We Don't Need Another Herod

For the past six years, part of the rhythm of the Christmas season for me has been the privilege of preaching on the last Sunday of the year for the churches my brother-in-law pastors. This year I turned to the Lectionary for inspiration, which for Year A offers one of the most challenging passages in the Gospels. I think the sermon I preached on Sunday may prove helpful for more than those two congregations, so I offer it here as a meditation for the coming year. (As an aside, I always struggle to come up with titles for my sermons, but if you’re a fan of the Mad Max franchise – or of Tina Turner – you’ll understand why this one practically chose itself.)

If all we had was Matthew’s account of the Christmas story, then all our Christmas carols, and pageants and nativity scenes would be pretty thin on material. I mean, Mary and Jesus basically get cameo appearances in Matthew:

1.18: “When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit”.

Followed by:

1.25: “She bore Joseph a son, and he named him Jesus.”

Then we’re straight on to the story of the Wise Men. Thank goodness for Luke!

The text we’re given in the Lectionary for this week drops us into the middle of the story of the visit of the Magi, so let’s get up to speed on what’s been happening. Jesus has been born in Bethlehem. ‘Wise men from the East’ – probably from modern day Iraq – saw a star that they interpreted as the sign of a momentous event and have traveled to Jerusalem. They have walked the streets of the city asking this question: “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? We have come to pay him homage.” Matthew tells us, ‘when King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him.’ This is Herod the Great – the one who rebuilt the Temple. We can certainly understand why he might have been alarmed by the arrival of the Wise Men asking such a question! But why was the entire population of Jerusalem also frightened?

Because of Herod. And the way he had risen to power.

King Herod had not been born into a royal family. He was only half-Jewish. But he was a man with lofty ambitions, and the willingness to do whatever it took to achieve them. He began his political career as Governor of Galilee, where he successfully collected taxes for Rome. This endeared him to Marc Anthony, who appointed him Tetrarch of Galilee. But his brutality was condemned by the Sanhedrin, and the current king of Judea – Antigonus – learned to kept a wary eye on Herod. When the Parthians invaded in 40 BCE, Herod fled to Rome. Three years later, the Senate in Rome unexpectedly nominated Herod as King of Judaea, and gave him an army to make good his claim. Jerusalem became ground zero for the ensuing civil war – and its people suffered.

Once Herod had secured the throne for himself, he began to systematically assassinate his rivals for the throne. Cleopatra also had her eye on Judea, backing a rival, which led to more bloodshed. By the time we get to the events of Matthew chapter 2, Herod has been in power for over 30 years. He has taken 10 wives from prominent families, all of whom gave him sons who they hoped would succeed him. Some of these sons have tried to poison their father. Herod has changed his will 5 times, keeping everyone off balance, and now he is an old man, in poor health. He has spent three decades holding onto power, trying to establish his own dynasty. In his latest will he has named his son Antipas as his successor. And Jerusalem has heaved a sigh of relief as it looks like the prospect of more bloodshed is finally over. But then these Magi from the East arrive, asking where the King of the Jews has been born. It’s no wonder all Jerusalem is frightened – is another civil war about to explode?

Well, Herod calls together the chief priests and bible scholars and inquires of them where the Messiah – the King of the line of David – is to be born. They answer Bethlehem, according to the word given through the prophet Micah. Herod then secretly sends for the wise men, and sends them to Bethlehem with instructions to identify the child for him and then return and tell him where the baby is, so that he too can ‘pay him homage.’ They travel to Bethlehem, find the infant Jesus with Mary and offer him their strange gifts. Then they all share a dream warning them not to return to Herod, and so return home instead. This leaves Herod in Jerusalem, waiting anxiously for their news, so he can send his soldiers to find the child who threatens his plans to establish his dynasty – and kill him. But they never return, and thus, we finally get to our text for the first Sunday of Christmas, Matthew 2.13-23:

When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up,” he said, “take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.” So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: “Out of Egypt I called my son.”

When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi.  Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled:

“A voice is heard in Ramah,
    weeping and great mourning,
Rachel weeping for her children
    and refusing to be comforted,
    because they are no more.”

After Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who were trying to take the child’s life are dead.” So he got up, took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning in Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. Having been warned in a dream, he withdrew to the district of Galilee, and he went and lived in a town called Nazareth. So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets, that he would be called a Nazarene.

