Herod
Matthew
2: 13-23 (NRSV)
Now
after they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and
said, “Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain
there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy
him.” Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to
Egypt, and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what
had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, “Out of Egypt I have called my
son.”
When
Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he
sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old
or under, according to the time that he had learned from the wise men. Then was
fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah: “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.”
When
Herod died, an angel of the Lord suddenly 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 seeking the child’s life are dead.” Then Joseph got
up, took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel. But when he
heard that Archelaus was ruling over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was
afraid to go there. And after being warned in a dream, he went away to the
district of Galilee. There he made his home in a town called Nazareth, so that
what had been spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, “He will be
called a Nazorean.”
Friends, here we are, at the
very last Sunday of our calendar year 2013. We’ve also reached the very first
Sunday after Christmas. And this text is the Gospel that the lectionary has
picked for us to hear.
This frightening, violent,
unsettling, and, at many points, sad story that our tradition has called the
story of “The Slaughter of the Innocents”.
So this morning we take pause from our celebration of Christ’s birth—for
a moment, we step away from the carols, the partying, and the festivities so
that we can talk about this very important piece of Jesus’ very early history.
Most years, I have found
comfort in that I know how this story ends. I have heard this one many, many
times before—we all have—and I know that the ending for the Holy Family is a
good one, with a full future for the toddler Jesus.
We’ve heard this story
before. We take that as a given when we hear it during the Christmas season.
And, a lot of the time, when
I open up the Bible and look at a story like this one that I have heard many,
many times before, I have to remind myself that that was not the case for the
original audience for this story.
But this time, for this
story, it’s different. This time, it’s not just us sitting here in the 21st
Century that have heard this story before. In a different way, the original
audience for this story could say the same thing.
Now, let me be clear what I
mean when I say “the original audience”. When I say that, what I mean is the
community of people that this author, Matthew, lived and worshipped with. The
people who would have repeated this and all of Matthew’s stories for
generations by oral tradition before they ever saw papyrus. The people Matthew
had in mind while he wrote.
Because ancient authors
didn’t leave a lot of details about person, time, or place on their writings,
we have to piece together the history of these texts based on a few very lucky
discoveries, some very close reading of the actual text, a some educated
guesses. Based on all of that, we’re pretty sure we know at least this much
about Matthew and his audience:
Matthew was Jewish—the most
devoutly Jewish of all four of the Gospel writers—and so were his original
readers. Matthew’s original audience would have been so devoutly Jewish, in
fact, that they would have grown up hearing the Hebrew Scriptures (what we call
the Old Testament) all the time. They would have been very familiar with the
Scriptures—so much so that if they heard something quoted from Scripture, they
would recognize it immediately and know exactly what book was being quoted.
The same is naturally not
true for everyone in this room. However, we, ourselves, may have heard enough
of the major Old Testament stories that we, too, may recognize where Matthew
was going with this message of Good News.
Here’s the premise of this
story: King Herod, power hungry and afraid of losing his crown, is seeking the
life of every boy age 2 or under around his kingdom in Bethlehem, under the
idea that any of those little boys could be Jesus.
So, let’s think for just a
second—when was the last time in the Bible that we read a story about an evil,
greedy, power-hungry king who wanted to kill all the baby boys?
In Exodus. This is exactly
how Moses’ story begins, with his mom hiding him in a basket in the bulrushes
so the Pharaoh wouldn’t find him.
To date, in the eyes of
Matthew’s audience, Moses has been the hero of their story—he overcame his
oppressor, he heard the voice of God when no one else did, he saved his people
from enslavement, he brought them the Law, and he led them to the Promised Land.
Matthew is making the point
of this story as clear as he possibly can: this isn’t just a story about a
baby. This isn’t just a story about a miraculous birth, or a noble father, or
the witness of wise men.
This is the story about the
birth of a new hero.
People of the world: see the
star in the sky.
People of the world today:
see the star in the sky. See hope, peace, joy, and love. Incarnate among us.
These are the graces of our hero who saved us. When you see these things, you
see the Incarnate Christ.
Our hero has been born.
Of course, we can’t ignore
the other layer of this story, the layer for whom I titled this sermon. Herod.
King Herod. The unscrupulous
King Herod. The vengeful, greedy, even blood thirsty King Herod. The villain of
this story, if you will. The one who stands a chance to destroy everything.
See, there’s an underlying
reason in all of us why this story sounds so familiar. It’s not just because
it’s in the bible, and we’ve heard it many times before. It’s not even just
because of the similarity it bears to Moses’ infancy story.
It’s because, in one way or
another, there’s always a King Herod in the story somewhere. Certainly, this
was true for Matthew’s ancient audience, a community of people who had never
known anything but oppression from a tyrannical foreign ruler.
But, in another way, this is
just as true for us. Just in the same way that we can always be certain of the
presence of Christ in the world, we can also always be sure of the presence of
Herod. In our story, just as we can always see the face of Christ in the face
of honest hope, peace, joy, and love, we can always see the King Herod at work
in all that which would diminish our Savior’s gifts to us.
Our Herod isn’t always a
political ruler—though, at times, he may be. Our Herod is anything that is
against what Jesus intended for his beloved—greed, lies, cruelty, isolation,
apathy to others.
So, friends, hear this
charge: our hero is born among us, living, always and everywhere in the hearts
of those who keep him alive. May we, be abiding in our Savior’s presence,
overpower the Herod that comes our way.
Amen.
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