Conspiracy of the Religious

Message Description

Strip District Campus Pastor Joel Haldeman tells a tale of the Magi and Herod the Great from the second chapter of the Gospel of Matthew.

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Message Transcript

At 25 years old, it was incredible the name he had made for himself. He came to power because of his lineage, but it soon became evident that he knew how to play the game. He began as a governor, but around the time that Julius Caesar was killed, 40 years before the birth of the famous one, Herod began his ascent to the throne. It was 37 BC, and Herod travels to Rome to make his appeal before the Roman Senate. There, the Senate declares him the king of Judea, and thus the king of the Jews. He would be a regional king who would report to the Roman Senate and later, when our story takes place, the emperor.

Now, Herod's rule would be marked by a lot of mayhem, and this was because of two realities. The first was because the Jewish people never truly accepted Herod as their king. While he was from Judea and from one perspective was one of them, not everybody saw it that way. You see, Herod, he was not born a Jew. He was born an Idumean. Idumea is region south of Judea, and from a lineage perspective he was only half Jewish. And so the single thing that Herod could never do anything to change was the very same factor that made most Jews resistant to him.

But that wasn't all. From the Jewish perspective as well, Herod was also a friend of Rome, and this made him an enemy of these people. In order to keep his thrown. In order to keep his position of power and influence and wealth, Herod would have to obey Rome, and this often put him at odds with the people that he was to lead, a people who wanted to be free and not subject to the laws, the customs, the taxation of Rome.

Herod's reign was also complicated by many domestic problems. He had 10 wives, wrote six different wills to determine how the throne would be passed on to his successor. His fourth will was written to give the throne to his eldest son, but that son became impatient, tried to poison his father, but his plan was foiled when the poison was accidentally consumed by Herod's brother. And so now Herod has his oldest son imprisoned and eventually gets permission from Rome and he has him executed.

Well, it's around this time that our story takes place. Herod becomes ill. He writes his fifth and then his sixth will. The year's 5 or 6 BC, and he wants to solidify his throne and establish his lineage. The commoners raised their eyebrows as they saw these distinguished travelers from another land riding through Jerusalem. It's obvious to everyone who looks on that they're not from around here. The look of the camels, the clothing of these men, the tone of their skin, the shape of their faces all points of the fact that they've come a great distance. They've sought an audience with King Herod, Herod the Great as he was known.

Herod was certainly curious of the news that these notable travelers would bring. They were brought into the palace and stood before Herod's throne, but with one line, one question, a few short words and Herod's rage bubbled up within him. It was like a punch to the gut. Like salt in a wound that has never healed. Concern followed by worry, denial, and revenge all at once stir within him. You see, Herod's reign had never been anything but difficult. There was one factor that always stood against Herod, one reality that he could never do anything to change. All the power, all the wealth in the world could never change this. The Jewish people, the people that he was charged with leading by and large rejected him as their king, and it was in part because of his allegiance with Rome, it was in part because of his domestic problems, but the single greatest factor that stood against him was this. He was not one of them. Herod the Idumean was not a Jew, and because of his birth, he could never be King of the Jews.

All of these thoughts are passing through his mind in dizzying speed as these distinguished men come back in to focus. His attendance grab his attention, as if he didn't even hear the question the first time. They cleared the throats and asked one more time, "Where is the one born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and we've come to worship him."

Now who these wise men were is largely unknown to us. The Latin word Magi means magician or sorcerer, and one who is wise and interpreting the stars it could even can mean. In ancient Persia, the Magi were often associated with the priestly class, and it's known through other historical sources that the Magi would at times follow the stars and connect them to historical events, even important births. And so there's nothing unusual this story except what is about to happen.

Upon hearing the news from the Magi about the one born King of the Jews, there was a stir among the people, not just the people of Herod's household, but all throughout Jerusalem, the common Jewish people who longed for a true king, a king who wasn't Herod. They were stirred up by this news, but no one was more disturbed than Herod.

And so he quickly thought and hatched a plan, a plan so devious, a plan completely in character with who he was and what he had done before. Herod gathered all the religious teachers and leaders throughout Jerusalem and brought them to the palace for a special counsel. He asked them, "According to the scriptures, where is the Messiah to be born?" "Bethlehem," they replied, and they quoted him the ancient words.

