Sermon Series: THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ….
Title: “The Gospel According to Herod.”
Text: Matthew 2:1-18
Introduction:
A. From August 1975 thru July 1988 our family lived in Orange County, Indiana.
1. Once and soon again to be the gambling center of the Hoosier state, Orange County was then stuck in a malaise of poverty.
2. This was evidenced to many visitors by our waste collection service. Rather than setting trash containers next to the road once a week, we hauled everything to collection points scattered across the county.
3. The most popular collection point for us was affectionately called the Mini-Mall. Often when you brought your trash you would see people scavenging through the large bins for repairable furniture, electronics, and usable clothing …
4. Proving the observation that “one man’s junk is another man’s jewel.”
B. Our word, gospel, is a contraction of the Middle English expression good spell. It means a good story, and appropriately translates the Greek word euangelion [or good news].
1. How to define good news is the dilemma we face with today’s message.
2. Our sermon is entitled “The Gospel According to Herod.”
3. Herod the Great ruled Judea for almost 40 years, becoming king after the poisoning of his father, and subsequent marriage to the Hasmonean princess Mariamne.
4. A tax-collector was the alleged murderer of Herod’s father. But knowing his later history, I cannot escape wondering who, if not Herod, was really behind it.
5. This is the Herod who lavishly expanded the temple beginning in 19 B.C. [a task that was not completed until shortly before its destruction by the Roman Titus in A.D. 70.]
C. As the Herod of our text, this king was not above …
1. Taxing the common people to pay for his temple and many palaces …
2. Or murdering three of his heirs … which prompted Caesar Augustus to say, “I’d rather be Herod’s sow than Herod’s son." It’s a pun the Greek: hus being pig and huios meaning son.
D. An OT prophet writes, “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” [Isaiah 5:20].
1. That’s Herod! The world’s Good News is Herod’s “Bad News.” And what’s good for Herod is bad for the world.
2. This is no where more true than in our text … Matthew 2 … where we read that after Jesus was born “wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, saying, ‘Where is he who has been born king of the Jews?’”
Central Idea: The Gospel according to Herod is the story of a disturbed and deceitful king who called both death and darkness “good.”
I. Herod is a Disturbed king!
A. The Bible tells us that Herod was “troubled.”
1. The arrival of the Magi agitated the king beyond what was normal [and he was normally quite agitated].
2. Fear that previously led to palace executions grabbed him again by the throat.
3. Was there an unknown heir among the Hasmoneans? Or was another of his many sons prematurely planning to replace him?
4. No king sits secure on his throne when treachery is encoded into his family DNA. And Herod’s family’s was FAR more corrupt than most.
B. The Bible also tells us that “all Jerusalem” was troubled “with him.”
1. Does it take a genius’ I.Q. to understand why all Jerusalem was “troubled”? Those in his court were all too familiar with Herod’s paranoia.
2. It is a time honored custom for Middle Eastern monarch to eliminate potential rivals. Those as recent as Saddam Hussein have carried on his tradition.
3. This explains why the priests were in such a scurry to reveal where the Christ would be born. For Herod had already arranged the “accidental” drowning of one high priest … his own brother-in-law, Aristobulus III of Judea, the true heir to the throne.
4. And what of the common people. No more that two years earlier the Prophetess Anna had spoken: “Behold, this Child is destined for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign which will be spoken against” [Luke 2:34].
5. There must have been many who remembered her words. And whatever she meant, it surely was bad news for some.
C. At least one commentator has noted something quite sinister in the Greek term translated “gathered.”
1. Matthew uses it repeatedly to describe the meeting of Jewish leaders that planned the death of Jesus.
2. Was their meeting with Herod a first attempt to kill him?
Transition: That was certainly Herod’s intent. After all …
II. Herod is a Deceitful king!
A. He gained his throne through a lie.
1. Born into a wealthy, influential Idumaean family … Herod considered himself Jewish, but was lying only to himself.
2. All Jerusalem knew better … for his mother was an Arab princess from Petra. According to the Law he was no different than a half-breed Samaritan, and he never quite lived down that shame.
B. Herod guarded his throne through a lie.
1. Ever jealous of his Hasmonean wife, Herod put her on trial for adultery. He used her sister and mother to prove the trumped up charges.
2. They probably lied to save their own lives.
3. Witnesses write that Mariamne was calm and serene at the execution. Perhaps she was looking forward to it. Only 25, she had given birth to 5 children during their 7 year marriage.
4. To further solidify his position, his two sons from their marriage were eventually executed.
C. Herod now intends to guarantee his throne through a lie.
1. He sends for the Magi.
2. “You will find the child in Bethlehem. Go there and search for him carefully. When you have found him, and worshipped, come back to me. If he is who you say, then I too must go and worship him. God speed!”
