‘When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him; and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. They told him, ‘In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet:
“And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who is to shepherd my people Israel.” Then Herod secretly called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared.’ Matthew 2:3-7
Herod the Great [74 BCE - 4 BCE] was King of the Jews and Ruler of Galilee from 37 BCE until his death [about 7 decades before this story was written]. According to Wikipedia, ’Herod's support from the Roman Empire played a major role in allowing him to maintain his authority over Judea. There have been mixed interpretations concerning Herod's popularity during his reign. In The Jewish War, Josephus characterizes Herod's rule generally in favourable terms, and gives Herod the benefit of the doubt for the infamous events that took place during his reign. However, in his later work, Jewish Antiquities, Josephus emphasizes the tyrannical authority that many scholars have come to associate with Herod's reign.’
Not only the wise men in the passage quoted above were wary of Herod and his motives. By the time of his death he was unpopular with his Jewish subjects despite his many lavish building projects due impart to his ‘over-the-top’ use of security forces and high rates of taxation. By the end of his reign, the people was angry and dissatisfied. Yet, he had been sympathetic minting coinage without human images on them to be used by Jews and had attempted to conform to other Jewish laws. Like all people, he was neither all bad or all good. That being said, he served the dominant culture of the Roman Empire, putting his desire for power over the needs of the people and ruling by fear.
Indeed his tyranny was so well known that the writer of Matthew says in his story that the wise men having heard these rumblings decided not to return to Herod with the knowledge they had obtained
“And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.“ Matthew 2:12
We don’t need to look far in 2015 to find who in our Canadian culture we could type-cast in the part of ‘Herod the Great’ in our modern-day Christmas pageant. Stephen Harper, the last prime minister of this country, spent his ten years in power systematically replacing the traditional values of the Canadian people with fear; fear against minorities, fear for public safety, fear that we didn’t have enough to share with others. He even changed the official name of the government from ‘The Canadian Government’ to ‘The Harper Government’ despite being told by his advisors that this new name would mean very little to most governments abroad.
So while Herod does not appear in person in the pageant, we will need to edit the script just a little in order to change his name, to acknowledge that things really haven’t changed that much over the past 2000 years. That those in power can still be overly focused on keeping that power to the detriment of those whose best interests they are suppose to be serving.
Comments
Post a Comment