At this, Herod dismisses the religious leaders and calls the Magi. His plan is far too obvious for those who know him, so the next conversation must happen in secret. "Magi, it is said that the King will be born in Bethlehem, a city not far from here. My advisers will point you in the right direction. But when you find this child, please return to me and tell me where you find him so that I can come and worship him. I cannot go with you now, but I will have my chance later to visit this newborn king."

The Magi leave, and Herod's advisers look at him with that knowing look. The one enthroned before them is no worshiper of the Messiah. This is the same Herod that they saw execute his oldest son.

So the Magi go on their way. They head down the dusty path from Jerusalem to Bethlehem, and as they go on their way our travelers see the star begin to move, a natural impossibility of course, but after all, this is a story about God becoming a man. They come to a small village and here the sign points into a singular house. This is the moment that they've traveled so far to experience. This is what it has come to.

The anticipation builds as they begin to wonder what will lie on the other side of those walls. A knock, a surprised look, a call from the back room, a knowing grin. "We've come to see the one born King of the Jews. We saw his from our home in the East and we followed it's rising. We've traveled a great distance to worship him." The Magi might've expected that they had a lot more explaining to do. After all, this was a very strange moment.

But it was as though these parents were familiar with the unexpected. The door opens wide and the Magi enter. When they see this baby, they bow their heads low to the grounds and they place their gifts in front of him. This is a sight to behold for sure. A baby, a baby doing ordinary baby things with these distinguished travelers bowing before him in worship. They open their treasures that they've carried this great distance, valuable gifts normally reserved for royalty, gold, frankincense, myrrh.

And what happens next we you can only guess. Surely they stayed the night. Maybe it was during a few days of rest that they stayed with them, that they had the dream, the important dream, the dream that changed the entire story. We're told that they're warned in this dream not to return to Herod, and so the Magi depart and take a detour around Jerusalem and they begin the long journey home. They came without names, without genealogy, without a country of origin, and with very little explanation, and they depart likewise.

Well, after the Magi leave, an angel appears to this family warning them to leave immediately and to go to Egypt. So without delay, Joseph takes his family under the cover of night and he leaves Bethlehem. This is to protect the child, because Herod is going to come for him. When Herod realizes that the Magi were not returning to him, he gives the order. Every boy in Bethlehem and the surrounding area under the age of two is to be put to the sword. And all of this we're told is to bring to fullness the ancient words from Jeremiah, "A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning. Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted because they are no more."

You and I both know that the same event can evoke different reactions in different people. I took my son deer hunting a week or two ago, and we were very unsuccessful in even seeing a deer. But this was the first time that we had gone, so we spent a lot of time buying all the right gear, figuring out what we needed, having all the conversations that we need to have with different people, getting all the tips, right? But in this time of having these conversations, what I came to see is that people have a very different reaction to hunting. You know this. Some people prefer to just get their meat from the grocery store and not think about where it comes from, right, and that's okay. Other people, they find it to be engaging. It's a sport. It's earthy. It's being in touch with our past and where our food truly comes from. Two very different reactions to the same event.

Likewise, a couple of weeks ago we took our family to the Flight 93 Memorial, and I was reminded that on September 11th there were very different reactions to the attacks that took place, right? On the one hand, you probably remember videos, pictures of streets that were just covered in American flags, because people bonded together in support of their country. They hung banners that said never forget. There was mourning. People lifted up their country. But on the other hand, there were videos of people in other parts of the world that had a different perspective. They were cheering. They were celebrating because they saw this as a moment of triumph.

Why? Because these two groups had two different perspectives. One saw America as an enemy, as being against everything that they believed in. The other saw America as an ally, as a brotherhood, as a part of who they were. One saw it as an asset, one as a liability. One as a threat, one as a safety.

Now, you already know that this is true, that when our perspectives change, our reactions change. One example that probably every one of us have lived through on one end or the other is the experience of transitioning from those teenage years to the young adult years when your perspective towards your parents changes. Like almost every teenager lives through that moment of seeing their parents as not having a clue. You've never been here. You've never had the same experience that I have, and so you don't have any insight into my life, right? But then through the gift of time and often space as well, we go through this change where we come to see those parents not as clueless people that are trying to ruin our fun, but as people who support us, who care for us, who want the best for us, and we begin to see them as people who have experience that we can learn from.

