Advent Devotion (Day 21) - Worship or Destroy?

When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. 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. “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written."
Matthew 2:3-5

The wise men left their country and followed the star but not to Bethlehem at first. Instead they went to Jerusalem, the home of King Herod of the Jews. It seemed logical to them that if this "King of the Jews" had been born then of course, King Herod and the Jews in Jerusalem would know where the baby was to be found. They would soon find out this was not the case at all.

This King Herod was known as Herod the Great. Herod was indeed great; in some ways great as a ruler, builder and administrator; in other ways great in politics and cruelty.

“He was wealthy, politically gifted, intensely loyal, 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 (including the Jewish temple, begun 20 B.C.) were admired even by his foes. But he loved power, 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 killed close associates, including a wife and his sons.” (Carson)

Psalm 19 says the heavens declare the glory of God. The writer, David, had spent many nights under the stars as he kept his father’s sheep. And from this Psalm it is clear he too knew the stories in the stars. This was before writing was widespread, so the common people used other things instead of written words to remember the Bible they had learned. Jewish history today tells us the constellations of stars were stories of each of the Tribes of Israel and the blessings Jacob had given each. So the remembering of the prophecy of the star rising in the house of Judah would have been something the people of Israel would have been able to watch in their night skies.

But the leaders of Israel, including King Herod, had not been paying attention to the skies; they were caught by surprise when the wise men came to ask where their King was to be born. They, like the religious leaders thirty years later, were focused not on God and His coming but on themselves and their hold on power. King Herod was disturbed because this baby born could threaten his power as king. And, like the Jewish leaders that would follow, King Herod tried to stop the plans of God by trying to kill Jesus.

I am struck with how not much has changed in our day and age. So many in this world are not seeking to know God, but instead are seeking power. When they feel threatened by Christians, followers of the Messiah, they react with anger and violence. One just has to look at Syria right now, and what ISIS has done to the Christian population there, to know this is true. In fact, in the last century more Christians have been killed for their faith than all of the previous centuries combined. The spirit of "King Herod" that would destroy Jesus Christ instead of worship Him is still alive and well in our world.