I’ve been stuck on God’s silence lately. Why does He not seem to respond sometimes? Why does He not seem to hear? Why do some prayers go so long unanswered? Why the waiting?

I know the answers about perfect timing and perfect plans, but sometimes the right answers aren’t what we really want.

And as I’ve read the first few chapters of Matthew and Luke during the last couple of Advent seasons, the end of Matthew 2 sounds different to my heart.

Then when Herod saw that he had been tricked by the magi, he became very enraged, and sent and slew all the male children who were in Bethlehem and all its vicinity, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had determined from the magi. Then what had been spoken through Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled: “A voice was heard in Ramah, Weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children; And she refused to be comforted, Because they were no more.” (Matthew 2:16-18)

I read those verses for a decade with a kind of distant sympathy. But with a one- and now a two-year-old son trying to climb in my lap while I read — or pushing a truck around the floor while I watch that scene — something swells inside of me and I wonder how many women they killed that night too. Because they’d have to kill me first. 

I wonder how many of those families prayed and waited years for their children. I wonder how many had daughters before finally having the son who could take care of the family a generation later. I wonder how many had their sons first, but then struggled to conceive again.

And in the midst of those kinds of tragedies, since the dawn of time, people have asked, “Where is God?”

But God was there.

He was there, in the flesh. Arrived in accordance with several, centuries-old prophecies. Announced by a host of angels. Visited by magi from distant lands, who came bearing elaborate riches as gifts. God was actually, literally, physically right there in their midst. He came as a Messiah, a Deliverer, a Savior …

But He didn’t deliver. And He didn’t save. He left. Under cover of darkness. Probably not the same night, like in the movies, but He knew it would happen. It was all part of prophecy. He didn’t confuse the soldiers, like He’d done before. He didn’t hide the babies, like He’d allowed other mothers to do in the past. He didn’t resurrect them, like He would do for other families in thirty years.

Just silence.

I don’t know why. Not really. Not in any kind of way that will comfort a broken heart.

I know that He knows why. I know there is a reason. I know that those babies are better for His coming. I know that He is good, and He is mercy, and He is love — even in His silence. Even when I desperately want an answer or a miracle.

Because I know the incarnation is a miracle, even if it doesn’t mean everything I want it to mean. It means everything it needs to. It answers every prayer, even when I don’t understand how.