"Christmas through the eyes of Herod" (Sermon at FFMC 11/12/16)

Mr 2: 1-8, 16-18. After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Mag^] from the east came to Jerusalem ² and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” ³ When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. ⁴ When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born. ⁵ “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written:

⁶ “‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
    are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for out of you will come a ruler
    who will shepherd my people Israel.’”

⁷ Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. ⁸ He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and search carefully for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.”

¹⁶ 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. ¹⁷ Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled:

¹⁸ “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.”^d

Introduction

The Bible mentions three Herods: The one in this passage is (74/73 BCE – 4 BCE) Herod the Great (Herod I), He was a Roman client king of Judea. The other two are Herod Antipas (killer of John the Baptist and before whom Jesus was tried) was the son of Herod I who was tetrarch of Galilee and Peraea. The Herod in the book of Acts is Herod Agrippa I, grandson of Herod the Great, who killed the apostle James and imprisoned Peter, and who was struck dead by God for his pride.

Herod the Great is known for his colossal building projects throughout Judea, including his expansion of the Second Temple in Jerusalem (Herod's Temple), the construction of the port at Caesarea Maritima, and the fortresses at Masada and Herodium. This is a successful man by the standards of the world. But he also executed one of his 10 wives (and mother in law), and three of his 14 children as well as a brother in law.

In many ways, Herod is the opposite of Mary, whose response of faith and submission we studied last week. As Mary’s response was completely praiseworthy, Herod’s was completely sinful. He teaches us about discipleship, but in terms of what to avoid. But I felt that there are 3 great lessons about sin in this account of Herod that help us in our life of discipleship:

1. Sin is self-centeredness (v.3)

We are told that Herod was ‘troubled’ by the news the wise men brought. When a caravan comes in town looking for the ‘King of the Jews’ and want to ‘worship’ him – a God-King, and you are the ‘King of the Jews’, and it’s not you they’re talking about, this is not good news. The word ‘disturbed’ is basically the same as that used of Mary in Lk 1:28, when we read that she was ‘greatly troubled’. In fact, the Greek indicates that Mary was ‘greatly disturbed’, whereas Herod was only ‘disturbed’. And yet, how different their reaction. The reason is the same – the coming of Christ was disruptive to their normal life. For Mary, it was facing the lifelong loss of reputation and the love of her fiancé. For Herod, it was a threat to his rule. He was used to being in charge. He had fought his way to the top and had spilled blood to get there. He had established his place in life. And now that place was threatened.

Christmas should be a time of joy, but the news of the Christmas was a threat to Herod. We are like Herod, because inside us there is the same attitude: “I am king”. We are built to have one God – ourselves. Our lives are oriented to look out for number one. We are geared to please ourselves, to serve ourselves, to prioritize ourselves, to get our own way and to resist any change in this situation. The sinful heart of fallen man tolerates no rivals. It takes a sovereign work of God to change this way of thinking and bring us to a right relationship with God. The life of discipleship is the opposite of a self-centered life – it is a life of denial (Lk 9:23). We are not the king! The true King has come to us, we must bow before Him. The joy and beauty of Christmas is not felt by the crowds at Orchard Road. The only people who find that the news that Christmas is really “glad tidings of great joy” (Lk 2:10) are those who will obey Him as King and worship Him as God. Only those who turn away from the self-centeredness of sin will find the truth of Christmas.

2. Sin is progressively consuming

We see the pattern of how sin creeps up on us all over scripture. In Psalm 1 we read of a progressively settled attitude in wrongdoing: ‘walking’ with the wicked, ‘standing’ with the sinners, and ‘sitting’ with the mockers. James 1:14-15 describes the life-cycle of sin: evil desire conceiving (getting pregnant( by dragging/enticing us, giving birth to sin, and then when sin is full-grown, it in turn giving birth to death.

This is precisely the progression we see with Herod. In v.3 he is the troubled king. In v.7-8 he is the religious hypocrite. In v.16-17 he is the murderer.

