Not everyone was pleased with the news of the birth of a new king. But one person who was extremely displeased about the birth of this 'new' king was the 'old' king, Herod.
Herod the Great was named king of Judea by the Roman Senate in 40 B.C.With the help of Roman forces he decisively and brutally crushed all opposition to his rule. He was wealthy, politically gifted, an excellent administrator and clever enough to remain in the good graces of successive Roman emperors. His famine relief was superb and his building projects were admired even by his foes.
But he loved power. He inflicted incredibly heavy taxes on the people, and resented the fact that many Jews considered him a usurper. In his last years, suffering an illness that compounded his paranoia, he turned to cruelty and, in fits of rage and jealousy, he killed numerous close associates as well as one of his wives (Mariamne) and at least two of his sons.
It was to this paranoid King that a group of astrologers (called 'Maji' in the Bible) came unexpectedly and they asked the worst question possible, "Where is the newborn King of the Jews….we have come to worship him?" It was the worst question possible because it penetrated right into Herod's paranoia and activated every defense mechanism he had developed over the years.
The text in Matthew 2 tells us that, upon hearing this news, Herod was deeply disturbed. His highly developed sense of threat was now on "full alert". Matthew adds that not only was Herod deeply disturbed, "so was everyone in Jerusalem". The subjects of this King knew from bitter experience just how unpredictable Herod could be if he perceived any threat to his rule and authority. They knew there would be consequences and, most likely, Herod's reaction would be 'over the top' and any one of them could get caught up in the dangerous aftermath.
Herod now knew that there was, in his paranoid mind, a contender for his throne. He knew that there was a threat. In other words, he knew what (a newborn King of the Jews) but he didn't know where and he didn't know when that threat would come. However, not only was Herod paranoid, he was also extremely cunning. Instead of mobilizing all his forces in a display of power, he chose a more covert way and that was to enlist the cooperation of the astrologers.
Obviously they were unaware of Herod's reputation; otherwise they would never have asked the question in the first place. Given their question to Herod, these travelers did not know where this newborn King could be found. So Herod called a meeting of the leading priests and teachers of religious law - a group of theologians who, despite their access to the prophetic documents that spoke of the coming of this new king in quite specific terms, missed the event altogether.
Herod put to them the "where" question. To his malevolent delight, they were able to answer the question and fill in that blank. They had the information. They knew the answer to the question. Bethlehem in the land of Judah. But they seemed happy just to know the answer. As to their own response to Herod's question, they seemed apathetically neutral.
Herod now knew what would threaten his power, where that threat would come from but he still didn't know when the threat would come. He now convened a private meeting with the astrologers and asked them the "when" question. Again, he probably couldn't believe his luck. The star had first appeared 2 years previously. He now had all the answers he needed to begin planning his strategy to deal with this threat quickly and nip it in the bud, so to speak.
Again Herod utilized the ignorance of the astrologers and he deployed them as a means to gather the final information that would allow him to target the supposed "newborn King of the Jews" and destroy him quickly. Were it not for a divine intervention, his plan may have worked. God warned the visitors in a dream not to return to Herod but to return to their homes some other way.
When Herod realised that his plan had come unstuck, he was not "deeply disturbed"; he was furious! He launched an attack upon Bethlehem and environs and the order was to kill all the male children 2 years old and under - a time frame based upon when the star was first seen by the astrologers. Some Bible scholars believe that, given the size of Bethlehem in those days, this may have involved no more than, say, 20 children. Even if that's true, that's 20 more than should have been the case had Herod not been blinded by the passion to secure his authority and to eliminate any threat to that power. This is what I would call the spirit of Herod.
It is the same spirit or attitude that was manifest in the Pharaoh who perceived in the rapid population expansion of the Hebrew people a growing threat to his supreme authority (Exodus 1 & 2). He called his nation to a response that can only be called genocide. "Kill all the male babies". Hundreds of years later, Herod the Great issued the same royal decree.
It is this same spirit or attitude that manifested itself in King Saul as he pursued young David with murderous intent. Convinced that David constituted a major threat to his reign as King over Israel, Saul mobilized every resource he had to eradicate this threat once and for all.
Where am I going with this rehearsal of facts already well-known to many of us?
I fear there is something of the spirit of Herod in each of us. It is the attitude that passionately defends my right to my claim to myself. It is the determination that no one and nothing will usurp my No. 1 position so far as my life is concerned. I am in charge. I am the supreme authority in my life. I will resist & reject any threat to diminish or destroy that authority.
Such resistance may not only be evident in that first encounter that we call 'conversion' or being 'born again', it may also become evident whenever the Lord makes His will for us known about a given situation and we seek to impose our will upon His will. There was a whole range of responses to the amazing initiative of God at that first Christmas event. The most disturbing response was that of Herod.
And there's a little bit of Herod in each one of us.
