Keeping Herod in Christmas
Advent is a little different this year.
I will leave a little pause so that you can chuckle a bit about that – because really, what isn’t different this year?
As we continue on our journey over 52 weeks together, we’re letting the book We Make the Road by Walking shape our weekly scripture focus. That has its risks, right? We have things we are comfortable with and things we are not comfortable with…letting the book shape our journey takes some control out of our hands. I want to name that. I can be uncomfortable. It can also take us places we might not otherwise choose to go.
And so this year, on the third Sunday of Advent, rather than talking about Mary or Joseph or shepherds (although we’ll get to all of those eventually), we’re talking about Herod.
Herod.
Herod the Great.
Herod whose father had been held in regard by Julius Caesar.
Herod whose family connections landed him a political title as a client king of all of Judea on behalf of the Roman government.
Herod, whose role it was to maximize the tax revenues squeezed from the common citizen of occupied Judea to fill the coffers of the Roman empire.
Herod, likely descended from Edomites whose ancestors had converted to Judaism in prior generations.
That Herod.
How often do we dwell with all of THAT as we prepare for Christmas?
But Herod is an important backdrop to the way Jesus enters the world.
Herod’s behavior shaped Jesus’ infancy.
It shaped Judea in the years leading up to Jesus’ birth.
So here we are, talking about Herod.
Because Herod was in power when Jesus entered the world. Although he came into power through family connections, I assume he had some organizational leadership skills too. I suspect Rome didn’t let slackers manage their sources of income – I assume Herod must have been good at maximizing the tax revenues of Judea. And I assume that when one held a political appointment controlled by Caesar, one worked really hard NOT to offend Caesar, not to mess up, not to let anything undermine their privileged status.
Today in the that scripture you heard, we glimpse Herod’s anxiety and then action triggered by the news of a child – a new king - born in Bethlehem.
Wise strangers show up in Jerusalem. They have experienced signs that a new King has been born, and of course one would show up in the seat of power to find a king, right? They come to Herod while he sits in Jerusalem. They share that they have seen a new king’s star rising. The NRSV says they want to pay “homage.” Most other versions use the word worship. Where is the King of the Jews, we have come to worship him?
They would seek to “worship” the king because political power and spiritual power and authority and economy were all tied up together…which might feel a little foreign to us today.
Now put yourself, for a moment, in Herod’s shoes.
Last he checked, he was the King of the Jews – what is this talk of a new King? What is this talk of finding this new king to bear gifts and worship before him?
And the text says Herod – and all of Jerusalem with him – was afraid.
He was afraid.
I wonder… what is meant by “all of Jerusalem?” All of those in power around Herod? Or was it the populace – afraid that change might bring a harsher ruler? A new power? Change in general?
Herod is clever enough not to show his reaction to the visitors – he pulls himself together and consults with the tradition. Gathering priests and scribes who would know the ancient prophecies inside and out, he asks for their help – from where would this new king emerge? What is it that these visitors from the East seek?
The scribes and priests offer up bits of text, mostly drawn from the Micah text you heard today – texts that point toward Bethlehem.
Bethlehem, the ancient city of David.
A new king in the line of David.
For those steeped in the Jewish tradition, that would have both political and theological overtones. You see, kings were legitimized by God’s favor. Into a backdrop of Roman rule where the Caesar’s power (and the power of his designees) was legitimized by a pantheon of gods (lower case G), this turn of events suggested that a new King had been born – one whose legitimacy might be anointed (like David) by the one God of the Jewish people.
Herod notes all of this and he lures the visitors to help him with additional information. He asks them, when did you first sight this new King’s star in the sky? Then under the guise of his desire to also pay homage to this new king, Herod asks them to return after finding the new king so that he will know where to find the child.
I suspect most of us know the rest of the story as it is told in the scriptures – the visitors find the child Jesus but are warned in a dream not to tell Herod about the location. And Joseph is warned in a dream to to leave the country – to become a refugee fleeing Herod’s power. Power that threatens this new child named Jesus.
We didn’t read the balance of this story today – the part where Herod, using the star-sighting information from the visitors, orders all the male babies born within a certain timeframe in Bethlehem to be killed. In truth, we don’t have an historical record that suggests this really happened, and it is possible that it did happen but it affected very few toddler boys because Bethlehem was NOT a big place at that time…which may have meant it wasn’t recorded in history.
The story serves to reveal the depths of Herod’s anger.
He is so concerned about holding onto power that he is willing to kill.
He is willing to kill baby boys in Bethlehem.
His anxiety and suspicion about a King born in Bethlehem, a King in the line of David, a King legitimized by the God of Israel, will flavor the rest of the story of Jesus.
Herod had power. It was power over people granted to him by the Roman Empire.
But somehow, that power was threatened by a new power that arrived with the birth of a tiny boy, a kind of power that I don’t think Herod fully understood. Actually, I am not always sure we recognize or understand the power of Jesus’ birth.
The Christmas story as it is often told can lull us into focusing on the magical mystical miracle-working Jesus, the Jesus who was miraculously born of a virgin, whose first miracle was to turn water to wine, who seemed to always have at his fingertips the healing touch and the right word for the moment. Jesus definitely had amazing and miraculous power.
In focusing on the magical mystical miracle-working Jesus, we might miss the vitally important power dynamic into which Jesus was born and grew up and operated. We might miss the way Jesus chose, in light of how authority and power is being wielded in the political system into which he was born and raised, to reach the outcasts, the minorities, the marginalized, and the lost. To remind them that they are loved and have value and deserve to be shielded by a different kind of power – the power of God’s love for each one of them.
McLaren brings Herod into the Advent story so that we begin to understand who this Jesus is. Who this Jesus will be. How the world was around this child born in Bethlehem.
We have to know Herod, and the way he chose to wield power, to truly understand the counterpoint that Jesus who is God with us really embodied.
Power is neither good nor bad. What we do with power matters.
Let me say that again.
Power is neither good or bad.
What we do with power matters.
Herod possessed power granted to him by a foreign occupying force whose interests were tied to money, to the availability of vital resources and trade routes. He used that power over people to satisfy the needs of the occupying force rather than the people around him.
And into this scene enters Jesus.
A baby, born in a place where animals slept.
This tiny baby is entering into a story about power.
That is why we read about Herod in this season.
To understand the darker shadows of power.
How it makes us behave.
The choices power calls us to.
So that we might understand just a little bit about who Jesus was and would become.
We have power too.
And we have choices before us about how to use that power.
We have the option to choose love over all else.
Isn’t it a good thing we have the example of Jesus entering in to wield the power of love.
May it be so.
Amen.
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