Adam and Eve. Joseph and Mary. Two sets of parents, each with a son threatened.
Threatened for the same reasons: jealousy, fear, anger. For the same reason: because human beings began to think they could get along without God. Disobedience spiraled into violence, threats, and even murder. Cain kills in a jealous rage; his descendant kills for cold, calculated revenge. "Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain?" the psalmist asked. He could have been thinking about Cain and Abel, about Lamech, about Herod threatening Jesus. He could have even been thinking about tyranny in Egypt, corruption closer to home, even our own private plotting and planning. Rachel weeps for her children in every place and every time.
The distance from "It was good" to "Why are you angry?" seems immense, but it's spanned by one willful act. The chain of events between God's careful creation of human beings and Cain's impulsive destruction of his brother is unfathomable, but set in motion by one human choice that marginalizes the Creator and compromises forever his creation.
Well, not forever, of course. Into this world of violence and murder came another man-child from the Lord. He would barely elude those who would kill him as a baby. He would walk purposefully into their hands a few decades later. He came to remind us of who we really are. He came to deliver us from a world of seventy-seven fold vengeance.
May we prepare the way for him: in our world, in our own hearts and minds.
The kingdom of heaven is at hand.
