Advent - Week 1 - Evil

Matthew 2

The Magi Visit the Messiah

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

3 When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. 4 When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born. 5 “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written:

6 “‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,

    are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;

for out of you will come a ruler

    who will shepherd my people Israel.’”

7 Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. 8 He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and search carefully for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.”

9 After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. 10 When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. 11 On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. 12 And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.

13 When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up,” he said, “take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.”

14 So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, 15 where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: “Out of Egypt I called my son.”

16 When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi.

Notice that Herod was not the only one concerned.

Let’s gather some background on Herod. His father (Antipater) and mother were both Arabs, although his father was a practicing Jew. His father had acquired great wealth, and he aided Rome when it invaded Palestine in 63BC. This eventually lead to him (and consequently Herod) being granted Roman citizenship. Herod became a lifelong friend of Mark Anthony, and was favored by Julius Caesar. Both Antipater and Herod were given titles, his father was eventually poisoned, and Herod fled to Rome when the Parthians invaded Palestine in 40BC. There he was named King of Judaea (so-called King of the Jews), given a standing army, and asked to reclaim the territory that he would rule over. He did this, left his first wife Doris (and their son Antipater), and solidified his political situation by marrying Mariamne the daughter of a priestly family of Jewish leaders. Although the marriage was arranged, he was deeply in love with Mariamne.

Herod built massive fortresses and incredible cities, as well as the great port of Caesarea. At Herodium in the Judaean desert Herod built a great palace, where he was eventually buried. In Jerusalem he built the fortress of Antonia, and a magnificent palace. Herod also rebuilt the Temple, where he hung a golden eagle to honor Rome (and thoroughly angered the Jews). Herod never hesitated to crush the least revolt, and when a group of devout Jews attempted to remove the Eagle, he had them dragged 17 miles and then burned alive. The great outer court of the rebuilt Temple, 35 acres, is still visible, although the Temple itself was destroyed by Rome around 60AD. He also improved foreign cities and many towns. Herod also, became president of the Olympic Games. In Rome, he was loved, but in Judaea, he was at constant odds with the Pharisees, because they regarded him as a foreigner.

In his personal life, Herod was a conflicted man. He was wildly successful as a ruler, and but he lived in mental anguish. Herod murdered Mariamne after suspecting she was sleeping with her uncle. Afterwards he mourned her death, and was reported to wander the castle calling her name. Herod also killed Mariamne’s two sons, her brother, her grandfather, and her mother. Besides Doris and Mariamne, Herod had eight other wives and had children by six of them. He had 14 children.

In his last years Herod suffered from arteriosclerosis (hardening of the arteries), as well as intolerable itching and inflammation of his bowels. He became extremely paranoid, altering his will three times, and then disinheriting, and finally killing his firstborn, Antipater.

Augustus was reported to have said, "It is safer to be Herod's pig than his son."

As Herod approached his own death, he feared that he would not be properly mourned. So he gathered the leaders of the surrounding communities and ordered their execution upon his death, to guarantee that there would be much grief. Lucky for them, the order was not carried out. The order to slay the babies in Bethlehem would have occurred in the time shortly before his death.

I believe Herod was consumed with a lust for power. He wasn't the first, and he won't be the last. Abraham Lincoln said, “Nearly all men can face adversity. If you really want to test his character, give him power.”

Herod is important for us to remember at Christmas, because he symbolizes evil, and Jesus came so that we could overcome the evil of this world. Of course, evil existed long before Herod was born. It resides inside each of us. It has been said, “We stop looking for monsters under the bed when we realize they are inside of us.” If they are not inside of us, they are surely all around us. Shakespeare said, “Hell is empty, and all of the devils are here.”

As Christians, we might (falsely) imagine that we are immune, but we are not. Consider what Paul says in Romans 7:19 – “For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.” 

