King Herod’s Murderous Search
Matthew 2:1-16
Typically in Advent, we look at the passages and stories leading up to the birth of the Christ child like the prophet’s announcment of Jesus’ birth, Mary’s encounter with the angel, the Magnificat and the journey to Bethlehem. Then On Christmas, we look at birth of Christ. When the New Year arrives we start a new sermon series and we never really get around to looking at the stories after Jesus birth. In this series, we’re going to look at the Gospels of Matthew and Luke who between them have 5 different Christmas stories after the birth of the Christ child. All of these stories have one thing in common: someone who is seeking Christ. We’re going to look at the last of these stories today chronologically and work our way back to the birth of Jesus.
The first of these stories happened somewhere between 10 days after the birth of Jesus and 2 years. It includes the three wisemen which most of us include as a part of the Christmas story and our manger scenes. Herod has the news of the Messiah’s birth reported to him and as a result he feels threatened and orders all children under the age of 2 killed, hoping that one of them would be the Messiah and he could protect his throne. Today’s scripture is disturbing at best. It is not a story we sing about, or is on the cover of Christmas cards. Most of us would rather skip over it because it reminds us that the Christmas story is not what we this it is, something wonderful, loving, heartwarming and peaceful. But it was anything but that. In this story, we find murder, suspicion, jealousy and children being ripped from their mother’s arms and put to death. This story reminds us that the intervention of God in human history through the birth of Christ was anything but peaceful and in fact threatened most everyone in leadership, power and wealth, including King Herod.
King Herod ruled from 37 BC to 4 BC over the kingdom of Israel. He was assigned to the throne by the Romans in 40 BC but first had to conquer the sitting Jewish King. This bust tells us what Herod looked like. Herod ruled with power and might. At times he was compassionate and other times, he was not. Herod saw himself as the sought after messianic king in the line of King David and thus he had something to prove to everyone, specifically the Jews over whom he ruled. His hope was to be an even greater king than David. The problem for the Jews was that Herod was not Jewish by birth. He had been born an Edomite and thus any Jew saw Herod as different and outside the Jewish family. So he had to prove the Jews wrong as to his identity and that he could be that kind of king. In addition, he wasn’t annointed by the high priest but instead was anointed by Rome. And it was the Emperor who gave him the troops to take the throne. And so Herod spent much of his life appeasing the demands of Rome while also trying to win over the Jews. One way he tried to do that was by not only rebuilding the temple but expanding it. The problem is that at each gate there was also the Roman eagle adorned on it. On the one hand they were grateful for what Herod had done but at the same time they were repelled it.
Herod also started many other building projects but the problem was that they were all about Herod to prove his worth and kingship. His insecurity only fed this. Herod had to marry into the right family and so he married Miriam, the granddaughter of the king he had murdered for the throne. The problem is that all of her family had royal blood and so Herod was always suspecting they were trying to overthrow him. In fact, he became paranoid about this and sought to kill off any threat. He also built 7 fortress palaces to which he could retreat in times of a coup. Rather than wait for them to attack, Herod thought it wiser to eliminate any possible threats. So first he killed his wife’s uncle and then her brother. And even though he was deeply in love with her, he even killed Miram and then her mother and then his three sons. Augustus Ceasar said of Herod, “It was safer to be a pig in Herod’s house than one of his own sons.” Sadly, Herod didn’t become known for his building projects but rather the fear which drove his life and led him to do terrible things, even to the people he most loved.
So you can only imagine when the wisemen came to Herod and said they had seen the star in the East and have come to pay the Messiah homage. Can you hear how that sounds to Herod’s ears? And the so the text tells us that Herod was frightened and disturbed by this news. He was 70 years old and would only live one more year after this encounter but Herod was determined that this messiah would not live to succeed him. So he asked the wisemen to go search for the child and when they found him to send word back so that he might go and pay homage to him. The wisemen went to Bethlehem and there they worshipped Jesus. But in a dream they were warned not to go back to Jerusalem or Herod. Herod began to realize the wisemen weren’t coming back and he gets angry. He sends his soldiers to Bethlehem to slaughter the innocent children. Bethlehem at this time was probably no larger than 1000 people and so there were probably a few dozen children killed, a number which escalated throughout the centuries as the story was retold again and again.
This is a Christmas story about the reaction and reception to the birth of the Christ child. But it also speaks of the brokenness and evil in this world. Unfortunately, this story has been repeated throughout the centuries of rulers who killed children and their families out of fear and anger. Matthew tells this story as a parallel to the slaughter of the Jewish children in slavery in Egypt. You remember that Pharoah decided that there will just too many Jews and so he told all the midwives to throw the children into the Nile River. And so Matthew wants his Jewish readers to understand that one like Moses has come who is even greater than Moses. Moses is in Egypt and Jesus ends up in Egypt and both were delivers for the Jewish people. The Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem was built over Jesus birthplace. You have to go down stairs under the church to see the original cave. But even below that is another set of caves and in them are children’s bones which were said to be the bones of the innocents slaughtered by Herod.
