Lost to the Mists of Time

PROPERS:          2 CHRISTMAS, YEAR C      

TEXT:                MATTHEW 2:1-12                

PREACHED AT ST. PAUL’S CHAPEL, MAGNOLIA SPRINGS, ON SUNDAY, JANUARY 2, 2022.

 

ONE SENTENCE:        Unlike human nature, people, and movements, the Holy transcends time and space. 

 

            It is tempting for political leaders to think they control the outcomes of history.  Such hubris ultimately fails and leads to a different era. The desire to kill the thrust of events finally leads to oblivion.

 

            Today’s gospel lesson gives us a perfect example.

 

            Herod the Great was King of Judea, so named by the Roman Senate, a position he held when Jesus was born. His realm, of course, included the tiny village of Bethlehem, a few miles south his royal seat in Jerusalem.

 

            Herod was no neophyte when it came to political games. He had been born, it appears, to an Idumean mother and father, making him an Arab by descent.  His father had ruled various portions of what we know as the Holy Land and had been engaged with various political strategies with the Romans.

 

            One’s personal favor with the Roman emperor could have dramatic ramifications.

 

            Herod plotted his ascent to the throne of Judea, and it was realized in about 40 B.C. But he wanted more. So, bit-by-bit, he consolidated his power over smaller, nearby realms.  After those conquests, he turned toward building an empire which would stand the test of time.

 

            Even though an Arab, Herod saw himself as Jew.  He yearned for the acceptance and approval of the Jewish people.  But he was brutal and would enforce his will in polarizing ways.  He flaunted the Jewish law and lived a decadent lifestyle.

 

            Yet, his greatest gift is evident even today.  Herod was an amazing engineer, and his colossal building projects are still seen today – that is, the remains of those projects.  They bear silent witness to millions of visitors each year, even though they have crumbled from their original grandeur.

 

            Herod’s engineering skills molded the Second Temple in Jerusalem – the Temple where Jesus walked and taught – the grandest of all building in the world at that time.  The remains of the port facility he built as gift to Caesar at Caesarea-Maritima on the Mediterranean Coast still testify to his complex skills, even in underwater construction.  And, of course, Masada, the symbol of Jewish resistance 70 years after Herod’s death, was the desert fortress to which Herod planned to escape, if needed.

 

            But ultimately it was all for naught.  His power, influence, and brutality could not bring immortality.  Like all political movements and leaders, he passed from the scene.  Herod died in Jericho shortly after Jesus’ birth. Some historians say he died of syphilitic insanity.  Others say he died an excruciating, putrefying death, now known as Herod’s Evil.  His massive tomb was his last engineering marvel, known as Herodian, just outside of Bethlehem.

 

            Today’s gospel lesson tells us of Herod’s feeble effort to halt the march of providence.  Hearing of the Wise Men – likely from Persia, modern-day Iran – coming to worship a new-born king in Bethlehem, he concocts a scheme to discover the child’s whereabouts.  But like his other manipulations, it is grounded in hubris and has little lasting impact.

 

            In the verses just after today’s gospel, Joseph is warned in a dream of approaching danger and takes the baby and Mary into safety in Egypt.

 

            Shortly thereafter, Herod dies a mortal’s death.  Jesus lives on today.  All that Herod leaves are echoes of ancient history, this story and crumbling buildings.

 

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            The consistent theme is that hubris ultimately fails.  It has been shown throughout history. The Greeks. The Romans. Babylon. The Ottoman Empire. The Third Reich. The Soviet Union.

 

            The same may be said about men. Caesar. Alexander the Great. Napoleon. Henry VIII.

 

            In some form, empires, fads, trends, give way to time, events, and other forces of history – and to the hand of God.

 

            We are truly wise if we do not place our deep and abiding faith in a person or movement which finally dissipates like a morning fog. It is folly to presume, as Herod may have, that a man or a movement can guide the course of creation. Empires which aspire to last a thousand years lack the eternal staying power.

 

            It’s true for us. As human beings, each of us will go the way of all flesh.  As the saying goes, none of us gets out of this alive.

 

            But as Christians, we see something special, even eternal, in that child that fled to Egypt… and returned later to the Galilean hill town of Nazareth.  We see something remarkable – looking forward –through the prism of time. We see hope.

            At the graveside, we say, “All of us go down to the dust, yet even at the grave we make our song, ‘Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.’”