THE SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENTS

 

THE SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENTS

Herod the First also known as Herod the Great was also called King of the Jews. He is identified in the Gospel of Matthew.  Upon hearing  from the Magi, (Wise Men) that they came to visit the one who had been born King of the Jews, Herod was terribly alarmed  since he knew of no other one who carried the title king of the Jews. Someone who bore his title was a threat to his rule as this was his title.

Herod called the scribes and determined that, according to prophecy, the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem. As the magi left for Bethlehem to find the Messiah, Herod asked them to report back to him with the location of the newborn King “so that I too may go and worship him” (Matthew 2:8).

Of course, Herod had no such intentions. The magi found Jesus and worshiped Him, presenting their gifts to Him, but they were  then warned by God in a dream not to return to Herod. When Herod realized that the Magi have not reported back to him, he was furious and called for the slaughter of all the boys up to two years old in Bethlehem and the surrounding area, hoping to end the life of any potential rival.

God warned Joseph  to flee to Egypt with Jesus and Mary. Jesus was not harmed; however, there was a great slaughter of the innocents in and around Bethlehem (Matthew 2:16–18).

Such is Herod’s bloody, ruthless, legacy. He was a murderous paranoiac who ordered the execution of his perceived potential political rivals like the killing of his brother in law, his wife, High Priest and members of the San Hedrin. For Herod to order the killing of innocent children in Bethlehem is not out of his character.

Herod the Great was an ambitious and ruthless ruler who set himself in opposition to the King of kings and Lord of lords.

So I don't understand why we make jokes based on this bloody  history.

SOMETHING BEYOND THE MIRACLE

 

SOMETHING BEYOND THE MIRACLE

The miracles of Christ’s were not  only works of special power (dunamis), not only astonishing wonders (teras) that arrested people’s attention: they were also signs (semeion) that pointed beyond themselves to  something far more important than the physical miracle itself.

Take for example the Miracle of the Feeding of the Five Thousand (John 6).

At its first level of significance, it was performed by Christ out of his compassion for the people’s physical hunger. But that was not, its only, and not even, its main purpose. The people naturally got hungry the next day as well. But the record itself tells us that when they came to Jesus clamoring for a repeat of this physical miracle he refused to repeat it.

Why? If he did have these miraculous powers, why did he not go on using them day after day until physical hunger was banished from the earth? And why does he not still do it today? Because, so he said, they have failed to see, or else were deliberately ignoring the higher purpose, the significance of this miraculous sign. (John 6:26) They failed to see the truth beyond the miracle.

The miracle was meant to alert them not only to the fact that Jesus was their Creator in human form, but that he had come down from heaven to offer himself to them as the Bread of life to satisfy their spiritual hunger. The stomach being itself material can be satisfied with material things. But the human spirit, deriving as it does from God who is spirit can never be fully satisfied with material things nor with merely aesthetic, emotional or intellectual pleasures. It needs fellowship with a Person, and that Person none other than its Creator. Without him the human spirit is doomed to perpetual hunger which ten thousand physical miracles would never quench.

At this level we can test the truth of this miracle story ourselves.

It offers us a diagnosis of human need. It says we are spiritually hungry, whether or not we consciously know what (or rather whom) we are hungry for. It is the hollow, void in the soul that nags us. Some seek mystical enlightenment and discipline to satisfy this longing, yet remain empty. Multitudes have been taught and trained to suppress their spiritual hunger. Some have succeeded and will honestly claim that they feel no pangs of spiritual hunger. But that can be an alarming symptom. We are told that when people are physically starving without any food, whatever, it is at first very painful. But after awhile the pain goes away and does not return until death is imminent and inevitable. It can be similarly so with spiritual starvation and its final stage, the second death.

But to those who recognize their spiritual hunger, Christ offers himself as the Living Bread.

Do they long for that spiritual dimension of life that is eternal fellowship with God, that begins here on earth and extends beyond the grave into God’s heaven? Christ guarantees that he can give that. (John 6:28-58)

Do they long to have their spirit freed from the shadow cast on it by the guilt and bondage of sin? Christ through his death can give that as well.(John 8:31-36)

How then can we know that he is true, that he is, as he claims to be our Creator in human form?

In the same way as we know a loaf of bread can genuinely satisfy our human hunger: By coming to it, trusting it, eating it.

So to those who recognize the truth of his diagnoses of their spiritual hunger, Christ says, ‘I am the bread of life. He who comes to me shall not hunger; and he who believes on me shall never thirst.’

Those who come and believe discover that he is true.

INTELECTUAL CURIOSITY

 

INTELLECTUAL CURIOSITY

No one can call himself truly educated without some acquaintance with the Bible which has had, and still has, such a profound impact on world thought. However, just here we might meet an objection. We might meet someone who says he doesn’t believe in God so why bother. Why should he be interested in what it says, telling us he lives his life without acknowledging any god whatever. We really can’t convince him to pick up the good book if he says he doesn’t believe in God. But perhaps we can persuade him to read it out of intellectual curiosity, after all he reads the daily newspaper and doesn’t believe everything written on it. And one thing more. Our unbelieving friend claims he doesn’t believe in any god. The statement might be intellectually sincere but practically arguable. The weight of human experience over centuries of history is against this claim. It all depends on what you mean by God. Multitudes of people all down the ages have decided with the Philosopher Nietsche that “God is dead” and decided to banish from their minds all belief in the One True God. But honestly, they have to pay a price for this intellectual conviction, for thereafter, they have found it practically impossible to live either intellectually or emotionally in a completely godless world. Deliberately or subconsciously they have filled the vacuum left by the dismissal of the One True God with all kinds of substitute gods. Over the course of history people had made gods and goddesses and even made “chance” or “fate” as a god. The ancient Greeks did it.

So to this unbelieving friend, he will certainly not commit intellectual suicide if he picks up the Bible and begin to read  the greatest book of all time. If he reads abstruse poetry or absurdist plays, why not the Bible? I did, and it turned around my life.