In the Time of King Herod

Isaiah 60:1-9; Matthew 2:1-12

Epiphany:  January 6, 2013

I saw the movie Les Mis recently. I hesitate to tell you anything about my experience of it because I have read the critics – or at least some critics – and it seems that depending on what I thought of the movie I am either one of the pathetic, fooled, overly sentimental, masses, or an elite cynic not able to just open up my heart and experience a good movie, for goodness sake.  I don’t really want to be thought of in either of those ways, to be honest.  But I’m going to get over myself and my fear of being judged to share a bit of my experience with you.

I have been a fan of the musical – ever since I first saw it in college.  A big fan.  I’ve seen it multiple times, and have loved it every time.  If that makes me sappy, so be it.  I can’t be reminded enough that “to love another person is to see the face of God.”  That’s right – I break down sobbing every time that line is sung at the end of the play. 

So…I was really excited when the movie version came out.  I wanted to see what they would do with it.  I wanted to see how it would play on the big screen.  I figured that even if it wasn’t perfect, I was bound to enjoy hearing the story again – certainly I would get that wonderful release – that moment of sobbing – when Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway raise their voices to the heaven and declare that, after all they went through, to love another person is to see the face of God.

But I didn’t – I didn’t enjoy it.  And it wasn’t exactly for the reasons some critics were trouncing on it.  It wasn’t because the actors were bad, or overly bombastic, or because the story is too black and white, manipulative, simplistic.  It was because I was sick to my stomach the whole way through.  The emotions were too intense for me – more than once I seriously considered leaving the theater.  But my response had little to do with the story of the main characters.

The thing the film did that the play has never done for me was to connect me to the experiences of everyone else at the time.  When Fontine walked the streets after she was fired from her job, she didn’t just pass by a few “chorus extras” singing “Lovely Lady.”  The movie showed how impoverished, lost, violent, and desperate everyone was around her.  All of the sudden for me it wasn’t about her suffering – it was about the unimaginable suffering of people living – well dying – in France in the early 19^th century; it was about the countless, anonymous, suffering and dying people. 

One critic of the movie complained that all we see are pure victims who never assert themselves.  Well, yes.  People literally died of hunger, disease, homelessness because they couldn’t get a job and there was no support from the government.  These folks were victims because there was nothing they could do to change their situation – at least that didn’t require them either to become victims in other ways, or make victims of others.

What would it feel like, I wondered as I sat there, to be one of those people?  What would I experience?  What would I be willing to do if there was no way out, and no one seemed to care?  What lengths would I go to to protect my child?  Stealing from those with as little as me?  “earning” money any way possible?  Selling my teeth, selling my body?  One person this week put it this way when talking about seeing the movie:  You could smell the people of France.  Yes – and for 2 ½ hours. 

And of course there is the unavoidable corollary:  Sitting there, I wasn’t just thinking about 19^th century France.  Such things exist today.  We hear about them.  Places of famine.  Places where not only do you not get support from your government, they will kill you if you try with any seriousness to convince them they are in the wrong.  We know these places exist, but we are reluctant to contemplate for any length of time what it would feel like if it were us living there.  We don’t go there, don’t look, and we read the news stories from a comfortable distance.  When I watched Les Mis, it all came crashing in for me: the suffering of people in every time in history, including ours, that goes unnoticed, unaddressed, because people like me let it all fade into the background as if the countless masses were extras in a staged musical.

Today is Epiphany – so it’s time for the story of the three magi bringing their gifts to Jesus.  We like the story.  They see this star, encounter the evil Herod, find Jesus, bow down and worship him because he is God’s light sent into this world, and then are warned in a dream to not go back to Herod, besting the villain and keeping the Christ child alive so he can go on and save the day in the end.  Well, at least, that’s the “main character” version.  The Magi, Jesus, and Herod.  It’s a story that has a pretty great ending, might even stir us a bit.  But it’s not very hard to sit through, is it?

 “In the time of King Herod…” Matthew begins this epiphany.  We tend to let this pass us by:  “In the time of King Herod.”  For us it tells us when Jesus lived; sets up his story – and his enmity with Herod.  But that’s about it, because we don’t immediately connect with the sights, sounds and smells of Jerusalem in the time of King Herod.  Maybe a better way for us to relate to such a phrase is to hear, “In the time of Pol Pot…”, “In the time of Pinoche…”, “in the time of mass genocide in Rwanda,” “In the time of Bashar al-Assad, Saddam Hussein, Hitler.”  It’s not a throw away phrase.  “Suffering,” it says.  “Massive, inhumane suffering at the hands of the powerful.”  The readers of Matthew would have known this – they could still smell the people of Jerusalem who suffered under ruthless rulers – in part because the people were still suffering under ruthless rulers.

It’s only after this that Matthew tells us Herod was afraid when he heard about child had been born that people are calling King of the Jews – Herod’s title, of course.  Matthew tells us Herod was frightened; but he doesn’t stop there.  He tells us Herod was frightened, “and all of Jerusalem with him.” 

