Herod doesn't want to give up power because Herod knows what's up as far as power goes. It's easy to forget that the concept that we are all used to by now, that of a peaceful transfer of power, is relatively new. Before that, and for most of human history, what would happen would be that you were in power, and on the throne, but your family would tend to go from the throne to the graveyard, or into exile. You wouldn't do that thing where you retired from public life and retired to work on your chalk fossils. The way it tended to go, was that your dynasty would take over violently from the one before it, and your dynasty would last until your family was murdered and another dynasty took over from you. Lather, rinse, repeat. If you want proof of that concept, think about the family who was in power before the Herodian dynasty, that of the Hasmoneans. What happened to them? A lot of executions.. And if Herod knows how his family came to power, he has every reason to be suspicious of an up and comer looking to take over from his dynasty. Especially if this newfound king of the Jews is the real deal.
If this is the real deal, if this is the inheritor of the throne of David, if this is the real King of the Jews, then Herod is through, he and his whole family. And if Herod is done being King, he's not going to go back to peanut farming. If there were a Wikipedia at the time, probably carved into stone tablets or whatever, then almost every ruler's 'later life' section would just state that they were murdered, or died of a surfeit of lampreys, and then their heir or rival took their place. Herod had no intention of being added to that statistic, especially not to have a rival who had an actual claim to a throne that Herod himself had only through treachery and collusion. So, Herod went out of his way to find out from the Magi, from the scribes, where this King of the Jews was. And here comes the lie - "Go and search diligently for the child" said Herod, "and when you have found him, bring me word, so that I too may come and worship him."
That's a whopper. It is absolutely, categorically untrue, and is violently so. I don't use the word violently as a metaphor, either, for Herod seeks violence against the newborn king, to kill him and to bury his rivalry. Herod is lying to the Magi, to try to get them to deliver the location of Christ, so that Herod can have him killed. If Jesus is dead, then the threat to Herod's home, family, dynasty and life all go away.
But here's the thing. This attitude has not changed at all. Consider this: Christmas is the biggest racket of them all. It's a glutton of a holiday that lasts from late October all the way to the end of December. So, pretty much a quarter of the year, including boxing day, is devoted to the observance of this festive season. Now, nobody I know loves and is attached to the Christmas shopping season, and the longer it goes, the less we all like it. I hope we can all agree on that. There's a great essay from CS Lewis that talks about Christmas being separate from Xmas, which I've quoted before, and which still retains its poignancy. And what we learn about the season is that everyone is dragged about, hither and yon, to try to make up the shortfall that retail outlets suffer through over the course of a year. Profits start on Black Friday, if you will. But the longer that goes on, the more we begin to understand that we are being played largely for suckers, but we don't seem to be able to stop. And that's the key right there, that somehow, the celebration of Christmas became wholly co-opted by commercial interests.
Stop me if you've heard this one: "Go and worship this newborn king, and when you have done so, tell me when you are doing so, so that I may worship him too." Oh, sure. Different person, but same lie. 'Tis the same deception, the one that says that I too, would like to worship this king, when I have zero intention of doing so. But I do want to co-opt his worship for the sake of power, wealth, and control. And that's the punchline. The punchline that says that the crowded marketplace, the modern Herod, ever had any interest in the worship of Christ. They never did, and they never will. It was all in aid of profit, and the increase of the same. Many people have bemoaned the retreat of the words 'Merry Christmas' from stores and markets. Many people have been disappointed that the retail landscape is dominated by a profoundly secular ethic even and especially at Christmas, but the big question is to ask what you expected from the new Herod? What did you expect the new hegemon to do when his power is threatened?
For the only thing standing firmly against the weight of commerce is the one who flipped the tables and scattered the coins. The system we have today views human beings as economic units, a resource to be used, and then discarded, while Christ focuses on the unique vitality and essential dignity of every individual human being. But who else at this hour is intending to understand human beings as spiritual rather than economic units? That conversation is silent save for the voice of Christ who calls us by name, and tells us that our worth is not dependant on our output or on our utility. He in fact warns us that we cannot serve two masters.
Herod knew that Christ's claim to the throne was more valid than his own, and were he able to take the throne, Herod would be deposed. How right he was. But the modern Herod knows the same - seeking to give the illusion that they wanted to worship Christ as well, they did so only to debauch and to destroy, to eliminate the presence of the one who transcends purchase at all. Christ stands as the central figure of this debate, and stubbornly resists the reduction of humanity into a service to money, and reclaims the dignity of a creature born for eternity, and born for a world without the scarcity that drives the market. He stands at the centre of it all, and makes you into more than a value on a balance sheet, more than a bottom line, and more than your economic utility. And at Christmas, we ponder anew that what he gives isn't something that we, or the new Herod can buy, because we couldn't possibly afford the price that it cost. The blood of Christ that purchased eternity for us. It is worth more than the gold, the incense and the myrrh. The wise men acknowledged it, and wise men today still do.
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