December 9
When Herod the king
heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.
—Matthew 2:3
Jesus is troubling to people who do not want to worship him,
and he brings out opposition for those who do. This is probably not a main
point in the mind of Matthew, but it is inescapable as the story goes on. In
this story, there are two kinds of people who do not want to worship Jesus, the
Messiah. The first kind is the people who simply do nothing about Jesus. He is
a nonentity in their lives. This group is represented by the chief priests and
scribes. Verse 4: “Gathering together all the chief priests and scribes of the people,
[Herod] inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born.” Well, they told
him, and that was that: back to business as usual. The sheer silence and
inactivity of the leaders is overwhelming in view of the magnitude of what was
happening. And notice, verse 3 says, “When Herod the king heard this, he was
troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.” In other words, the rumor was going
around that someone thought the Messiah was born. The inactivity on the part of
chief priests is staggering—why not go with the magi? They are not interested.
They do not want to worship the true God. The second kind of people who do not
want to worship Jesus is the kind who is deeply threatened by him. That is Herod
in this story. He is really afraid. So much so that he schemes and lies and
then commits mass murder just to get rid of Jesus. So today these two kinds of
opposition will come against Christ and his worshipers: indifference and hostility.
Are you in one of those groups? Let this Christmas be the time when you
reconsider the Messiah and ponder what it is to worship him.
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