King Herod was no picnic when he wasn’t frightened.  On a normal day, we was happy to exploit the peasants and the destitute for his own gain – without much thought given to what life must be like for them.  When he was frightened – felt threatened – he was like a coiled up, poisonous snake backed into a corner with someone coming at him.  He had, after all, murdered his own sons, one of his wives, and countless others in opposition to him, including John the Baptist. 

It’s hard for us to remember that this is not a staged play; Herod only a character.  It may not exactly be history…it’s a story, but the setting is anything but fictional.  It’s as real as the plight of the people in 19^th century France – the historical background Victor Hugo used for his fictional story. 

Herod was real, he was savage, and the people who lived under his rule lived every moment subject to his whims, and trapped in the poverty he created and maintained with his policies and greed.  So when Herod was scared, Israel paid—in blood. The king’s fear translated into disaster for his subjects. If he would kill his own sons, what child in Israel could possibly be safe, if the king took it into his head to set his death squads on a search for babies?  Which is of course exactly what he does when the wise men cross him when they don’t return.

With the birth of a rival king, Jesus, “King of the Jews,” Herod was frightened…and all of Jerusalem with him.  Yep.  And Matthew wants us to know their fear – in our gut.

Isaiah doesn’t let us off any easier.  It’s no easier to read.  The lectionary does.  If we just read what we read this morning, it’s so hopeful:  Arise!  Shine!  For your light has come.  It’s Epiphany, lights on a tree, songs of hope.  But that’s chapter 60.  In chapter 59 Isaiah has just told the people,

⁷Their feet run to evil, and they rush to shed innocent blood; their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity, desolation and destruction are in their highways. ⁸The way of peace they do not know, and there is no justice in their paths. Their roads they have made crooked; no one who walks in them knows peace.

⁹ lo! there is darkness;

You see, when we read the prophets, when we read the story of Jesus, we’re supposed to smell the lives of the nameless masses living under the terror of Babylon, Assyria, King Herod.  It’s not supposed to be a particularly easy story to read.  One person I read put it this way:  “Sentimentality is the greatest enemy of the gospel.”  I’m not sure I would go that far, but I get the point.  It’s the difference between the bible being a feel-good children’s story with a happy ending, and the bible being a story about true darkness, hope, redemption – about who God is in a broken world, and what can be for the people who live in times like that of King Herod.

So what does Epiphany have to say to the people living in darkness?  The nameless, millions who die every day?  Light in the darkness is a great phrase.  But seriously, what difference did it make to the lives of the suffering masses in the day of King Herod that a baby was born in Bethlehem, and some astrologers travelled a long way to bring him gifts – fairly expensive gifts at that…having passed right through the streets of Jerusalem where the people were frightened. 

There is no doubt that for both Isaiah and Matthew God is the light in the midst of the greatest darkness we can imagine.  But it’s not a magic trick.  When Jesus is born, Herod doesn’t die, isn’t deposed; and when Herod does die, there are plenty of Herods to take his place  The people don’t see the star, or even look up – or get fed, for that matter.  They are just trying to survive. 

God is the light – Jesus is the light.  But, that is not the end of the story.  Like the magi, we must meet that light – experience it – and then, as Isaiah says, “Arise and shine!”  Isaiah is talking to the descendants of the slaves God brought out of Egypt.  He has just told them about the darkness – brought them face to face with the sights and smells of suffering all around them.  And he says, “Your light has come.  The glory of Yahweh has risen upon you.  The only appropriate response now is to arise, and shine.  To be God’s light to others.”  To free the slaves, like God freed you, bring home the exiled just as God brought you back from Babylon, welcome the stranger just as God welcomes you, care for the widow, provide for the poor. 

It’s the same for Matthew.  Just three chapters after the story of the magi Matthew writes of Jesus sitting on a mountain talking to his followers, saying:

¹⁴“You are the light of the world…let your light shine before others.”

When it got to the end of the movie, and my favorite line was coming up, I began to cry – as usual.  But it was harder – less cathartic and more convicting.  I was thinking that maybe the musical got it wrong – or at least was woefully incomplete.  “To love another person is to see the face of God.”  Yes.  And that was profound for Valjean – who wasn’t sure he was worthy of God.  But after sitting with the plight of so many people living in so much darkness for 2 ½ hours, I wondered if it wouldn’t be a better ending – though clearly not better poetry – to say “to love another person is to allow them to see the face of God.”   And when we don’t – when we don’t even see people, know their suffering or darkness, much less love them as Jesus loved others – all that’s left is darkness. 

In order to be light in the darkness, we have to go to the darkness…we have to sit with those in darkness, know them and their suffering, choose to feel some of what they feel.  This is true of people living in dire poverty…it’s also true of people grieving the loss of a loved one…this is true of a troubled young person…this is true of someone struggling with illness, addiction, depression…of people living under ruthless dictators…of people who have to choose between kill or be killed…and on and on.  Admittedly, it’s hard to sit with that, because we see that sometimes without a light – without our light of love – their darkness will persist.

If we know the light – if we have seen the face of God – in Jesus, in others who love us, anywhere we have been met with grace, then the message is clear:  We are the light of the world, so Arise and Shine!  Amen.