WHY THE HERODS KILL
(Thursday, December 26)
Herod and “all those with him” felt so troubled at the news of Christ’s birth (Mt 2), it eventually led them to massacre the babies in Bethlehem. Why were they troubled? Because they feared that the status quo, the whole system in which Herod was a sort of king, would come to an end because of the newborn “King of the Jews.” They feared that their time was ending, and His time was dawning. So, they massacre the babies in an attempt to turn the clock back.
On the other side of this battle, God seems to retreat, but is not inactive. He preserves the lives of the Magi, along with the lives of the King of the Jews and His family. Why are they preserved, while God allows the unthinkable suffering that was to be unleashed on the families in Bethlehem? The answer is the one Christ gives to His disciples, when they ask about the reason for the suffering of the man born blind: “that the works of God should be made manifest in him” (Jn 9:2).
The works of God are being made manifest, sometimes quickly and sometimes slowly, in a world that God put into motion, including the motion of our human free will, which can be a dangerous thing. We are entrusted with organizing our own physical and spiritual lives, as well as those of our broader institutions. And we make a mess of this, time after time, insofar as we choose not to go with the flow of God’s Self-offering will for us, which is that we have life and life abundantly; life eternally. We erect idols and ideologies in place of God; idols that eventually demand sacrifices we shouldn’t be making. This is why we see Herod sacrificing the babies of Bethlehem; and we see his son, Herod Antipas, sacrificing John the Baptist. The Herods valued their own little idols more than human life; more than the “life abundantly” that was dawning for anyone open to embracing God’s time.
Today, in the “clash of civilizations” we are observing, it is again ignited by the Herods of this world, who attempt to turn the clock back. At the same time, the works of God are unstoppably being made manifest, sometimes quickly and sometimes slowly, through those who stand in the way of the Herods and their death-bringing idols. Strangely, many of us blame the latter group for “provoking” the Herods, even while we don’t blame the King of the Jews or John the Baptist for doing so. Lord, Sun of Righteousness, let the light of Your knowledge shine on our darkness, and grant us Your kind of victory over those who seek to perpetuate that darkness. Amen!