I remember as a kid, I went behind my parents back to sign up for one of these music services. It doesn't exist anymore I don't think, where you pay like a couple bucks up front and you get 12 CDs for free, then you're on the hook for the rest of your life to pay an absurd amount of money for every CD that you get. I don't know how I thought it was going to get away with this, but I loaded up on some free CDs, and it was awesome. Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears, Eminem, Ricky Martin. I loaded up my five disc player and I was living la vita loca. I also had the Simpsons album, which was basically Bart Simpson rapping, and it's everything that you can imagine right now.

But anyway, I remember getting caught and my parents talked to me about that Simpson's album in particular and said, "We didn't want you ..." I was maybe, I don't know, 13, 14 at the time. "We didn't want you to have this album because we thought it was going to shape the way you thought about the world. Like you weren't ready to have this." I don't know. Teenage Joel was probably like, "Eat my shorts."

But looking back, I realized that they had totally hit the nail on the head. As a teenager, I thought they were just trying to take the fun away from me. Like they didn't trust me enough. I was totally capable of this. But looking back, I realized they were my ally. They were fighting for me. They wanted the best for me, right. What happened? My perspective changed, and when my perspective changed, my reactions toward my parents changed. They weren't just trying to steal my fun. They were an ally.

Now, King Herod and the Wise Men, they had very different reactions to the same event, the birth of Jesus. One worshiped. The other conspired. Why? Because they had different perspectives that led to those reactions. Herod was operating out of his perspective of pride and protecting his throne. He had a lifetime of guarding his throne, quelling any challengers. Anyone who would try to take power away from Herod was an enemy. He was in the position of power, and he needed to do whatever was necessary in order to keep that power for himself.

The perspective of the Magi was different. Now, let's be real about something. We have no idea who these Magi were, no idea if they were true worshipers of the God of the Bible or if this was just a thing that they did, following stars, bringing gifts. We can make some guesses based on what the text says, but that's not really the point. This actually happens a few times throughout the Bible where sometimes we get caught up in trying to analyze the individual and decide did they truly believe, and that's not the point. The point is they show up for a purpose.

For Matthew, who's writing out this story, the Magi exist to juxtapose Herod. While Herod was operating out of this perspective of pride, the Magi come and they're operating out of this humility, right? They bring precious gifts. They bow down. They acknowledge the superiority of the one that's before them. They make sacrifices by going this great distance, and they're full of joy.

Herod on the other hand, he was a conspirator. See, Herod had a religion. What Herod worshiped was his own throne. He idolized it. He would do whatever was necessary to protect it, even go so far as the kill his own kin. Herod worshiped his own throne and so the conspiracy of this religious man was to do whatever he could to stop Jesus.

Now, in hearing the story of Herod and the Wise Men, probably every one of us would like to think that put in those circumstances that we'd be more like the Wise Men than like Herod. Even if you're not a Christian, like putting yourself in that day, you'd like to imagine yourself as one of those bowing down, not one of those ordering executions.

But is Herod all that different from you and I? What if you were in Herod's shoes? What if you had a kingdom to protect, and Jesus was born, and he was going to challenge your kingship? What if Jesus threatened to dethrone you? What if there was an uprising that was going to balk against your rule? What if your people were in danger of giving up their allegiance and loyalty to you and turning to someone else? What if you were in danger of losing Caesar's approval? What if you were going to lose your throne because someone was born in your kingdom referred to as the King of the Jews?

I'm here to tell you that you are King Herod. In the depths of your psyche, you've also given yourself the title The Great. You have a kingdom. It's not a kingdom with physical borders and walls, but you have something to defend. You've enthroned yourself. You have a kingdom that's built upon your identity, your reputation, your power, your wealth, your resources. You have made yourself out to be The Great, and so have I.

The Wise Men have stood in your throne room and announced the coming of the one born to be the true King of your kingdom, and so it's your move. Will you remain seated on the throne? Will you do everything in your power to control your kingdom, to bring everything under your control, thinking that you can create prosperity, or will you step aside? Like the Magi, will you go to the true King and bow before him with your most precious possessions? Will you set aside your moniker The Great and humbly acknowledge the one who is far greater?

The Christmas story in many ways is a feel good, heartwarming story. It's the story of God entering into the world to be with us, Emmanuel. He's here to conquer sin and death. The themes of Advent are hope, love, joy, and peace, right? I mean, this is the making of a terrible Hallmark film, but it's heartwarming. It's true. It's good.

But that's only part of the story. The other half of the story is that Christmas is the beginning of an insurrection. It's an uprising by a king who's going to dethrone you. Jesus was not just born to conquer sin, but to conquer you, to conquer Joel Haldeman The Great to conquer your name The Great.

