“The Christ of the Mediterranean,” from the lesson series Christ of Our Christmas, December 2020
our Scripture
After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem 2 and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”
3 When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him (Matthew 2:1-3 NIV).
Matthew 2:1-3 NASB
Matthew 2:1-3 ESV
Matthew 2:1-3 NLT
Matthew 2:1-3 MESSAGE
our Lesson
When God’s people were forming themselves into a nation, they wanted a king. Other nations in the area had kings, but the people of Israel wanted a king. Many of us believe that God did not want Israel to have a king, but that is not entirely true. God just had a certain type of king in mind.
The Desire for a King
Way before the incident of selecting Saul as king of Israel, God spoke to the people in an almost prophetic way.
14 When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you and have taken possession of it and settled in it, and you say, “Let us set a king over us like all the nations around us,” 15 be sure to appoint over you a king the Lord your God chooses. He must be from among your fellow Israelites. Do not place a foreigner over you, one who is not an Israelite. 16 The king, moreover, must not acquire great numbers of horses for himself or make the people return to Egypt to get more of them, for the Lord has told you, “You are not to go back that way again.” 17 He must not take many wives, or his heart will be led astray. He must not accumulate large amounts of silver and gold.
18 When he takes the throne of his kingdom, he is to write for himself on a scroll a copy of this law, taken from that of the Levitical priests. 19 It is to be with him, and he is to read it all the days of his life so that he may learn to revere the Lord his God and follow carefully all the words of this law and these decrees 20 and not consider himself better than his fellow Israelites and turn from the law to the right or to the left. Then he and his descendants will reign a long time over his kingdom in Israel (Deuteronomy 17:14-20 NIV).
| Deuteronomy 17:14-20 NASB | Deuteronomy 17:14-20 ESV |
Deuteronomy 17:14-20 NLT |
Deuteronomy 17:14-20 MESSAGE |
The problem wasn’t the selecting of a king. The problem was ignoring the advice. When Samuel was the prophet, Israel requested a king. Faced with a threat from the Philistines, Israel wanted a king who could lead them in battle, would represent them well in public. The Israelites did not ask for a king that God would choose, but one the world would revere and respect.
The contrast between Saul and David was striking. Saul was introduced to Samuel as he was out looking for lost donkeys. Throughout his life, Saul did things to satisfy his own desires and not God’s. David, however, was described as a man after God’s own heart. When he sinned with Bathsheba, he was consumed by sorrow and grief, knowing he has strayed from a path toward God.
God promised David that his house and his throne would be established forever (2 Samuel 7:16). Mary was told by Gabriel that Jesus would have “the throne of his father David” and that there would be no end to his kingdom (Luke 1:32-33). Jesus is called the “Son of David” and was born into the lineage of David (Matthew 1:1, Revelation 22:16).
The Jews thought that the Messiah would be a political king who would free them from the control of the Romans (Matthew 21:1-11). What Jesus actually did was free them from the slavery to the power of sin and death (1 Corinthians 15:54-57). Jesus has the ultimate authority and power (Matthew 28:18; Philippians 2:9-11). He is King of kings and Lord of lords (Revelation 19:16).
Searching for a King
The Christmas story introduces us twice to the understanding of a king. Matthew begins the second chapter of his gospel with these words:
After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem 2 and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him” (Matthew 2:1-2 NIV).
| Matthew 2:1-2 NASB | Matthew 2:1-2 ESV |
Matthew 2:1-2 NLT | Matthew 2:1-2 MESSAGE |
Who were these wise men or Magi from the east? Perhaps if Luke the historian had written about them, we might have precise details of their identity and origins. But Matthew’s account is vague. “Behold … wise men.” Technically, Matthew calls them magi. What are magi? Kings? Wise men? Astrologers (since they gazed at stars)?
The tradition they were kings can be traced all the way back to Tertullian who died about 225AD. It was his belief that these magi were astrologers by trade and that they were considered kings. On the contrary, John Calvin, famed Protestant reformer, felt strongly about anyone who would label them “three kings:” “Beyond all doubt, they have been stupefied by a righteous judgment of God, that all might laugh at [their] gross ignorance.”
Pliny the Elder wrote several chapters in his works that date to the first century about the Magi. In his writings they sound like sorcerers or magicians.
The theory that there were three of these men probably comes from the number of gifts they brought (Matthew 2:11). The interest that Matthew has throughout his gospel of the Old Testament and the fulfillment of prophecy might lead you to believe these Magi were educated enough to be able to read Hebrew or Greek scripture. The Magi come from the east. Following the Babylonian Captivity, a large number of Jewish people stayed in the area rather than returning to Jerusalem. These Magi knew Scripture and traveled to Jerusalem.
The interest of Christians about the identity of the wise men grew stronger through the years. By the end of the sixth century, the Magi or wise men were named. While Matthew does not identify them, suddenly we know of Melkon (later Melchior), Balthasar, and Gasper.
These Magi may have been kings; they came searching for a king; and they ended up talking to a king.
