December 21, 2007

Herod, King of Judea

Matthew 2:1-12 (HCSB) ¹ After Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of King Herod, wise men from the east arrived unexpectedly in Jerusalem, ² saying, “Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we saw His star in the east and have come to worship Him.” ³ When King Herod heard this, he was deeply disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. ⁴ So he assembled all the chief priests and scribes of the people and asked them where the Messiah would be born. ⁵ “In Bethlehem of Judea,” they told him, “because this is what was written by the prophet: ⁶ And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the leaders of Judah: because out of you will come a leader who will shepherd My people Israel.” ⁷ Then Herod secretly summoned the wise men and asked them the exact time the star appeared. ⁸ He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and search carefully for the child. When you find Him, report back to me so that I too can go and worship Him.” …. ¹² And being warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their own country by another route.

Herod had a right to be jealous of Jesus. Jesus was born to be the King of kings and Herod did not want there to be another King. Herod not only wanted to be king, he could not stand the idea of there being a successor to his throne. He was so paranoid that he had his own son executed five days before he died for fear he would take over too soon. He tries to get Jesus by killing all the babies , age 2 and under in Bethlehem. (Certainly a valid definition of overkill)

If he had been rational, he would not have tried to kill the baby. How can you kill the true King? His only rational choice would to have done as the magi suggested. He should have bowed to worship the little King.

We sometimes have the same weakness as Herod. No, I guess we don’t go around executing our relatives or killing babies. However, we have this problem letting anyone else rule over us. We want to be king of our lives. We try to stop any effort of anyone else getting to make decisions for us. We want to be king of our lives. We are a lot like Herod. Publicly we say, tell me where this King Jesus is, and I will go and worship him. But then privately we say, I really want to know where he is so I can destroy Him. I don’t want Him to be Lord over me.

Problem. He is Lord. We cannot stop that. We must allow Jesus to be the King of our lives.

Pray: Dear Jesus, forgive me for trying to be the king of my life and help me let you reign on the throne of my heart. Amen

Sing “O Come O Come Emmanuel”