rachel couldn’t bear it.
And neither should we.

Brian Walsh

Brian is an activist theologian, a retired CRC campus minister, the founder of the Wine Before Breakfast community, and farms with Sylvia Keesmaat at Russet House Farm.He engages issues of theology and culture, and has written a couple of books you might want to check out. His most recent offering is cowritten with Sylvia Keesmaat and entitled Romans Disarmed: Resisting Empire, Demanding Justice.