See, you and I, we're just as religious as Herod, aren't we? We're all worshipers. I don't know all the things that you worship, but I know one of them, because from the very beginning of time humans have struggled to worship one thing. We see it with the very first sin that ushers sin into our world, a sin that said, "Okay God, but I'm going to do it my way." Every one of us wrestles with worshiping ourselves, making ourselves God, worshiping our own power and autonomy, worshiping our own status and position. In short, we worship our throne. The problem with our self throne worship is that that seat wasn't made for you. Because it wasn't made for you, the longer you sit on that seat, the longer it will destroy you.

See, the end result of making yourself God is not good. Think about Herod. It results in complete chaos in his household. Death and destruction follows shortly after. Herod goes down in history as the antagonist, the footnote in someone else's story. How ironic is it that Herod spends his life trying to defend his throne and in the end, Herod just simply has to die in order for the family to return to Judea?

See, in the end, Herod loses his throne, despite the fact that he was doing everything within his power to keep it. And while we might still tag Herod's name with The Great simply as a means of historical clarity, Jesus is the great one that people gather all over the world at this very moment in different places and in different languages and through different practices to worship the truly great one.

And so the good news is this, that the rightful king will have his throne. Jesus will be king. That's great news because when Jesus is on the throne, he's able to do all the things that you and I spend our entire lives trying to create. We think that if we stay on the throne that we'll be able to tightly control all of our circumstances and not let anything get out of hand so that we can control our existence and create exactly what we want. But you already know that that's a fool's errand. The tighter you hold onto those things, the more likely they are to slip from your hands. But it's when we give up that throne to Jesus, it's when we allow Jesus to sit on that throne and allow him to rule over us that we get the very thing that we've always wanted, that we can live at peace, that we can truly thrive. Because when Jesus rules on the throne, he brings perfect peace and justice.

And so the question for you and I is, will you yield your throne or will you be overthrown? Because the King will have his throne. No one will rule over Jesus in the end. And so we can spend our lives trying to wrestle control away from him and keep our throne all to ourselves, or we can yield the throne to him and let him rule.

There are two ways that we go about letting him take the throne. The first is by simply admitting that we're a part of the conspiracy. We are a part of the conspiracy of the religious. You and I have conspired to keep Jesus off of his throne. Whether you're someone who's exploring Christianity, whether you're someone who's skeptical of Christianity, or someone who's been doing this Christianity thing for decades, every one of us has conspired to keep Jesus off his throne because we love our throne and we love our power, and so it all begins by acknowledging our own conspiracy.

Then the second part is to allow our perspective to change. Just as in my example, my perspective towards my parents changed as I began to see them as an ally instead of an enemy, the same is true with Jesus. That as you begin to see him as an ally, you'll begin to trust him all the more to sit on his throne.

One of the things that I've done for a long time now is journal. I don't journal a lot, maybe once a month, but I just spend some time writing out some thoughts about what's happening and the things that I'm praying for, and the things that I'm anxious about. What I find is that when I can look back over 10 years of these notes, I can see that there were these moments where I was worried about something, and I was praying about something, I was hoping for something, and even at times where I was discouraged because it felt like God wasn't coming through, but because I can now look back on that I can see exactly the ways that Jesus was my ally, and he met me in ways that I didn't even think I needed him to. Though the circumstances were out of my control, Jesus was on his throne and that was the best possible thing for me.

I know there are things that you want, something right now that you are hoping for, maybe even praying for thing, something that you are anxious about, something that you are trying to arrange to happen in your life, something maybe that you're even trying to force to happen. But when we come to see Jesus as an ally and not a vending machine that you got to shake just right because it gets stuck, when we see Jesus as that ally, everything changes. Because you will be freed knowing that he is on his throne, and he is going to rule over your life with perfect peace and justice.

You see, the truth is Jesus will have his throne, whether you and I yield it to him or not. And that's good news, because Jesus is the only one who can truly sit in that seat without it destroying him. And so the question for you and I is, will we yield our throne or will we be overthrown? Let me pray for us.

God, we just ask because we're in this place here in Wexford in Butler, the strip district, the chapel, and we are wanting something. We want to use our power. We want to use our throne to control our lives. But we just ask that you would give us the freedom to give up that seat, and that you would come and sit in that chair and rule over us with your perfect peace and justice. And we trust you, Jesus. Amen.