Kings and kingdoms will pass away

My last blog was about Mary and Joseph and their Godly response to the call of God on their lives. The next two people involved in this amazing story but in a very different way were both ungodly rulers. One was an Emperor and the other a Roman appointed king and tyrant. One never knew he was fulfilling God’s plans and the other never realised he was opposing the Lord God Almighty.  They are of course Caesar Augustus and King Herod.

Mary and Joseph lived in despised Nazareth but Jesus needed to be born in Bethlehem, the city of David. It was to King David that God promised ‘Your house and your kingdom shall endure for ever before me; your throne shall be established for ever’ (2 Samuel 7: 16). This baby was going to fulfil the prophecy. 

Every Jew knew that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem because Micah had prophesied this ‘But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.’

So how did God get Mary and Joseph to the right place? Surely he could have sent Gabriel to tell them to pack their bags and go stay in Bethlehem till the baby was born? They would have understood. Or why not get a relative to invite them to stay? No. God chose a much more significant way.

Enter Caesar Augustus. He was known as Gaius Octavian, his birth name, till he became Emperor in 27BC. He was well thought of because he restored peace and order after 100 years of civil war and he reigned quite benevolently compared with many of his successors. However it is doubtful if anyone other than historians would know of him if he had not decided at ‘just the right moment’ to order a census of the entire Roman world for taxation purposes.

This was not a small-scale event, this affected all the known world - people both great and small. Everyone had to return to their home town to be registered and this included Joseph and a heavily pregnant Mary. They had to go from Nazareth to Bethlehem, 111 kilometres or about 70 miles, quite a long way when you have to walk it.

God orchestrated that a pagan, unbelieving emperor in Rome miles away from the Holy Land would do his bidding. Why did Caesar Augustus choose that moment for his census? Because God wanted the Messiah born in Bethlehem.

Every year as we read the Christmas story, the name of Caesar Augustus is mentioned. He has become famous even though he had no idea that his census would be so important.

Another interesting though very unrighteous king also played his part in the birth of Jesus. King Herod was a nasty piece of work. He was appointed king of Judea by the Roman Senate and considered to be king of the Jews even though he was a non Jew, an Idumean. He was ruthless and murdered his wife, his three sons, mother-in-law, brother-in-law and uncle and a few others.

He has many similarities to other megalomaniac rulers over the centuries. Apart from killing off all opposition, real or imagined, he was an avid builder in his own honour of course.  He erected many splendid theatres, amphitheatres, a port, palaces, monuments, pagan altars and he even started the re-building of the temple in Jerusalem, paid for through a heavy tax burden on the local population.

In the context of the Nativity, apart from helping date the event, Herod was most definitely the bad guy. He was the one the magi visited, not unreasonably, in Jerusalem. They asked him, ‘Where is he that is born king of the Jews?’ That unwitting question led to the tragic events that followed. Herod was the king and he had not sired a baby recently so any new-born would be seen as a threat.

Having established that this unwelcome king would be born in Bethlehem, Herod tried to trick the magi to revealing his exact location. The magi though were warned in a dream not to return to Jerusalem.

Herod then in a great rage ordered the killing of all baby boys under the age of 2 in Bethlehem. This would probably not have been a large number, possibly less than 20, as Bethlehem was a small village but that does not detract from the brutality of the act.

So we have a Roman Emperor far removed from the action yet unintentionally arranging that the Messiah be born in Bethlehem. And we have a Roman appointed king trying to slay the infant Jesus.

God used the mighty to serve his purposes and ensure the birth of the King over all creation happened in the right place. However it is tragic that Herod, the ruler over the Jewish nation, had the opportunity to welcome and worship this new-born king but instead tried to kill him and in the process murdered innocent children.

Pride and prejudices

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him.” Matthew 2: 1 – 2

Have you ever asked a question or said something and the minute the words were out of your mouth you realised you had said the wrong thing? Maybe there is an awkward silence or embarrassed looks but you feel really bad and may not even know what it is you have said wrong.

I think the Magi must have experienced this.  They were astrologers probably from modern day Iran and having studied the stars for years they realised that the new star in the sky meant a baby had been born who was King of the Jews. Naturally they had gone to Jerusalem, the capital of the Jewish people and to King Herod’s palace, assuming he would know all out it.

Having asked the question they could immediately tell from the reaction of their audience that this ‘good news’ was in fact a complete and unwelcome surprise.  Herod was an unstable megalomaniac who murdered a large part of his close family and anyone else who he didn’t like. To tell him that a new king had been born was probably the worst possible thing to say.

Herod realised that the magi were talking about the long promised Messiah so he called the religious leaders to ask them where the baby would be born. They assured him the prophecies spoke of Bethlehem. At this point it is very surprising that if magi from 1000 miles away had taken the trouble to come and worship the king of the Jews, why didn’t even one religious leader want to go to Bethlehem, only 5 miles away, to check out the story?  This was the Messiah – spoken of by the prophets for hundreds of years – and they aren’t even interested?

I assume they didn’t believe the magi because they were Gentiles. They assumed God would speak to them and he hadn’t so the story could not be true.  Of course this assumption played out for the next 33 years. Jesus could not be the Messiah because God had not spoken to them about it. They never believed Jesus was the Messiah and most Jews still do not believe it even today.

We may be confident that Jesus is both our Saviour and the Saviour of the world but it is very easy to miss out on things God is doing because they don’t come at us in the way we expect or God hasn’t spoken directly to us. God will raise up all sorts of unlikely people to do his work and we must be careful not to be so offended by the messenger that we miss the message. I know of situations where people will not listen to a message or prophecy because they do not like the person speaking or they will not receive a healing or miracle because of the person praying for them.

The magi were right and they found Jesus the Messiah. The religious leaders were so full of their own self righteousness that they missed one of the great events of history. It was shepherds and magi who got to see Jesus, the Saviour of the world, and kings and religious leaders who missed it.

Let’s keep humble hearts and be open to what God may be doing. If it is in the Bible, no matter how unlikely, it is God so let us ask him to challenge our pride and prejudices so we don’t miss anything that He is doing.