Don't Return to Herod

Scripture Lessons: Isaiah 60: 1-6 and Matthew 2: 1-12 Sermon Title: Don’t Return to Herod Preached on January 2, 2022 Pulling into the driveway on either Christmas Eve or the day before, my neighbor Jamie Tuck, who’s kids are grown, parents are gone, and who just retired, told me to enjoy it because it goes so fast. I stood there with him, and I felt the truth of those words. I took a deep breath thinking about how while his kids are grown, ours are still little. While his parents are gone, mine are full of life. I stood there in the driveway with my neighbor Jamie, and it was something like having an epiphany. “Jamie’s exactly right,” I said to myself, and then I pledged that I would be full of Christmas cheer. Can you guess how long that lasted? Well, I walked into a kitchen full of family asking me to do things. We went to the zoo to see the Chinese Lanterns and I lost my wedding ring. I later found it, but my Christmas cheer got lost somewhere in the process and I never fully got it back. On this 2nd day of the new year, our church celebrates Epiphany. That word, epiphany, has multiple meanings. It’s defined by Miriam-Webster, first as: a Christian festival held in January in honor of the coming of the three kings to the infant Jesus Christ, and second as, a moment in which you suddenly see or understand something in a new or very clear way. Thinking of an epiphany that second way, as a moment in which you suddenly see or understand something in a new or very clear way, I say we also must take a lesson from the three kings or wise men, because while my epiphany may have only lasted as long as some new year’s resolutions, the wise men do two things in our Second Scripture Lesson that enables them to take that most profound epiphany of the Christ child, and be permanently changed by it. Now, what did they do? For one thing, they go home by another road. Did you notice that? I read through the New Year’s resolutions of so many community leaders published in the Marietta Daily Journal yesterday. Chief Judge Rob Leonard of the Cobb Superior Court is going to take his wife on a date once a week. City Councilmen Joseph Goldstein is going to listen more to his constituents. Michelle Cooper Kelly is going to read more books. All aspire to do great things and be better people. Yet, how many will go from making a resolution while standing on their bathroom scale to abandoning that resolution once they walk into the kitchen? How many receive an epiphany that then promptly fades into memory? Plenty of us. So, notice that the wise men travel to Jerusalem, then Bethlehem, and on seeing the Christ child take a different road back home. They change something about how they’re traveling. That’s such an important thing to do, for those who hang out in barbershops will get a haircut sooner or later and those who resolve to drink less can’t stand so closely to the beer fridge. If we want to change, we must find new roads to travel down. If we receive an epiphany, we can’t just go back to what we were doing. If we just go back to what we were doing, that’s a wasted epiphany, isn’t it? Epiphanies are meant to take root and change us. Why don’t they work like that always? For one thing, we don’t realize that if we travel down the same road, we should expect to wind up exactly where we were before. For another thing, there’s King Herod. We just read: In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem asking, “where is this child who has been born king of the Jews?” When King Herod heard this, he was frightened… then Herod secretly called for the wise men… sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word.” Now why was King Herod frightened? In this passage from the Gospel of Matthew, King Herod reminds me of the main character in that new show on HBO called Succession. Have you seen it? You probably shouldn’t. It’s a show about this miserable and extremely wealthy family. The patriarch is based on Rupert Murdoch. He owns a media empire that he’s obsessively afraid of losing, and his four kids kneel before him, attempting to gain his favor by stabbing each other in the back. It doesn’t always make sense why people serve King Herod like figures. Maybe it’s fear, maybe it’s habit, but we all must examine the true character of those we pay homage to. Should Herod be trusted? No. Afraid of losing his throne, Herod will order that every child in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under be killed so that no king but him would live in Israel. This is the way that people like Herod operate. So, don’t return to Herod. That sounds obvious, but the hard part is that all of us have some version of King Herod in our lives and we’re so used to trying to gain his approval, we haven’t yet accepted that we’re never going to get it, nor have we realized that we can get along just without it. In fact, seeking out Herod’s approval can even hold us back from being fully who we were created to be. I once heard a joke about the first woman elected president. She invited her father to the inauguration. When he didn’t RSVP, she called him, and he told her that he couldn’t be there. He said he didn’t have suit. “Dad, I’ll buy you suit,” she said, but then he said he didn’t have a ride, so she arranged for a helicopter to pick him up in the backyard. The helicopter took him directly to the National Mall, where he was escorted to his seat on the ceremonial porch, and while his daughter took the oath of office as the first female president of the United States of America, he elbowed the guy next to him and said, “you see that woman down there? She’s my daughter. Her brother played for Georgia.” Now, how many of us are still working to gain the approval of a father who will never give it? How many of us will never achieve our New Year’s resolution because there’s a person in our lives who we’re scared we’ll disappoint if we really change? Who among us relentlessly pursues perfection while a voice in their head never stops letting them know when they don’t achieve it? We’d be so much better if we could just “Enjoy it because it goes so fast.” Why can’t I? It’s because it takes more than an epiphany. It also takes making a change: a commitment to travel by another road, while recognizing that we really can live without the approval of people like King Herod. The wise men did it. How did they do it? I imagine they were able to walk down that new road without the approval of Herod because they already had the approval of the King of Kings. A daily devotional book that I’ve used and appreciate begins with this introduction from the author: Steve had a particularly intriguing job. He was in charge of all Secret Service agents working in the White House. He approached my wife and I after Sunday evening service and offered an invitation. He said he would like the two of us to come to the White House the next morning to meet the president of the United States. Of course, we were blown away. We couldn’t believe it. Standing in the back of the church we worked through the logistics of the next morning. Steve made it very clear we needed to meet him at the west gate of the White House promptly at 7:30 AM – we’d have to leave the home where we were staying by 6:30 AM. That meant rise and shine no later than 5:30! That Sunday night we went to bed with our heads spinning. We couldn’t believe we were going to be standing in the Oval Office in eight short hours. It took us a while to settle down to sleep, but finally we drifted off. In what seemed like the middle of the night, we were awakened by a ringing phone. We couldn’t figure out who would be calling at such an hour, so we ignored it and went back to sleep. A moment later there was a knock at the door. It was Steve saying, “It’s 7:45. I was calling just to make sure you were on your way. At this point there’s no way you’ll make it. We’re going to have to cancel the whole thing. I’m sorry.” I went back to our bedroom, and while I couldn’t see the expression on my wife’s face, I knew exactly what she was thinking because we had just slept through a meeting with the president of the United States. That’s a story the author made up because he’d never been invited to meet the President, nor would he have missed it. No one would! However, “people just like us, on days just like this one, miss the opportunity to enter the throne room of almighty God and talk to the Creator of the universe. Every new day offers each of us a chance to get out of bed and spend some quality time with God almighty, but most of us blow it off for a few extra minutes of sleep.” Why? Because we are stuck in set routines and too often, we bow to people like Herod rather than the King of Kings. Even after encountering the Christ child, we turn back towards the palace in Jerusalem to serve the power of sin and death when we are invited to travel by another road, towards a new life of liberation and hope. Yet I saw my epiphany again, this time walking down the sidewalk from here. Words of that great preacher Frederick Buechner: One life on this earth is all that we get, whether it is enough or not enough, and the only conclusion would seem to be that at the very least we are fools if we do not live it as fully and bravely and beautifully as we can. Isn’t that the truth? So, travel by new roads that lead you to new places. Don’t seek the approval of those who will never give it. Don’t serve your fear but live with courage. Do what you know is right. Serve the Lord. And it enjoy it because it goes so fast. Amen.