Hope in the Time of Herod: Sermon for the Feast of the Epiphany

Today we observe the Feast of the Epiphany, which actually occurs tomorrow in the Church calendar. We listen again to the story of the Magi, and are called to reflect with gratitude the recognition that Jesus was sent to be savior to all, a light to all nations. It’s a beautiful story.

Yet this year, particularly, I am drawn to the opening words of our gospel passage, because it makes clear the risks involved in this story.

What does it mean to live in the time of King Herod? The opening words of our gospel reading today make it clear how far removed from thrones and principalities and power the coming of Jesus, the Son of God, was. Matthew’s story of Jesus begins by reminding us about the dislocation of power that Jesus came to confront. As we follow the path of those Magi in our gospel today, Matthew’s opening words remind us that Jesus’s birth itself, off in a dusty corner of Judea, in a nondescript place, to a nondescript family that hadn’t even really become a family yet, was nonetheless accompanied by signs and portents that even foreigners could see.

Yet the signs weren’t obvious to those who would be most affected by the birth of this tiny baby. Those who are only concerned with themselves often miss noticing the signs of miracles that swirl around us every day, much less big signs written in the light of the heavens. And so, these astronomers come. The songs tell us they come “from the east”—possibly from Arabia, or from Persia, modern Iran. 

But the word used in the original manuscripts to describe the origin of these “wise men,” anatole, literally means “from the rising of the light,” from the direction of the rising sun. Wherever they come from, they come from where the light rises, and they follow the light of a star to see this newborn baby, described by the prophets as the light from God sent to the world. This entire story is bathed in light—the light of stars, the light of knowledge and wisdom, the light of curiosity and the willingness to follow it, the light of the sunrise of a new era, and even the implication of the falling light of a dying regime.

That light stands in contrast to the darkness of life in Herod's time. Jesus was born into a world that, frankly, ran on terror, scarcity, and the demand for order which is always really a demand for unquestioning submission from fear. In Matthew’s gospel, we don't get Mary loudly singing a song of revolution with her voice full of agency. Rather, Joseph is the only one who speaks, and who has to be urged along into decisions he would rather not take, and then only in dreams—hardly a reliable basis for decision-making, even then. 

Already in Matthew’s gospel, we see Joseph as a character bound by rules of honor and obligation to follow the Law. The Law stated that any woman who was caught out to have committed adultery was to be stoned. Mary was betrothed to Joseph, which was a binding contract, but he knew the child she carried was not his. However, rather than demand her public execution, he at first resolves to “put her away quietly.” Yet it would only have been a temporary solution, for once her pregnancy became visible both she and he would possibly have been at terrible risk. This harsh religious law code is also a part of what it meant to live in this time. This, too, was part of life in the “time of King Herod.” 

What did it mean 2000 years ago to live in the time of Herod? Herod claimed to be the king of the Jews, and yet he himself was actually an Arab by birth from Edom—his father had converted to Judaism, and his mother was a princess of Petra, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica. His father had been a great friend of Marc Antony—yes, THAT Marc Antony, lover of Cleopatra and general under Julius Caesar. Herod, through his father, was also a Roman citizen. Thus by blood his claim to be king of the Jews was on the shakiest of ground, and his loyalty to and concern for the people of Judea even more suspect. It was only through the patronage of the Romans—and through his willingness to bend to their will—that Herod occupied what was called the throne of Judea. He was instead a puppet of the enemies of Israel. He was a wolf rather than a shepherd.

Herod was familiar with Galilee, where Joseph and Mary came from—in fact his father had appointed him the governor of that region. But later, when civil war broke out, Herod was forced to flee to Rome. He then became king by allying himself with the Romans against the will and wishes of the majority of the people he would later claim to rule. In fact, the Romans provided him with the army to conquer Judea in 37 BCE. He even managed to survive Marc Antony’s downfall—and the Emperor Augustus not only overlooked Herod’s support for his rival, he granted him profits from valuable copper mines on the island of Cyprus so that Herod could rule in style and completely rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem as a monument to himself and to Rome rather than to God.(1)

Herod was willing to do anything to remain in power, and was ruthless as well as mentally and emotionally unstable. He divorced his first wife and banished her and their son so that he could make a political marriage among the former ruling family of Judea, who were related to the Maccabees. Even though he also loved this wife, he eventually had his mind turned against her and murdered her. Eventually, he has six other wives, and 14 children among them. He eventually even murdered his first-born son as he was manipulated by his half-sister. 

Biblical scholar Amy Lindeman Allen makes this observation: “In the time of King Herod”: only six little words (five in Greek)-- and yet they say so much. Jesus was not born into a time of comfort or peace. Jesus was not born into a family of standing or wealth. Jesus was born into a world that pretended “peace” on the backs of the lives of ordinary people like Mary and Joseph. To prosperity that depended upon the kind of “Order” and “Righteousness” that would have stoned Mary and, very possibly, Joseph for being unwilling to complete the task himself. In the time of King Herod, to a silent mother and a scared father, Jesus came. God Immanuel, God-With-Us.”(2) 

 Herod was not the first political leader to care more for himself than about the common good—and he certainly wasn’t the last. And this is not just some ancient history. 

Why? Because we, too, live in the time of Herod. We live in a time in which calculations of profit overcome and trump the notions of civic virtue and integrity that are the bedrock of decent society. We live in the time of the wolf, even as we long for the time of the shepherd.

Drug Company CEO and felon Martin Shkreli

We live in a time of actuarial tables which presume to predict how much suffering and even death is an acceptable in maximizing profit from decisions of raising the price of insulin or denying coverage for a surgery. We live in a time when the fines for corporate malfeasance are only a fraction of the profit to be made from that same behavior, and so become merely the cost of doing business. 