If I were to ask you to picture a scene from the Bethlehem of the Christmas story, my guess is it would be a stable, with the Holy Family, shepherds, some sheep, maybe the wise men with their camels. It would probably not be this one:

This is the painting, ‘Scène du massacre des innocents,’ painted by the French artist Léon Cogniet in 1824. It captures the horror of what happened in Bethlehem that day. When we think of a mother and child at Christmas, we of course picture Mary and Jesus. But this painting depicts another mother and child in Bethlehem. A mother who no doubt rejoiced in the birth of her son just as Mary did. A mother who had nursed and nurtured her child, perhaps begun to dream of that child’s future. But now she is a mother covering her son’s mouth to stifle his cries as Herod’s troops ransack their little village. Once more Herod’s troops are spilling blood, but this time not in Jerusalem or one of the larger cities of Judea, but here, in a sleepy little rural community.

There were countless villages like this dotting the landscape of Israel. Country folk, quietly going about their ordinary, hard-scrabble lives. Unaware for the most part of the political scheming going on in Jerusalem. Largely left to their own devices, uncared for by the powerful. They certainly never saw the king, or high priests, or members of the High Council in their village. They only heard from them when it was time to raise taxes again, or supply animals or grain for the tables of the powerful in Jerusalem. The luxurious robes of the wealthy elite were never seen on the dusty streets of Bethlehem.

Well, there had been that one time – just a few weeks ago. When those strangers had shown up at a home in Bethlehem. Rumours had quickly spread of gifts of gold, and expensive spices. Things rarely seen in their little community. But then the strangers had left – as had the little family they had visited, and life returned to normal. Until the sound of the iron shod sandals of Herod’s troops were heard on their streets, and the political machinations of Jerusalem found their way to Bethlehem. And the cries of mothers were heard, as infants were torn from their grasp, and killed. A generation of a community’s children snuffed out by a fearful old man, seated on a throne in a distant city, huddled in furs to warm his old bones.

And a mother asks us a question with haunted eyes – “Why?”

This is a truly disturbing story. One that if it were not for the Lectionary, I imagine many preachers would avoid, for many reasons. I mean, it’s hard to talk about the slaughter of children with the wonder of Christmas still in the air, with all the decorations still hung, and the scent of Christmas-spiced candles lingering in our homes.

But this has been the human story from the very beginning. When we feel threatened, we respond with violence, and when we do, it is usually children who suffer the most. There are clearly echoes of an earlier story in this one, where a pharaoh in Egypt felt threatened by an immigrant community and ordered the death of their newborn boys. And that story echoes down through the millennia. Because those who sit in the seats of power continue to respond to perceived threats with violence, which they often justify in terms of “national security.” So, children killed when a drone strike targets their father are “collateral damage.” Or when parents are detained at a border, children are put in for-profit detention centers and denied basic care to try and deter other families from migrating. Or if they’re already here, their parents may be dragged from chicken processing plants and deported, leaving their children behind. When civil wars erupt, children are forced to flee and then spend years in refugee camps as other countries debate whether to welcome them or not.

Yes, when those in power feel threatened, violence is never far behind. How many mothers around the world today would look at us just like the one in the painting does?

But there is something perhaps even more disturbing about this story than sheer violence, something my wife Rebecca raised as we discussed this story a couple of weeks ago. The child that was the true target of Herod’s fear escaped, “because an angel of the Lord warned his parents in a dream”, and they fled before the soldiers came. Leaving all the other children his age in Bethlehem to be slaughtered, because their parents – apparently – didn’t get that warning.

The beginning of the Gospel of Matthew – the “good news” – is the birth of the long-awaited Messiah. The One of whom we sing during Advent, “Come, Thou long-expected Jesus, born to set thy people free.” Not just free from the power of Rome, but free from the power of sin, and violence and death. We celebrate the birth of that child every year at Christmas. But there was nothing to celebrate for the mothers and fathers of Bethlehem that first Christmas. No, instead, “A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation. Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.”

Because no angel of the Lord warned them to flee.

And even if it had, they didn’t have gifts of gold and expensive spices to finance their migration. The birth of the Son of God – the long-awaited Messiah – was hardly good news for his playmates in Bethlehem, who became collateral damage of the actions of a threatened tyrant.

What are we to do with this story? Because the pain and questions it raises echo down through the ages till today. For how many of us have asked the same question as this woman?

