The Story Of Royalty Series

Both Kings Left a Legacy

If you goggle the legacy that Herod left you will discover that during his reign the king was a prolific builder. It wasn’t by accident that he was called “The great.” But nothing remains of those buildings but rubble and ruin.

Some of the accomplishment that top the list are the mountain top fortress of Masada, maybe you saw the movie. When the Roman army was crushing the Jewish rebellion in 73 there was a group who made a stand in Masada.

When the Romans finally took the fortress they discovered that 960 of its resident had either killed each other or committed suicide. Men, women and children. There were only 7 survivors, 2 women and 5 children.

This is what Masada looks like today. Interesting that this event has taken on almost heroic status. In 1978 909 people died the same way at Jonestown in Guyana and it is considered the work of a mad man with a deluded following. Strange how history works.

Herod was also known for creating the port city of Caesarea, named of course after Caesar this was the foremost port in Israel in its day. This is a picture of what remains of Caesarea today.

There is a community that bears the same name but it was established in 1952.

Herod’s palace was considered the largest palace of its day. He named it Herodium in honour of himself, and here are the remains.

There is nothing left standing of Herod’s architectural accomplishments and most of them were destroyed by very empire that Herod aligned himself with.

If you ask people if they know who Herod is, they will usual mention the Christmas story or the Easter story.

By the way that the Herod in the Easter story who mockingly dressed Jesus in a purple robe and sent him back to Pilate to be crucified was the son of the Herod from the Christmas story.

The legacy of Herod is of a bitter old man who killed his family, terrorized his subjects and left behind piles of ruins.

Although we have no record of Christ ever constructing a building his legacy is cathedrals, universities and hospitals. His teachings have shaped how we treat the sick and the poor.

If you are university educated, then you probably were educated at an institution founded by His Church.

If you were born in Halifax before 1996 then you were probably born in a hospital that was founded by His Church.

In the 17 and 18 hundreds, His church was at the forefront of the fight against slavery and child labour.

If you are a woman and enjoy the rights that have come your way in the past 200 years you can probably trace many of those rights back to the first women’s rights conference held in Seneca Falls NY in 1848. Which was held in a Wesleyan Church.

The legacy of Christ is a legacy of better people, people who have shaped and changed the world for the better because they have taken to heart the teachings of Christ.

In 1979 Bob Dylan released an album about his Christian faith called Slow Train Coming and on that album was the song “You Gotta Serve Somebody” and in it Dylan wrote this epic truth.