The other intriguing verse for consideration today is also about a king. Again, these verses come from Matthew’s gospel. Verse three of the second chapter continues the story.
When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him (Matthew 2:3 NIV).
| Matthew 2:3 NASB | Matthew 2:3 ESV |
Matthew 2:3 NLT | Matthew 2:3 MESSAGE |
What in the world could have made Herod so disturbed about the birth of a baby? To understand the answer to that question, we have to know a little about Herod.
King Herod the Great
Herod was born around 74 BC. He was the second son of Antipater the Idumaean, a high-ranked official under Ethnarch Hyrcanus II, and Cypros, a Nabatean. A loyal supporter of Hyrcanus II, Antipater appointed Herod governor of Galilee at 25, and his elder brother, Phasael, governor of Jerusalem. He enjoyed the backing of Rome but his excessive brutality was condemned by the Sanhedrin.
In 43 BC, following the chaos caused by Antipater offering financial support to Caesar’s murderers, Antipater was poisoned. Herod, backed by the Roman Army, executed his father’s murderer.
After the battle of Philippi towards the end of 42 BC, Herod convinced Mark Antony and Octavian that his father had been forced to help Caesar’s murderers. After Antony marched into Asia, Herod was named tetrarch of Galilee by the Romans. However, since Herod’s family had converted to Judaism, his Jewishness was called into question by some elements of the Jewish society. When the Maccabean John Hyrcanus conquered the region of Idumaea (the Edom of the Hebrew Bible) in 140–130 BC, he required all Idumaeans to obey Jewish law or to leave; most Idumaeans thus converted to Judaism, which meant that they had to be circumcised. While King Herod publicly identified himself as a Jew and was considered as such by some, this religious identification was undermined by the decadent lifestyle of the Herodians, which would have earned them anger and disrespect by observant Jews.
Two years later Antigonus, Hyrcanus’ nephew, took the throne from his uncle with the help of the Parthians. Herod fled to Rome to plead with the Romans to restore him to power. There, in a special ceremony to honor him, Herod was elected “King of the Jews” by the Roman Senate. Josephus puts this in the year of the consulship of Calvinus and Pollio (40 BC), but Appian places it in 39 BC. Herod went back to Israel to win his kingdom from Antigonus and at the same time he married the teenage niece of Antigonus, Mariamne (known as Mariamne I), in an attempt to secure a claim to the throne and gain some Jewish favor. However, Herod already had a wife, Doris, and a three-year-old son, Antipater, and chose therefore to banish Doris and her child.
Three years later, Herod and the Romans finally captured Jerusalem and executed Antigonus. Herod took the role as sole ruler of Israel and the title of basileus (Gr. Βασιλευς, king) for himself, ushering in the Herodian Dynasty and ending the Hasmonean Dynasty. Josephus reports this as being in the year of the consulship of Agrippa and Gallus (37 BC), but also says that it was exactly 27 years after Jerusalem fell to Pompey, which would indicate 36 BC. (Cassius Dio also reports that in 37 “the Romans accomplished nothing worthy of note” in the area.) According to Josephus, he ruled for 37 years, 34 years of them after capturing Jerusalem.
It is to this Herod – paranoid, panic-ridden, persuasive, and pompous – that wise men from the East come and ask to see the one who is born “King of the Jews.” Approximately seventy years of age, Herod had long deceived death through maneuvering, politicking, cheating and murdering. He was not about to be ousted from his throne by a small child. The action that he must take would be swift and decisive – and would be totally within the almost insanely jealous character of this king.
He asked the wise men to give him as many details as they could about their trip, the star and their destination. He gathered Jewish rabbis and scholars to glean from the Law and the Prophets where the ultimate Jewish King – the Messiah – would be born. The upper end of time would say the child must have been born no longer than two years prior. There may even have been some who shared rumors of an angelic presence in the skies over Bethlehem. Ironically, killing all males under the age of two would require the slaughter of his own youngest son. In order to do so, he also had to murder Mariamne, the only woman he truly loved, who died trying to protect her son.
Eliminating all possible “kings” would certainly be possible – and in line with the past behavior of this King. Historian Macrobius (ca. AD 400), one of the last pagan writers in Rome, in his book Saturnalia, wrote: “When it was heard that, as part of the slaughter of boys up to two years old, Herod, king of the Jews, had ordered his own son to be killed, he [the Emperor Augustus] remarked, ‘It is better to be Herod’s pig [Gr. hys] than his son’ [Gr. huios].”
Macrobius may have gotten some of his historical facts garbled, but he could have given us a chronological key as well. If he was referring to the death of Antipater in 4 BC, the slaughter of the Innocents would have been one of the last, if not the last, brutal killings of Herod before he died. What is also interesting is the word-play in the quote attributed to Augustus- “pig” and “son” are similar sounding words in Greek. Herod would not kill a pig because he tried to remain kosher, at least among the Jews; yet he had no qualms killing his own sons!
It is probably no accident that a grandson of King Herod would later require that on the cross of Jesus’ crucifixion was etched the words “King of the Jews.”
| [maxbutton id=”2″] | [maxbutton id=”1″] |