“Why is this happening to me? To my family? To my community?”

“Why were they spared this, and we weren’t?”

“Why were their prayers answered, and ours weren’t?”

Why was Mary’s son spared, and that woman’s killed? Yes, I know Mary’s son is Jesus, and the salvation of the whole world rests on his shoulders. But that boy may have been the whole world to his mother – and he wasn’t spared. Whenever we pray for people wrestling with cancer, or heart disease, or for people who’ve been in car wrecks or who face some other life-threatening situation, we celebrate when people are healed, or delivered. And rightfully so. But it always raises the question – at least it does for me – why were they healed, when so many others that we’ve prayed for haven’t been? Yes, divine intervention spared the infant Jesus’ life. But it did not prevent the death of an entire generation of a village’s children.

What are we to do with this story, and these questions? One thing I know, glib or trite answers don’t help. In fact, I’m not sure that any kind of ‘answer’ really helps in the face of such grief. Perhaps all we can do is grieve alongside those who grieve, mourn with those who mourn. Rage with those who rage against the unfairness of life. Lament that the world we have made is not the world that God intended for us. AND we can also confront those in power who resort to violence when they feel threatened – especially when they do it in our name.

I imagine that when word spread of what had happened in Bethlehem, there were mothers in Jerusalem who held their children a little tighter when they hugged them goodnight. Mothers who were glad that the fear that they had felt would now pass. Sure, they may have felt guilty for feeling that way, “and wasn’t it sad about Bethlehem?” But at least their kids are safe now. Perhaps some of us respond in a similar way when we see images of children suffering elsewhere. “It’s so sad, but I guess it’s just what happens…”

Well, is there any kind of good news to be had from this story in Matthew’s Gospel? Perhaps it’s enough just to lament the brokenness of our world and the suffering that people experience. And continue to learn to sit with the tension of our questions as people of faith. But I want to revisit the words of the prophet Jeremiah that Matthew draws upon in this story. At first glance, it seems he chose this verse simply because it describes the horror of what’s happening in Bethlehem. But I wonder if Matthew has something more in mind with his choice than a prophecy being fulfilled.

This verse appears in the middle of chapter 31 of Jeremiah. He was writing to the people in exile in Babylon – the lowest point of Israel’s history. A national catastrophe of the highest order, a catastrophe captured by the words Matthew quotes:

“A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation,
Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.”

Why does Jeremiah single out Ramah from all the towns in Israel? He does so because Ramah was the staging ground for the exile. Everyone had to gather there, and from there they were taken to Babylon. It was ground zero for the national catastrophe of exile. And yet, the entirety of the rest of chapter 31 is God’s promise that one day they would return from exile. Words you may be familiar with:

“I have loved you with an everlasting love;
    I have drawn you with unfailing kindness…
I will turn your mourning into gladness;
    I will give you comfort and joy instead of sorrow…
The days are coming,” declares the Lord,
    “when I will make a new covenant
     with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah.
This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel
    after that time,” declares the Lord.
“I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God, and they will be my people.”

Even in the midst of the worst moment in Israel’s story, God promises that one day all will be made right. And it is that promise which lies at the heart of the Gospel. Because every year at Christmas we remember that a new King has been born. Not a Herod, or a Nebuchadnezzar, or a Caesar, or a Supreme Leader or a President, or any other ruler whose reign is based in violence and the continual threat of violence. But the Prince of Peace. And he shall reign forever and ever. And one day parents will never have to grieve the loss of their children again.

I imagine that as time passed, the people of Bethlehem came together, and adapted to life without that missing generation of workers. Figuring it out together, as rural communities often have to when the actions – or inaction – of government creates hardship. And while we live in this era of endless election cycles, putting our hope in whichever candidate we think will make our lives better, let’s remember this: we don’t need another Herod. Our hope lies elsewhere.

We live in between the first and the second advents, in the already – but not yet – Kingdom of God, which has come and is still coming. And so, while we wait for the return of the King who was born in Bethlehem two thousand years ago, we sit together with our questions, and our pain. We learn to adapt to the impact powerful people in far off cities have on our lives. And we lean on each other – figuring it out together. And when some of us struggle to hold on to our faith because of the things that happen to us or around us, let us live in such a way that we can have faith in each other. The Body of Christ – where Jesus continues to become flesh today, in each other.

May it be so.