Ah, sweet little lord Jesus, tucked away in a manger, asleep on the hay… Well, sleep while you can, little buddy. For you, as for too many babies in this world, this story is not so sweet. Mom and Dad are far from home complying with Roman law, administered at the point of a sword. And if the Romans aren’t bad enough, their puppet, the Jewish King Herod, will soon hear of your birth – and he doesn’t behave well when threatened.
We turn now to another passage appointed for Sunday, in which the infant Jesus and his parents become refugees in a strange land.
Now after they [the magi] had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.’
Few things are as frightening as taking power. Once you have it, you have to worry about it being taken from you. Herod heard from some foreign visitors that they’d seen celestial signs of a “king of the Jews” having been born. Well, he was the king of the Jews, wasn’t he? And he hadn’t had any new offspring. How seriously was he to take these clowns from the East?
According to Matthew, Herod took this threat seriously indeed, calling together all the advisors and prognosticators he could muster, interrogating the magi themselves and directing them toward Bethlehem. If they found something there, he’d know about it. If they didn’t, he could relax… for a little while.
Herod is only the first of many human rulers to be alarmed by Jesus. That’s what happens when we become attached to human power. We can forget the God who entrusts us with leadership in the first place. Our world is full of Herods. And what do Herods do when threatened? They slaughter children and wipe out communities, and they never, ever feel safe.
How are we to respond to these terrified and terrorizing figures? Few of us are in a position to confront directly. But we can pray for, and pressure our governments to stand against tyrants. And we can wield the power that so fills despots with fear – the power of Jesus, of whom Simeon said, “He is destined to cause the rising and falling of many in Israel.” Wielding the power of Jesus means refusing to seek human power ourselves. Power over others always makes human beings prey to the power of evil.
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., among others, knew that. In his practice of non-violent confrontation he invited those with human power to unleash their worst - and as they did, they revealed their inhumanity. The wounds they inflicted were real, but they gave away true power with every blow. We are not finished learning those lessons.
In his earthly life, Jesus refused to be drawn into the power game. In seeming to yield to human power, he modeled the strongest power the world has ever seen, power that overturned death and the source of evil itself. We who bear his name are invited to subvert human power by committing ourselves to non-violence, to reconciliation, to praying for our enemies, to making peace. That’s power without fear. That's Jesus' Way of Love.
Few things are as frightening as taking power. Once you have it, you have to worry about it being taken from you. Herod heard from some foreign visitors that they’d seen celestial signs of a “king of the Jews” having been born. Well, he was the king of the Jews, wasn’t he? And he hadn’t had any new offspring. How seriously was he to take these clowns from the East?
According to Matthew, Herod took this threat seriously indeed, calling together all the advisors and prognosticators he could muster, interrogating the magi themselves and directing them toward Bethlehem. If they found something there, he’d know about it. If they didn’t, he could relax… for a little while.
Herod is only the first of many human rulers to be alarmed by Jesus. That’s what happens when we become attached to human power. We can forget the God who entrusts us with leadership in the first place. Our world is full of Herods. And what do Herods do when threatened? They slaughter children and wipe out communities, and they never, ever feel safe.
How are we to respond to these terrified and terrorizing figures? Few of us are in a position to confront directly. But we can pray for, and pressure our governments to stand against tyrants. And we can wield the power that so fills despots with fear – the power of Jesus, of whom Simeon said, “He is destined to cause the rising and falling of many in Israel.” Wielding the power of Jesus means refusing to seek human power ourselves. Power over others always makes human beings prey to the power of evil.
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., among others, knew that. In his practice of non-violent confrontation he invited those with human power to unleash their worst - and as they did, they revealed their inhumanity. The wounds they inflicted were real, but they gave away true power with every blow. We are not finished learning those lessons.
In his earthly life, Jesus refused to be drawn into the power game. In seeming to yield to human power, he modeled the strongest power the world has ever seen, power that overturned death and the source of evil itself. We who bear his name are invited to subvert human power by committing ourselves to non-violence, to reconciliation, to praying for our enemies, to making peace. That’s power without fear. That's Jesus' Way of Love.
No comments:
Post a Comment