We live in a time when deliberately manufactured scarcity is used to divide and conquer as those who promote it have more wealth than they could spend in twenty lifetimes.

We live in a time of endless war.

We live under systems that that pervert justice and seek to overturn the quest for the common good in the name of the worship of the individual. We live under systems maintain power by convincing us we are powerless, that subvert the common good by dividing us so that we cannot see our own common humanity. We live under systems that instead seek to use alleged differences in race, religion, and gender to fragment the bonds of decency, community, generosity, compassion, and faithfulness that are the true foundation of any great people and nation.

But should this lead us to despair? No. There is hope yet, and it too is embedded right in our readings we hear today. We hear that hope in Isaiah’s prophetic, joyous shout to an exiled people, imploring them to both arise from their oppression and more importantly to shine as reflections of the light of God that has come into the world. We see the power of that hope in the way that Herod and his flunkies in Jerusalem tremble with fear at the news that the true kingdom of God has drawn near in the birth of a tiny baby into a tiny family who will soon flee for their lives as refugees, dependent upon the kindness of strangers. This baby will be the kind of king who is a shepherd, not a wolf, as the prophet Micah predicted.

Matthew proclaims that the news of the birth of this tiny baby shook Herod and his cronies down to their bones. And sic semper tyrannis—thus it is always with tyrants everywhere. They know they cannot prevail where love and a commitment to each other as kindred stands united against them. And as the Herod’s own advisors explained the prophecy from Micah, this newborn King would be a leader who power came from his care and solidarity with his sheep, who placed their trust and hope in him as their shepherd. 

This is the good news: Jesus was born for those of us who live in the time of Herod.

I am convinced that the story of Jesus’s birth 2000 years ago can remind us of how Jesus’s birth and coming into the world can still have the power to tear down the thrones of the Herods of this world, to upend their reigns of violence, warfare, corruption and wholescale suffering for the benefit of the despoilers and the grifters who support them. The Herods of this world, who rule by fear and division, know and themselves tremble at the power of love and unity to which Jesus as the Son of God continues to call us. 

The Magi looked into the eyes of that tiny baby and, and their minds and hearts were transformed. Transformed from seeking to finding, transformed by the light and hope that had led them to the Prince of Peace in a time of war and division. And we are called, first, to share that journey with them. In the midst of fear, they instead respond with wonder and reverence. And in that response, they remind us that this newborn king is not just a national leader, but one who calls all the world to himself, who calls us to come to our senses by grounding ourselves in peace and unity.

Sophie Scholl, Lutheran anti-Nazi martyr

But we are also called to extend the journey that the Magi began. We do not return to another country. Unlike the Magi, we are called to witness to the light right under Herod’s nose. Rather than evade Herod, the Christian disciple is called to take seriously the transformative and restorative power of the light of Christ, and to bear our witness to our Savior out into the world against the forces of suffering and death, of empire and oppression.

The Herods of the world seek to keep us in exile from hope—but the transformative power of Jesus awakens us to the true love that underpins creation and binds the universe together. But the Magi are symbols of hope for all of us. Their journey reminds us that we can outmaneuver the Herods of the world, that we can refuse to declare our helplessness before them, and instead choose to return home by another way.

The celebration of the feast of the Epiphany is the celebration of the universal love of God for all of humanity and all of creation. What could be more important as we live in fear especially after the events of this last week, on the knife’s edge of unpredictable terror and war?

Many of us too often find ourselves groping about in the dark, lost, lonely, afraid—and we are meant to stay that way to make us feel powerless against evil. Yet, our gospel reminds us that Christ was born for a time such as this. Jesus bids us again to understand the power of rejecting fear in the name of love. 

When we take seriously the way of love that Jesus our shepherd laid down for us to follow, we can stand together against the wolves that prowl and the Herods that scheme. In the name of love, we can open instead ourselves to the inbreaking of God into our lives, and hear that call to follow our own star of hope that seeks to lead us home by another way—the way of justice for the oppressed and solidarity with the marginalized that leads us to true amity and kinship with each other.

The Magi show us a lot about how to start. They used both their reason and their intuition to find the Christ-child. The not only used their eyes, but their imaginations. They knew, as we have forgotten, that dreams are not foolishness, but sometimes the only things that allow us to make great leaps of faith. They were brave enough to be pilgrims in their search for the truth, and in that search, they helped reveal the universal love of God manifested in Jesus entering time as one of us. And now we are called to extend their search for the light of Christ, to locate its home within our hearts, souls, and minds, and to carry the power of love out into the world to turn the Herods from their thrones.

May we too, be willing to be led by light even when it seems darkness presses in from all around. May we be willing to search for the truth that will always overturn those who sit on a throne of lies. May we too be able to find hope and resilience against all the Herods of the world, and instead proclaim and reflect the transformative light of Christ by bearing it within us, allowing it to lead us home to our truest natures.

Amen.

Preached at the 505 on January 4, and the 8:00 and 10:30 Eucharists on January 5, 2020, at St. Martin's Episcopal Church, Ellisville, MO.

Readings:
Isaiah 60:1-6
Psalm 72:1-7,10-14
Ephesians 3:1-12
Matthew 2:1-12


Sources/ Attributions:
(1) Stewart Henry Perowne, "Herod King of Judea," at Encyclopedia Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Herod-king-of-Judaea .
(2) Amy Lindeman Allen, “In the Time of King Herod” from the Political Theology Network, January 1, 2018, at https://politicaltheology.com/in-the-time-of-king-herod-isaiah-601-6-matthew-21-12-amy-allen/