Herod Was Right

This is a sermon I gave twelve years ago at Monroe Congregational UCC. It seems to me that it is more appropriate than ever as we approach the inauguration of the first American fascist president, so I am posting it here. It speaks a profound truth that we all need to know now more than ever.

Herod Was Right

Rev. Dr. Tom Sorenson, Pastor

December 26, 2004 

Scripture: Matthew 2:13-23 

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O God, our strength and our redeemer. Amen. 

We all love the Christmas stories, don’t we? We love the star of Bethlehem. It lights our way to Jesus. For us it isn’t Christmas without it. We love the Wise Men. It wouldn’t be a Nativity scene without them. We love the shepherds and the angels and the lambs. They provide countless roles for children in our Christmas pageants. We love most of all Luke’s story of a baby born in a stable and laid in a manger because there was no room for them at the inn. Christmas is about these stories for us. We cherish our memories of hearing them when we were children and perhaps of reading them to our own or other children ourselves. They are part of who we are, and we love them.

But in Matthew’s Gospel there’s another Christmas story that we rarely hear. It’s one I suspect most of us would just as soon leave out. It isn’t pretty and sweet, it’s brutal and ugly. We leave it out because it destroys our pretty images of Christmas and the coming of sweet baby Jesus. It is the story we just heard of Herod’s massacre of the infants, all the children of Bethlehem aged two years or under. We can hardly imagine such a horror, and we sure don’t want it crashing in on our pretty, peaceful Christmas. Yet there it is. Right at the beginning of Matthew’s Gospel. The lectionary doesn’t skip it; and neither, I think, can we. So let me try to make some sense out of it here this morning.

Last week I told you that Bible stories are never just about others there and then. They are about us here and now. Keep that notion in mind while I give you another truth about Bible stories. They may or may not be historical accounts of things that actually happened; but whether they are historical or not, the Biblical authors told them for some reason beyond reporting history. They told them to make some theological point. They told the story to make a point about God, or Jesus, or us through that story. That point is often what the stories are saying to us here and now. So what is the theological point of the story of the massacre of the infants? Whether that story is historical or not, Matthew is, I think, trying to say at least a couple of important things about Jesus by telling us his brutal, disturbing story.

One thing Matthew was saying is that, for him and his community, Jesus is the new Moses. Matthew’s story of the slaughter of the children at the beginning of Jesus’ life closely parallels the story in Exodus of Pharaoh’s attempted slaughter of the Hebrew boy children at the beginning of Moses’ life. Matthew, unlike any other Gospel, has the Holy Family coming out of Egypt just as Moses led the Hebrew people out of Egypt to the Promised Land 1,500 years earlier. And Matthew, unlike any other Gospel, has Jesus deliver his most profound teachings from a high place-the Sermon on the Mount-just as Moses brought God’s law down from the mountaintop in Exodus. There are other parallels between Jesus and Moses in Matthew too, but the point is made. Matthew’s Jesus is, among other things, the new Moses, and the story of the massacre of the infants is one way in which Matthew tells us that.

Matthew, however, has another point to make in this story. To get at that point we need to recall that earlier in Chapter 2-actually in the lectionary reading for next week-King Herod, the Roman client king who ruled Judea at the time, learned from the Wise Men that a child had been born "King of the Jews." Now, we hear that as good news, but Herod sure didn’t. He heard it as a profound threat. After all, he was king of the Jews; and he knew of the prophecies from Micah and Isaiah that one would come from Bethlehem who would restore the kingdom of David and usher in the reign of God. Like all kings, he didn’t take kindly to the idea of a rival claimant to the throne showing up. Herod knew that if this child were the promised one, his hold on power was profoundly threatened. He reacted exactly the way earthly rulers usually react to a threat real or imagined. He resorted to violence to preserve his hold on power. According to the story, he didn’t know exactly who or where this child was. He had hoped the Wise Men would tell him, but they tricked him by returning from Bethlehem by a different way and not going back through Jerusalem. So he couldn’t destroy the threat to his power simply by killing Jesus. He didn’t know which of the many infant boys in his kingdom was Jesus, so he had them all killed. Never mind the shedding of innocent blood. Never mind the unspeakable anguish of mothers and fathers throughout the land. All that mattered was that Herod retain his hold on power, so the children had to die. With earthly power it is ever thus.

Now, on one level, this is all pretty bizarre. Why should a king, who not only had his own soldiers or at least his own palace guard at his disposal but who was also backed up by the unstoppable might of the Roman legions be afraid of an infant? That’s all Jesus was at this point, to outward appearances at least. A helpless infant in the care of poor, powerless parents, with no following, no army, nothing that could possibly threaten Herod and his Roman patrons. So was Herod simply paranoid? Was he delusional? Was he mad?

No. Herod wasn’t any of those things. Herod was right. Herod thought Jesus was a threat, and he was absolutely right. Jesus was a threat to Herod. Jesus was, and is, a threat to all earthly power, all who rule by force and lies and trickery, all who would dominate others for their own gain and for the gain of their wealthy and powerful supporters. Herod was absolutely right to be so scared of Jesus that he would resort to mass murder, to a crime against humanity as we would call it today, in an attempt to get rid of him.

But how can that be? What is it about Jesus that makes him such a threat to those in power? Well, for Herod in Matthew’s story it was the fact that Jesus was indeed the promised one, the Messiah; and Herod thought that meant someone who would literally, in a worldly sense, take his kingdom away from him. I imagine that Herod thought that if this really were God’s Anointed One not even the military power of Imperial Rome could save him when this child grew up and came to claim his birthright.

But remember my mantra about Bible stories not being only about others there and then but about us here and now too. What is this story about Herod’s fear of a helpless infant saying to us today, here and now? It says: Herod was right. It says all of the Herods of every time and place are right to fear God’s Anointed One. Why? Because He has a rightful claim on our ultimate allegiance, the allegiance that people of all times and places far too readily give to earthly powers and rulers instead.

Throughout history rulers have tried to neutralize the threat that Jesus is to earthly power. Herod tried to deal with the threat by trying to kill Jesus while he was still a baby. He failed. Some thirty plus years later the Romans tried to deal with the threat by crucifying the adult Jesus. They failed. Some 300 years after that the Roman Emperor Constantine tried to deal with the threat by co-opting him. Constantine made the faith Jesus’ followers had created the official religion of the Empire. Constantine succeeded. With the establishment of Christianity as the religion of Empire Jesus ceased to be a threat to Empire. Or rather, Christianity ceased to be a threat to Empire. It became a tool of Empire. The Prince of Peace was put in the service of rule by violence; and the leaders of dominant world power today continue to co-opt Jesus for the purposes of Empire.

But here’s the thing: They can co-opt Christianity, but they can never co-opt Jesus. Herod was right. Jesus, the real, living Son of God, the true Messiah, is a threat to established power. He demands and deserves our allegiance above any flag, above any nation. He calls us to build a world of peace and justice for all people, not a world of domination through violence. That is what Matthew’s story of the massacre of the infants says to us today. God spoke that first Christmas in Jesus, and Herod heard a profound threat. Herod was right. God is still speaking. Are we listening? Amen.