Micah 5:2-5,
Matthew 2:1-12
What a lie. What a weak-kneed, spine yellowing, sinister
scheme spinning lie. Not to mention it
was also blasphemy against the Holy One of your nation. Really,
Herod?
Oh, excuse us for not being more respectful,
more polite. We should address you as King
Herod. Though, you know, and we know,
that you weren’t exactly King of the Jews.
You were really just a puppet ruler over a Jewish region belonging to the
Roman Empire.
Still, perhaps we should also acknowledge
that the history books give you the title of Herod the Great. We understand this is mostly due to your reputation
for ordering colossal building projects throughout Jerusalem. Ah, yet … we also feel compelled to say
that we know what your own historians say is really the greatest (as in the biggest)
thing about your reputation. It’s that you were a person prepared to “commit
any crime in order to gratify your unbounded ambition.”[i] We have this assessment of your immoral character
confirmed by our own records, in the testimony to your utterly evil massacre of
innocents mentioned in chapter two of Matthew’s Gospel.
So the lie you spit out in the days
before that particular violent act comes as no surprise to us. You conjured it up the moment you learned of
the bold inquiry of the brilliant men from beyond your land. They wanted to know where the new and true
King of the Jews had been born. You,
polished politician that you were, attempted to come across as pleased by the
sudden news. You even offered up pious sounding words.
But, again, our records from Matthew
clearly reveal your real reaction. In his
native language he wrote that you had been tarasso
(tarasso). That is, you were deeply
disturbed, anxiously all stirred up, thrown totally off balance, and full of
fear and dread. Deep within your sin spoiled self you knew that
this child would reveal you as a usurper.
This was your personal epiphany.
And so you reacted like many in this
world who firmly embrace great power, are scared to death of losing it, and
will thus do absolutely anything to protect and expand it. You
lied, you schemed, you barked an order at the wiser men. You said, “Go and search diligently for the
child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay
him homage.” But you didn’t want to
offer any public honor and respect for this newborn king. You wanted to kill him. Eliminate the threat.
The highly regarded astrologer-seers of the
priestly social caste that you desperately summoned to your side no doubt
suspected your deceit, even as they obeyed your command. Fred Beuchner, one of the most learned and
faithful writers of our modern day, has creatively put us in the room with them
that long ago day to experience their assessment of you. He describes it in this way –
“As he spoke, his fingers trembled
so that the emeralds rattled together like teeth” and “his hand were still as
death. Death. He took us for children, that sly, lost old
fox, and so it was like children that we answered him. ‘Yes, of course,’ we said, and went our
way. His hands fluttered to his throat
like moths.”[ii]
Truly, did you deceive
yourself? Did you think they were being
obedient to you? No, they were placating
you… so they could safely get on with their great adventure of investigating
the cosmic sign that had so strongly summoned them. They were eager to keep following the one of
kind, world-illuminating star they had spotted. As highly respected scientists of their day,
this was the find of their lifetimes!
And their curiosity – that wonderfully inherent tool of human
intelligence and imagination -- compelled them forward. True, they did not practice the Jewish
religion. This was a more of a
spiritual but not religious experience for them. But they faithfully read the skies and saw a
clear convergence of planets that represented both royalty and the Jewish
people. They knew this was cosmically colossal news.
You see, Herod, God went way over
your ruthless head. In that newborn
king, Jesus, our Savior, God expanded his loving, redeeming embrace of this
whole world. As proof to the
inclusiveness and breadth of this holy embrace, God did so by calling on
outsiders instead of insiders to confirm Jesus’ birth. This great revelation, God’s great epiphany
of the Messiah’s birth, was sent to the likes of lowly, socially outcast
shepherds, and on up across the spectrum to widely venerated foreign
scientists.
Oh, Herod, it had to have angered
you that God went over the head of a supposed insider and authority such as yourself. Ironic, huh? Well, we find it even more ironic that God
also went over the heads of the chief priests and scribes you called upon to
validate the wise men’s discovery. Remember?
Of course you do. They correctly quoted the prophet Micah regarding
a new ruler from Bethlehem who would bring peace and true security to the ends of the earth. Not just to your turf in Jerusalem, not only
to the Jewish nation, but to the whole world, to everyone. A sovereign with a reach infinitely greater
than you could ever have imagined or managed to extend. Even with the Roman Empire. These religious authorities should have
welcomed the findings of the wise men. But they quoted Micah without seeming to have
any clue that the ancient, awesome prophecy had been fulfilled! Or maybe they did. Maybe they too, like you, were tarasso.
We don’t mind confessing that this
irony keeps us alert -- this irony concerning outsiders and insiders, those
supposedly in the know and those we assume are out of our loop, those who
religiously study sacred Scriptures and those who just spiritually study
stars. When it comes to the expansive and all inclusive
epiphany of Christ, we trust and celebrate that God is always sending signs and
directing people to it. And we keep
alert knowing well that this can come to and through those folks we might never
expect to notice a Savior revealing star at its rising. Another
of our faithful religious teachers has confessed what we feel, saying, “It’s always wondrously frightening to realize
anew that God’s own work of embracing all people is more mystery than formula,
because God’s ways are always bigger than my understanding.”[iii]
The brilliant men from beyond your
land, the outsiders who were likely Zoroastrianists, as many today have
concluded, and you, Herod, likely knew, revealed what the real response to this
Bethlehem birth should always be. Not fearful,
violent, blasphemous, self-protecting power plays. The only true response to this blessed birth
is bright, overwhelming joy! Joy for the
justice, peace and unity of the whole world our holy king, Jesus, was born to
bring about.
You, Herod, selfishly wanted to take
away God’s greatest gift to this world.
We get it. You acted out of
sinful fear and dread, out of corrupt notions of power. We get it, because, tragically, we still
have to live with the consequences of this worldview. But we
have learned from you, learned not to be like you at all. We have learned to follow the truly wise who
lead us to and teach us God’s expansive truth; who also teach us that welling
up out of great joy is tremendous gratitude, gratitude which inspires our constant
response of gift giving to the glory of our Savior. That’s why we all just gave special gifts
to loved ones twelve days ago. Its one important way we keep the memory of the
original epiphany alive. It’s one way we
help expand God’s joyful embrace.
So, Herod, one last question for
today. Did you really think the wise
men (however many of them there were) would come back to you? That they would somehow ignore the deeper,
truer voice that had mysteriously yet also brilliantly called to them? They, who gladly relied more on holy
intuition and inspiration than on human institution, who had been warned in
dream not to go anywhere near you again?
We know that you died before
executing your malicious original intention for the newborn King of the Jews,
of the World. We also know that your son, your successor, was
glad to help make that happen some thirty years later. But, really, how’d that work out? Did your son’s hand in executing Jesus, Son
of God, do anything to restrict God’s ever expanding embrace of justice, peace
and love in this world?
You know the answer. And so do we.
It’s why we are gathered here today and why we will keep gathering. It’s why we have offered our gifts and will
keep offering our gifts. You see,
Herod, we actually mean what we say -- we gladly pay homage to our whole
world’s true king. Glory be God! Amen.
