"When Herod realised 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." Matthew 2:16Christmas disturbs us.
The Herod episode is disturbing.
Why was Herod disturbed by the news of the Messiah’s birth?
This is the long-awaited one, the fulfilment of all those prophecies.
These stargazers have arrived from the east to herald it in.
These stargazers have arrived from the east to herald it in.
but instead of celebrating, Herod is spooked and Matthew says, “all of Jerusalem with him.”
Herod gathered all the religious leaders and they opened the Scripture to find the meaning of all these nativity stories. They looked into Micah’s prophecy and there it was,
"But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah,When the Magi don’t return, as Herod had asked them to, he explodes in anger.
though you are small among the clans of Judah,
out of you will come for me
one who will be ruler over Israel,” Matthew 2:6 - Micah 5:2,4
Like some Game Of Thrones scene you can see him check the scroll again, swipe the table clean, cups and bowls smashing and splintering and the sacred papyrus rip, like the veil in the temple later would.
Herod summoned his troops whose horses hooves thunder out of Jerusalem to go and kill all the babies, under two years of age, in the Bethlehem area.
Herod summoned his troops whose horses hooves thunder out of Jerusalem to go and kill all the babies, under two years of age, in the Bethlehem area.
It is a challenge for those of us who have the truth, who look it up, who turn the pages of the Holy Scriptures.
Herod’s problem was not that he didn’t have the truth.
Herod had too much truth.
He knew that this baby was going to change everything.
This was going to demand changes: personally, materially and politically and he wasn’t up for the truth to have its way.
What about us?
Are there places in our lives where we have the truth but refuse to welcome it into our lives?
No, we don’t kill Jesus, we sing carols about him, but do we kill his revolution?
John Stott said that the greatest evangelical heresy of the 20th Century was our lack of social justice. I remember it being labelled a “social gospel” like it was the heresy.
Was that a misunderstanding of the Scriptures or just that the cost of getting involved in God’s Kingdom coming and his will being done on earth would impinge too much on our comfortable lives?
Was that a misunderstanding of the Scriptures or just that the cost of getting involved in God’s Kingdom coming and his will being done on earth would impinge too much on our comfortable lives?
What other Jesus truth do we dismiss seemingly as wrong but actually just because we do not want to surrender to it?
Loving our [pick your descriptor - Palestinian (or any other people), sleeping rough (or any other pushed aside group), NDP (or any other political descriptor] neighbours?
Herod knew the truth but couldn’t handle the price this baby would cost him.
And us?
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