3. “Oh, I almost forgot, when did you say this star first appeared?”
Transition: “Woe to those who call evil good …”
III. Herod called Death “good!”
A. Death to his sons … death to his wife … death to the innocent children of Bethlehem.
1. Jeremiah saw Herod’s Slaughter of the Innocents more than 600 years before the fact.
“A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation, and bitter weeping, Rachael weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted for her children, because they are no more” [31:15].
2. When the prophet wrote, Rachel was weeping for her children marching into exile. Those who were then her children would eventually return … but there would be no return for this generation.
3. There is no return from the exile of Death!
4. And DEATH was the sentence Herod decreed for Bethlehem’s sons. When he realized the Magi were not returning, the king went berserk. Every boy in or near Bethlehem, two years of age and under, was executed.
B. “This is good,” Herod must have thought.
1. “I have guaranteed no unknown heir will steal my throne away.”
2. “And I have struck such fear into the Hasmoneans and the people, that none would dare to plot against me.”
3. To assure this his eldest son, Antipater, is also sent to the grave.
C. Herod soon followed him; possibly as soon as the next year.
1. Josephus, the Jewish historian, describes for us Herod’s excruciating final illness.
2. I can’t bring myself to read it before you … let it suffice that a prolonged fever was accompanied with severe kidney failure, fluid on the lungs, congestive heart failure, ulcers and gangrene.
3. I will, however, read the first sentence. “But the disease of Herod grew more severe, God inflicting punishment for his crimes.”
4. And so this king, who after nearly 40 years must have believed he would rule forever, past into Death’s darkness.
Transition: But Herod had been living in darkness most of his life … the darkness of Sin.
IV. Herod called sin’s Darkness “good!”
A. But was it good for his people?
1. They were living there with him … as were the Greeks, Romans, and barbarians.
2. Those in “the lands of Zebulun and Naphtali, across the Jordan, by the Sea of Galilee”—whether Jews or Gentiles—sat together in that shadow of Death cast by the darkness of Sin.
3. And Herod attempted to keep them there forever, “without Christ … having no hope and without God in the world” [Ephesians 2:12].
4. Such is ever and always the attempt of Satan and his many “Herods.”
a. Some wear the white coat of the chemistry and biology lab. They would preach a gospel touting life’s spontaneous generation and evolutionary advancement; neither of which have ever been witnessed or proven.
b. Other’s wear the philosopher’s robe. They teach a gospel glorifying life’s ultimate personal meaninglessness. This is best popularized by the Middle Eastern Philosopher and German immigrant, Schlitz M. Liquor, who said, "You only go around in life once. So grab all the gusto you can."
c. Some “Herods” even influence the church. They have convinced many of us that all roads lead to heaven. It doesn’t matter what a person believes if they’re sincere!
This is akin to declaring that there are no absolutes! … which is the most absolute statement anyone could ever make.
B. Fortunately for the world, the disturbed and deceiving King Herod failed.
1. An angel from God appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Arise, take the young child and his mother, flee to Egypt, and stay there till I bring you word.”
2. Under the cover of that night they grabbed what they could and left.
3. It is easy to imagine they could hear Rachael weeping … having fled David’s city only hours or minutes before Herod’s soldiers arrived.
C. How long they stayed in Egypt is unclear.
1. Herod’s son, Archelaus, only ruled for ten years beginning in 4 B.C. His reputation for cruelty exceeded his father’s, and sent the cold chill of fear up and down Joseph’s spine.
2. God concurred … sending them instead to Nazareth, a village in Galilee no larger than Glenwood.
3. Interestingly, the root meaning of Nazareth is shoot or branch … which causes one to be mindful of Isaiah 11:1—“There shall come forth a Rod from the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots.”
Conclusion:
A. And come he did …
1. This is the Good News from Heaven we celebrate every December. A disturbed and deceitful king who called both death and darkness “good” could not prevail against the Lord’s Anointed.
2. Such good news couldn’t be any “badder” for Herod or “better” for us.
3. “Badder” is a pun … my grammar sometimes needs help, but this was intentional.
4. So is this next thought. “The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light … upon those who sat in the region and shadow of death Light has dawned” [Matthew 4:16].
B. In the NT we find the name God gave to this Light.
1. He is Emmanuel … for God is truly with us!
2. He is Lord … over nature and man. “Even the wind and waves obey him,” and one day “every knee will bow and every tongue confess him.”
3. He is Christ … anointed by God to be our Prophet, Priest and King!
4. He is “the true Light which gives light to every man.”
5. And He is Savior … ’Ihsus.
Yes! This Christmas Light for the World … is Jesus!
