A voice is heard in Ramah, mourning and great weeping,

This morning we lit the Joy candle in the Advent wreath. Joy, yes, even in light of this last week's news, God brings joy. Not necessarily happiness, but joy none the less.

The birth of Jesus didn't happen in a sanitized context of Christmas carols. No, it happened during a time of turmoil, not entirely unlike today.

"This is what the Lord says: “A voice is heard in Ramah, mourning and great weeping, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because her children are no more.”" Jeremiah 31:15 NIV These words were first written by the prophet Jeremiah about 600 years before the birth of Jesus. The next time we see these words is in Matthew 2:18 when the prophecy was fulfilled after King Herod tried to kill Jesus by having all Jewish males under 2 years old killed. Jesus life was spared only because his parents, Joseph and Mary, took him to Egypt.

Again Rachel is mourning her children, but this time instead of being murdered by a jealous king afraid that he would be usurped by Jesus, her children, as well as their protectors, were murdered by a young man whose motives we may never understand.

The fact that this happened just a few days before we celebrate the birth of Jesus makes this even more painful. While the families were looking forward to Christmas celebrations and presents, their lives were suddenly disrupted by unspeakable evil. And yet, for their families, and for the rest of us, life must go on. For those families there will be presents unopened, and there will forever be an empty chair at the dinner table. Eventually there will again be laughter, but there will always be moments of grief that cannot be consoled.

We pray, as we should, for the families and friends left behind, for they are hurting more than most of us can even imagine. We mourn for those who were killed, though they are comforted now in Jesus' arms. We also recognize the heroes: teachers who protected their students with their own lives, and employees in the school office who let the teachers know what was going on. They prevented even more innocents lives being taken.

May God comfort the families in Newtown and ease their pain.