We are conflicted beings, and our desire and indulgence of Free Will is our own undoing. Adam and Eve lived in God’s presence, and yet they had no self control. Caine conversed with God, and yet he murdered his own brother. David was a man after God’s own heart, and yet he caused a man to be murdered so that he could lay with his wife. He was so corrupted by his lust, that when Nathan confronted him, he seemed dumbfounded. In 2 Samuel 12 we read “The Lord sent Nathan to David. When he came to him, he said, “There were two men in a certain town, one rich and the other poor. The rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle, but the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb he had bought. He raised it, and it grew up with him and his children. It shared his food, drank from his cup and even slept in his arms. It was like a daughter to him.

“Now a traveler came to the rich man, but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare a meal for the traveler who had come to him. Instead, he took the ewe lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared it for the one who had come to him.”
David burned with anger against the man and said to Nathan, “As surely as the Lord lives, the man who did this must die! He must pay for that lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and had no pity.” Then Nathan said to David, “You are the man!”

Jesus’s disciples lived with him daily for 3 years, and they were still corrupted by a lust for power. In Mark 9:33-37 they argue over who is greatest among them. On multiple occasions, they misunderstand Jesus’s mission because of their own desires, and eventually, one of them aids in the plot to kill Jesus (and this was not the first time that people who knew Jesus tried to kill him – See John 10).

Even Jesus was tempted. Luke 4:1-2 – And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness for forty days, being tempted by the devil. And he ate nothing during those days. And when they were ended, he was hungry.

But, unlike us, Jesus was perfect his is resistance to temptation.

Evil exists, even in our so-called modern society. We have seen multiple occurrences of genocide (e.g. Nazi Germany, Rwanda, Serbia). People are starving and thirsty throughout the world, and there are many needy people within an arm’s reach of our church.

Can we, as Christians, protect ourselves from evil?

Perhaps we should first understand the base of evil. Evil is inside and around all of us. 1 Pet 5:8 – “Be self-controlled and vigilant always, for your enemy the devil is always about, prowling like a lion roaring for its prey.” The famous Stanford Prison Experiment demonstrated once and for all that even good people are capable of evil acts, and can be easily manipulated by leaders, either through a lust for power or a fear of power. Friedrich Nietzche said, “Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.” Jeremiah 17:9 – The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?

Good people can be corrupted by many things, and one of them is money. Voltaire famously said, “When it comes to money, everyone is of the same religion.” In Matthew 10:25, Jesus says, “It is easier to pass a cable through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.” Is this because money is evil? No, it is because money increases our lust for money, and becomes something we worship in life. Pope Francis recently spoke and wrote about the evils of idolizing money, and researchers recently concluded a study showing that just thinking about money can make a person more evil.

But perhaps the greatest source of evil is our own indifference. Edmund Burke said, “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” Elie Wiesel said, “The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference.” 

What can we do as Christians to combat evil? We find many good answers in the Bible.

Luke 22:40 – On reaching the place, he said to them, “Pray that you will not give in to temptation.”

Luke 22:46 – “Why are you sleeping?" he asked them. “Get up and pray so that you will not fall into temptation.”

  

Mark 14:38 – “Keep watching and praying that you may not come into temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” 

2 Corinthians 10:3-5 – “For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”

    

Romans 8:5-8 – For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

What shall we do when we are caught in our own temptation? Confess and pray.

Psalm 51:1-19 – A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet went to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba. Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin! For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. ...

Matthew 6:9-13 – Pray then like this: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” 

What should we do when others are caught in temptation?

Gal 6:1 – “Even if a man is detected in some sin, my brothers, the spiritual ones among you should quietly set him back on the right path, not with any feeling of superiority but being yourselves on guard against temptation.”

We should always offer ourselves to others in Christian love. Remember Jesus’s answer to the learned man in Matthew 22:36-40 – “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Loving our neighbors requires action. One of my favorite poems is “Outwitted” by Edwin Markham (1852-1940)

He drew a circle that shut me out —

Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.

But Love and I had the wit to win:

We drew a circle that took him in!

As we enter this Christmas season, I pray that we will remember that evil surrounds us, but that we can overcome evil through Jesus. Stay vigilant in prayer, mindful of our weaknesses and limitations, and loving of others in need.