In this story, we have a person whose fears and insecurities leads them to do things against the faith they process, reminding us that there is a little bit of Herod in all of us. We all struggle with insecurities and fears. God built us with the emotion of fear to protect us but the problem is when fear gets mixed in with our sinfulness, then it becomes a problem. We blow things out of proportion and instead of acting out in ways that save us, we act out in ways to hurt other people. This is what Herod did which led him to kill his own family, even his own children. And so what we do is oppose anything which we think threatens us. And too often, they are based on unfounded fears. When you think about it, most wars were started out of insecurities and fears which were blown way out of proportion. Think about the Cold War and the fears we had of Russia attacking the US with nuclear warheads. Or more recently, the fears of Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction and a war that has cost $36 billion and several 1000 lives. In our own city, I think of the fears of some Westbankers to cross the river or the fears which led the Gretna Police to stop people escaping the flooding from Katrina from cross the bridge across the river or building the wall across Whitney Ave. to separate Gretna and Terrytown, forgetting the fact that you can walk around the wall at Carol Sue and at Stumpf. I mean, how crazy is that? We could go on and on with examples. Here’s what I am asking: what are your insecurities? What are your fears? And how are you acting on them?
What’s the best response? Scripture says that “perfect love casts out all fear.” And so the best response is to love the people that we’re afraid of. And when I feel insecure, that’s a call for me to demonstrate love rather than hate. That’s what the example of Herod teaches us. There are two groups of people that are great at using fear to motivate people to act on their fears. The first is preachers and the second is politicians. How many commercials over the last few months have been based on fear and what happens if their opponent is elected? Don’t be ruled by fear in your voting and your decision making in life.
The second part of the story is when Joseph is awaked by a dream which said, You have to get up now and leave to protect your child. He couldn’t wait because Bethlehem is only a 2 hour walk from Jerusalem and so to wait would be to put the child at risk. So he woke Mary and bundled up Jesus and they fled because there were soldiers coming to kill them. For them to escape, it’s a 50-mile walk through the desert. All they could bring was what they could carry on a donkey’s back, like leaving for Katrina with only three days worth of clothing and having to start over in a new place. Show images or video of the journey to Eqypt through the desert. What we know is that they walked for 30 days through the desert to get from Bethlehem to Cairo all so the Christ child would not be killed, dealing with the desert’s extreme temperatures during the day and very cold temperatures at night. There would have been a few settlements along the way.
We know what it’s like to flee danger because of Katrina. And let us be reminded that there are refugees around the world who have to flee as opposing soldiers close in on their village or town. The United Nations reports that there are 15 million refugees around the world because of violence, war and famine. There’s another 27 million refugees within their own countries. What might the parents and their babies look like? Get images of refugees. These are real people who are very similar to Mary and Joseph as they escape danger and harm.
Part of what you have to see in the story is that there are people that live in the midst of violence on a daily basis and that there are people within our own city in Mid City or the Ninth Ward or the remaining projects who have to live in fear for their lives but who have no means to flee to safety. The power of this story may not be so evident to us in America because this does not reflect most of our life experience. And yet what so often happens is that the Scriptures which mean so much to us are the ones that speak to our life and circumstance. The President of Bethlehem Bible College which prepares Palestinian pastors to plant churches in the region said for Palestinians, this is the most powerful of the Christmas stories because it speaks to the heart of their life experience and daily struggle. Many of their people live as refugees in camps. Even Bethlehem, the birthplace of the Savior, is surrounded by a 22 foot wall, built with American aid dollars to Israel. This story speaks to the Palestinians and refugees because it says God has walked in their shoes. He knows and understands their fear, pain and lack of safety because He has experienced it firsthand. He understands and continues to walk with them.
One of the expectations we bring to our faith, especially at the beginning, is that God will solve all of our problems. If you come to Jesus and trust in Him, then everything’s going to be OK in life. But the reality is that doesn’t reflect the Biblical story and it doesn’t reflect our walk with God. There is pain and suffering in life and sometimes bad things happen. How could we think otherwise when God did not spare his own Son from pain and suffering, starting with when he as a baby was sought to be killed and concluding when he finally died on a Roman cross. The promise isn’t that things will be easier or get better. If God forced all of us to do the right thing all the time, you wouldn’t be free. God has given us free will to hurt other people or to bless them. And in God’s Word, he is begging us to do the right thing. He even sent his own Son that we might know what it looks like to live as God wants us. But he also sent Jesus to show us that while he doesn’t fix everything, he understands. And the promise is that He will walk with you in your pain, suffering and difficulties. He walked with Mary and Joseph and He will walk with you as well. He is with you in your darkest moments. He will not leave you or forsake you. It’s in being there in the midst of the darkness and pain and suffering that makes it not so frightening. Isaiah says, “When you walk through the fire or through the floods, I will be with you.” In Psalm 23 it says, “When you walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will be with you.” And Jesus said, “I will never leave you or forsake you.”
Because of this, we don’t have to be afraid during the darkest times of our life. God will carry us and sustain us and then redeem the pain and bring something beautiful from it. This is what the Christmas story is about. This is why he is called, Emmanuel, God with us, and his presence not only gives us power but it gives us hope.
