Two Kingdoms, Two Kings
First Sunday after Christmas and Epiphany
Matthew 2:(1-12), 13-23
Hebrews 2:10-18
Within our current social media landscape, the interior lives and sordid engagements of some of our most prominent figures are on full display. While those in generations past would have had to rely on court historians, authorized biographers, or investigative journalists to uncover the truth (or half-truths) about who their leaders really were, today’s prominent politicians, celebrity CEO’s, and public personalities of all kinds share everything from their petty character traits to their unhinged impulses in 280 characters or less. For better or worse, these platforms leave little to the imagination, and little left to be revealed. We have what amounts to constant access to the backrooms and back-alleys of power and influence, or at least the illusion of such.
This week, churches around the world will observe the Feast of the Epiphany. Apart from the liturgical observance, the word epiphany can mean a manifestation or a revelation, especially of some important or divine truth. This feast commemorates the event when magi from the East journeyed to Bethlehem to honor the Christ child. It’s a story that has made its way into our Christmas carols and our nativity scenes. Beyond that, however, it’s a story that demonstrates God’s power to reveal, to make known what is hidden, to manifest the truth in ways that will surprise us and ultimately transform us. Finally, it is a story that reveals who our leaders are, making clear the distinction between two very different kinds of kingdoms, with two very different sorts of kings.
In Matthew’s account of this story, which appears just before this week’s lectionary readings, we read that magi, wise men, scholars from the East come to Bethlehem looking for the one who had been born King of the Jews. They saw his star, they explain, and they have come to worship him. The way that King Herod responds to these magi is perhaps unsettling, but it is also unsurprising. Rather than embracing this news that something remarkable has happened, that a little out of the way place like Bethlehem is host to some divine visitation, Herod does what so many rulers of this world, driven by paranoid insecurity and fearful anxiety, would do. He concocts a plot to protect his throne, to preserve his power, to prevent, at all costs, anything or anyone from threatening his position. He instructs the magi to go and find this child, and then to report back on his whereabouts, so that he, too, might worship him. But after the wise men locate the holy family, God reveals to them through an angel that Herod is not to be trusted, and tells them to go home another way, in order to avoid being drawn into Herod’s schemes.
What follows, the slaughter of the innocents, demonstrates just how far someone like Herod will go to hold on to his power. Unable to locate the one child who might pose an obstacle to his unquestioned authority, Herod decides to murder every child in the vicinity two years old or under. The weeping that rises up in the wake of this horrific event, Rachel weeping for her children, the mothers of Bethlehem wailing for the little ones who had been taken from them, is revelatory weeping. It is prophetic weeping, the lament of a world ruled over by kings hell-bent on keeping hold of what is theirs, no matter what it leads to, even if it fills the streets with the blood of the most vulnerable. By virtue of his demonic actions, Herod reveals not only what kind of ruler he is, but also the machinations of so many of this world’s kingdoms and kings, who see their own glory and power as the only end worth pursuing.
In this case, not only was Herod’s plan unspeakably evil, it was also insufficient to meet his goals. The child he was looking for, the newborn king he wanted to destroy, had escaped to Egypt with his parents, his father Joseph having been warned, like the magi, by an angel in a dream. And so, this king of the Jews is not killed in his cradle; his life is preserved, for now, that he might grow to demonstrate what a true king looks like. This child, called out of exile in Egypt, will become the sort of king who, according to the letter to the Hebrews, would bear all things and share all things in common with those he came to rule. He would suffer with those who suffered, that he might know the heartache of those who are hurting. He would be the sort of king who, rather than sacrificing his subjects on the altar of his own grandiose desires, would become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to the people and ultimately would give his own life as a sacrifice for those who were struggling. Rather than saving and serving himself, he would lay down everything for the salvation of the world. He would be a different kind of king, ruling over a different sort of kingdom, one which, unlike the realms governed by Herod and his kind, would have no end.
