A TINY BABY IS OUR GOD
Matthew 2:13-23
First Sunday of Christmas
Analysis by Eli Seitz
13Now 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.” 14Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt 15and 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.”
16When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the magi, 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 magi. 17Then what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled:
18 “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.”
19When Herod died, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, 20“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.” 21Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel. 22But when he heard that Archelaus was ruling 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. 23There 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 Nazarene.”
From Wikimedia Commons
“The fear for the end of our kingdoms at the bottom of our hearts that breeds jealousy, contempt, revenge, cruelty, and distrust of one another is removed in the Kingdom of God.”
Editor’s note: The author’s repeated use of the word “Herods” in this text study is meant to refer to all “tyrants”, which come in all shapes and sizes and eras – even those we see in the mirror. One will not miss the author’s delightful weaving of stanzas from Luther’s “Ein Feste Burg” (Psalm 46) in the titles of the six steps. Sing along this Christmas!
DIAGNOSIS: All the Rage
Step 1: Initial Diagnosis (External Problem) – This World’s Tyrant Rage
This isn’t the kind of Christmas story that we want to hear; but it is the kind of Christmas story that we are unfortunately becoming all too familiar with. A jealous and fearful political leader disrupts and permanently changes the lives of so many simply because he feels like it, and no one stops or checks him. Herods cause families to become refugees who are fleeing for their lives. Herods murder hundreds of children under the age of two at a whim. Herods don’t have any qualms about separating children from parents, about throwing people in prison, about making rape victims carry babies to term, about prosecuting doctors for treating women who were miscarrying, about forcing transgender people to go off necessary medication. Herods don’t care about telling the truth or following precedent or claiming to care about someone while hurting them the second our backs are turned. Herods have been around since before Jesus was born, and the baby Jesus hasn’t even started talking yet, the manger scene has barely dispersed, when a Herod comes along and starts destroying lives left and right. And what’s more, the Herods are still at it today all over the world. Nothing we see on the news is surprising, I guess. Probably, nothing we see on the news would have been all that surprising to the Holy Family or those grieving mothers in Bethlehem. We might have some technology that they didn’t, but the story is the same. This story is not just one Bible Story that we read once a year. This story is a lived reality that has been the same since the baby Jesus was teething, and it is not showing any signs of changing.
Step 2: Advanced Diagnosis (Internal Problem) – Threatening to Devour Us
And, even those of us who aren’t Herod are not all equal. Some families with transgender children have all their passports and papers in order and can move to Canada. Some people can pick up their whole lives and move to another state where it’s safer and buy a home and get a new job easily. Some people have an angel showing up in a dream to tell them to get out now and flee to Egypt before it gets really bad, hundreds of other families around Bethlehem didn’t get that same luxury to protect their little ones. It turns out that Herod isn’t the only one who is jealous around here.
When nothing in the world seems to go right, when it seems like even the good things we do are turned to evil, and when it seems like some people are always hurt more by the Herods than others, the despair in our hearts turns into to the same jealousy and bitterness we condemn in these cruel tyrants. It turns out that there will always be Herods when the only difference between Herod and me is the number of people Herod has the power to hurt at once. Our hearts aren’t that different. “Oh, I would never murder hundreds of babies!” Yeah, Herod probably said that too, once. We are all certainly at the mercy of Herods for whom showing mercy isn’t exactly their favorite pastime. But we aren’t all the innocent victims we pretend to be, either. If we were, the Herods would die out eventually. We seem to keep them in pretty good supply. When you have enough hatred in your heart against Herod, you start thinking you might kill him if you had the chance. And then you think about your distant relative or the guy who fixes your car who you’re pretty sure supports this Herod and then pretty soon you hate them, too. Just wait, some day, when I have the power that Herod does, I’ll wipe all these people out! And that’s how we keep creating Herods. We are all just smaller Herods, helping the Herods in power devour us.
Step 3: Final Diagnosis (Ultimate Problem) – No Strength of Ours
How does it end for a world full of Herods? Not well. When we’re all Herod, we can’t trust each other. When we’re all Herod we all have to look out for ourselves and ourselves only. In a world full of Herods, everyone is the Enemy, even babies who can’t even talk yet. In a world where everyone is Herod, no one is ever completely at rest, no one is ever sure that they aren’t being plotted against, and no one is ever safe. And how can we get out of this world full of Herods? The Holy Family went to Egypt for a couple of years until the Herod of that time died, but a new Herod still killed John the Baptist and helped kill Jesus, in the end. Even on returning to the country after this Herod’s death, there was already a new one to be worried about. As long as the only answer we have for hate and cruelty is hate and cruelty in return, we will all remain Herods, and there isn’t room for more than one Herod at a time in the same place, at least not more than one living one. Maybe occasionally we’ll do something that isn’t Herod-like, but we always seem to revert back to a Herod whenever we feel wronged. We try to convince ourselves that it’s righteous anger, against a cruel Herod who is harming people, but the reality is that sharing a meme about how dumb the people who support Herod are doesn’t do anything to stop Herod from causing real people real harm, and just makes us act more like Herod. As long as there are humans, it seems, we will be living in a world full of Herods, and if we can’t stop creating more Herods soon, it seems inevitable that we will all be dead in a world full of Herods before too long. Can any of us resist the Herods without becoming Herods ourselves? “Vengeance is mine,” says the Lord, “I shall repay.”