The lesson for us here is that sin is difficult to deal with once it gets a foothold. If there is some small sin we have tolerated and allowed to survive untouched, this will over time grow stronger until it consumes us. Part of the deceitfulness of sin is that it looks harmless at the beginning. Jesus’ says in Mt 5:29-31. “If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. 30 And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.” In other words - deal with sin ruthlessly and permanently. And usually - painfully. Don’t think that you will never ever be a murderer! When King David first looked at a pretty girl bathing on a rooftop he probably never saw how far that look would carry him – lust led to adultery, deceit, then murder. You can read the sordid story in 2 Sa 11. “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” (Je 17:9).

A word here about Herod’s hypocrisy is worth mentioning: he seeks the Magi secretly and asks them to search for the child so that he could go ‘and worship him’. He deceives people and puts on a religious mask to accomplish his own self centered, murderous purposes. What is the attraction of religious hypocrisy? It is when we are more concerned with appearing holy than actually being holy - because we desire the approval and praise of men rather than of God. We often hear non-Christians say that “the church is full of hypocrites”. This is not a charge that we often hear leveled at people who attend temples or mosques. The fact is that Christians are aggressive with sharing our faith, and we proclaim our high standards of morality, and that makes us vulnerable to the accusation of hypocrisy. Sadly, this is often not undeserved. We who call ourselves members of God’s family and disciples of Christ often show one face in church and another face from Monday to Saturday. We have become accustomed to separating our religious from our secular selves. We have made peace with sin. So let me ask humbly, “How do you relate with your colleagues? How do you gossip about people behind their backs? How do you treat company property like your own? Are you under-declaring income tax? Do you cheat in examinations? What do you daydream about? Where are you surfing on your computer? Who are you sleeping with?” In our study of the Omega Series in my SG in the section of the Lordship of Christ I am reminded how many things I regard as a personal matter that is not God’s business. He has to remind me that “Christ is either Lord of all, or is not Lord at all” (Hudson Taylor)

The joy and beauty of Christmas cannot be appreciated with a sinful heart. The one who is King is also the one who is Saviour. The one who was born in the manger was born to hang on a Cross. We need to come to Him in repentance at the foot of that Cross and cry for mercy and pardon for our sin.

3. Sin is under the sovereign control of God

In this account of cynicism, deceit, hypocrisy and state-sanctioned murder we might think that there was no bright spot to be seen. And yet one fact shines through the story: despite all the royal power and brutality brought to bear against a peasant family, despite the merciless slaughter of children, the one Child who was the target was miraculously saved by two dreams: one to the Magi and one to Joseph.

The fact that the children (not the ‘innocents’) were killed reminds us that despite the glitter and feasting and celebration of the season, this world is a dark place. Christians are martyred in the Middle East and Africa, political injustice reigns in our region, Islamic fundamentalists march to express their anger, and our own lives are so often broken and painful. Do we believe that God could have saved all had He chosen? And yet He supernaturally saved only one. He saved the One who would go on to save all.

In times of suffering and loss, when we are tempted to forget God’s goodness and power, we must remember that God saves. God loves, God cares. He ordains evil to accomplish His own wise and good purposes. We have to learn to trust Him fully even though His ways are often hard and painful. If we cannot believe this, we will only temporarily and imperfectly glimpse the power and joy of Christmas, because there is so much evil and suffering in the world.  

Conclusion

Most years most Christmas sermons tell us about the ‘true meaning’ of Christmas. All of us know how Christmas isn’t about glitter and lights and feasting and merrymaking. But nobody ever got saved just knowing about the ‘true meaning’ of Christmas. Nobody ever got saved by hearing the Nativity story. Jesus Christ demands more of His disciples! We need to go deeper – from not just knowing the truth, but trusting the truth. We need to trust in the sovereign One who disrupted Herod’s life and disrupts ours also. May this Christmas be an opportunity for us to do this.

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