I WILL NOT LEAVE YOU ORPHANED

The infant mortality rate in the ancient world was 50%. Aristotle said that many of the babies who survived childbirth died before their seventh day! Many mothers died at childbirth so their children only survived because of wet nurses. Research has also shown that half of the population were fatherless by the time they reached 15 years of age.

Orphans were the most vulnerable people in the ancient world.

1 Esdras 3:19 and 4. 1-12 talk about the greatest contrasts in human life: free and slave, rich and poor, king and orphan. And the widest gap is in the contrast of the king and the orphan. The king was on top of the power structure, the ophan at the bottom. The king had absolute power, the ophan had none. Thus, in many ancient laws, the king is tasked to care for orphans. In the Hebrew Bible, God commits Godself to always care for orphans! In the Hebrew Bible, God reveals Godself as a wet nurse.

Jesus, in Sunday's lection, echoes the same commitment, "I will not leave you ophaned." He knew what being an orphan meant. I am sure most if not all his disciples were ophans as well.

Orphans remain one of the most vulnerable people today. Someone right now--alone, abandoned, afflicted--needs to hear Jesus's comforting words: "I will not leave you orphaned."

And who can they hear it from? A teacher. A pastor. A farmer. A no-longer distant relative. Just as the face of God can be on anybody's face, so too can the voice and compassion of a mother come from anybody.

*image, "Wet Nurse," (Roman Antiquity, from Google Zoeken, CTT0).