PROGNOSIS: The Roar of the Child
Step 4: Initial Prognosis (Ultimate Solution) – One Little Word Subdues Him
It turns out that there is one person who can resist Herod without becoming just like him. That’s probably why Herod was so scared of this baby to begin with. He knew what the Scriptures said about what the Messiah would be like. And this mighty, corrupt ruler, who never took no for an answer, who did whatever he wanted, who would kill hundreds of babies if he had to and no one would dare to stop him, knew that if it came down to it, there would not get to be both the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Herod, and the Kingdom of Herod wouldn’t be the last one standing. And now, here was God, in human form, those Words in Scripture come alive right into his own little piece of the world, a baby Word of God, ready to make that Kingdom of God a reality and the Kingdom of Herod was never going to have a chance – so the only thing he could do was make sure he destroyed it – put it to death (on a cross if necessary) – right now, before that Little Word of God became a Big and Mighty Word of God that he couldn’t defeat. Even in that murderous rage, when he realized he no longer knew which baby the baby was, when he panicked and killed them all just to make sure, I wonder if he had the sinking feeling in his heart that he had already been defeated. When we react out of defense and panic when we come face to face with the Word of God, it’s usually because we already know that our personal Kingdom isn’t going to be the last one standing. This first attempt by Herod to kill the Word of God wasn’t the first time a Herod would try to do that, but none of them were ever successful because the Word of God can’t stay dead. From before he could talk, Jesus had already started putting to death the Herods of the world, simply because the Herods of the world recognized that their time was up. Jesus doesn’t go on a murderous rage; he gets all of us Herods to willingly step down from our thrones and give up whatever power we were trying to cling to. There is someone who can resist Herod, the Herods in the world and the Herods in our hearts, and come out fully alive, without a jealous or hateful or bitter or cynical or despairing bone in his body, and he’s just one of those little babies that Herod couldn’t kill – the Word of God in the flesh, taking our deaths to himself so that we may live, sent here so that the Herods or anything else that smells of judgment and death can’t destroy anyone. We all get to live in this Word incarnate.
Step 5: Advanced Prognosis (Internal Solution) – God’s Word Forever Shall Abide
The Kingdom of God that Jesus brings with him to Bethlehem is completely different than any kingdom of Herod. All the kingdoms of Herod, big and small, must come to an end. The Kingdom of God never ends, even if every Herod rose up against it at once it would not end, which means we don’t have to spend so much time worrying about who might be trying to end our kingdom and how to stop them. The fear for the end of our kingdoms at the bottom of our hearts that breeds jealousy, contempt, revenge, cruelty, and distrust of one another is removed in the Kingdom of God. And Jesus does this by looking at all of us Herods and then letting us into this Kingdom even with the history we have of corrupting every kingdom we touch, because he knows we can’t corrupt this one. It changes us, instead, leading us to trust this new Kingdom – and eventually, we look around and realize that none of us are Herods anymore, but rather bear a striking resemblance to the Child of promise.
Step 6: Final Prognosis (External Solution) – Weapons of the Spirit
Once the fear of annihilation by some Herod or other is gone, we can shed our own Herod-like tendencies. There is no longer need to treat everyone as a potential enemy, but rather, as a fellow member of one community. There is no need to try to usurp one another or to oppress for fear of being usurped. And, it means that we can resist the Herod-like powers of the world simply by refusing to be Herods. When Herod treats us or others with cruelty, we don’t respond with cruelty, because we don’t need to destroy Herod ourselves. When Herod oversteps his authority, we can refuse to follow where he leads and yet do so without violence or insults. We can bear retaliation because the Kingdom of God goes beyond what is of this world. We can refuse to stereotype or categorize Herod and his supporters even if they do so to us. Living as children of God, we can show the Herods the Kingdom of God and how much more we can all be when we aren’t trying to out-Herod each other – full of life and love for all. Because we were once Herods, too, after all, and we all know how powerless Herod is against even the tiniest Child of God; because the Child of God made an end of all Herods not with a murderous rage, but with mercy and love.
