THE STORY IS NOT A MISTAKE
Author: Fr. Michael Byron
January 06, 2019
King Herod
was a crazy man. By all historical
accounts he was mentally unstable, grandiose in his lust for power, ruthless in
putting down his enemies—real or perceived—and perpetually paranoid about his
grasp on control.
But he was
also a Jew. Maybe not a very good one,
but he was a Jew. The Romans had
installed him as their puppet king in Jerusalem because they figured the Jews
could be more easily governed by one of their own. And as it turns out, that little detail
matters quite a bit in the Christmas story, as todays gospel of Matthew
recalls. We hear on this Feast of the
Epiphany of the Magi who had been following the star since its rising in the
east. But, as only three guys can do,
they got lost. They arrived not in the
place where the child Jesus was, but instead they came to Jerusalem, where they
had to ask for directions. They had
apparently lost track of the star and were a few miles off course. “Where is the newborn king of the Jews?” They
asked.
And King
Herod, the Jew, although he knew nothing about this birth, did know that
wherever the Messiah was to arrive in Israel it would be in the City of David,
in Bethlehem. And that is how the wise
men knew to go there. Not because of the
star, but because Herod sent them there. The star only reappeared after the Magi had resumed their journey with
Herod’s directions.
What could
that mean? Instead of heading directly
to Bethlehem, where those wise men could have come and gone without upsetting
anybody, they had instead provoked an act of national terror, with Herod
ordering the massacre of all the Holy Innocents of Bethlehem and driving the
Holy Family into exile in Egypt? What
could it mean that from the very first moment of his life on earth Jesus was
responsible for misunderstanding, panic and fear among the powerful? And suffering among the most vulnerable? As an infant! And what could it mean that that star, which these professional star
gazers had studied so closely for so long, led them to exactly the wrong
place? And what could it mean that these
foreigners had to be the ones to inform the local Jewish king about the miracle
that was taking place on his watch, of which he was completely unaware? There’s a lot going on in this Epiphany story,
some of it fairly disturbing. Among other
things, it means that the Christmas story—the real one, the biblical one—is not
primarily a “feel good” story, despite all of our best efforts to make it seem
so. It is rather a story about disruption and of the upending of presumed
business as usual among human beings. It
is a story in which those who seem to be in control of public life are
not. It is a story in which the
apparently “wrong” people are in possession of the truth about what God intends
for the world. The Magi were neither Palestinian
nor Jewish, but they knew what Herod did not, he who was both Palestinian and
Jewish. The Savior is born!
This is a
story in which poor people strike fear into the hearts of wealthy people, by
the very fact of their existence. The
child in the manger, merely sleeping.
And it is a
story in which what seem to be mistakes are nothing of the sort. It was no mistake that the Magi first stopped
in Jerusalem on their way to see the newborn king. It was no mistake that Herod, the arch-enemy
of Jesus, told them exactly where they could find him in order to worship. This is a story that could best be titled,
“Things Aren’t What They Seem,” and that is very, very good news…at least for
everybody other than Herod.
So what does
all this mean for us? We who are centuries
removed from the story? Well, we aren’t
removed from the story, because the same God is still dealing with us. It’s the same God who pronounces judgement
upon those who would presume to be powerful in this world. The same God who presents us with the most
unlikely of truth-tellers in the form of aliens and immigrants and people of
other religious or of no religion at all, humbling us for what we presume to
know, falsely. It’s the same God who
scandalized the Jewish communities of St. Paul so long ago when he wrote to the
Ephesians, “The gentiles are co-heirs and members of the same body and
copartners in the promise of Christ...” That’s incredible!
Christmas is
a far more disturbing story than we often realize, and that’s a very good
thing…unless we are content with things as they are. Jesus did not appear in this world in order
to impart his blessing upon things as they are. The little Lord Jesus asleep on the hay is actually a ticking time bomb
for those of us who are blessed with the faith to understand what God is up
to. The Herod’s of this world are doomed
because of the arrival of a poor homeless baby. The presumed order of the universe is now inverted. Are we ready to welcome it?
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