The Lord announces His blessing and the restoration of His
people and yet they respond, "Are you kidding me?" They don't see what Isaiah sees. The prophetic vision is powerful and
wonderful and yet their present situation seems utterly hopeless. Isaiah sees a time when there is no room for
the people they are so fruitful. The women
who are bereaved, bereft and barren will be fruitful and so much so that they
will wonder how such things could be. Children
have always had a special place in theology among God's people and that is one
reason Christians should be pro-life, fruitfulness was once understood as a
sign of God's blessing and obedience to the original commandment to be fruitful
and multiply. It is not, in my mind,
disobedience to not have children but even those without children should delight
in those kids among us in the church as we see here in this passage. In our tradition, the baptism of infants
places us all in responsible roles for the ensuring that they have everything
they need to know the truth and come to faith.
This is the day we remember those who are known as Holy
Innocents, those Hebrew children Herod ordered killed when he learned from the
Magi that the king of the Jews had been born.
He wanted to stop that child from growing up to fulfill that destiny but
didn't know the child's name or his parents so he demanded that any who fit
that description be murdered. We cannot
celebrate this day without also remembering those children who were aborted in
their mother's womb out of selfishness or "compassion." How can we not speak out for the most
innocent after reading these teachings?
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