Good morning!  I want you to imagine yourself waking up this morning as one of the 100 or so residents in the tiny shepherd town of Bethlehem over 2000 years ago. Daylight is just beginning to stream over the hills to the east.  You hear sheep bells and shepherds, merchants opening their shops, women and children chattering on their way to the well. The smoke of newly lit ovens stings your eyes and the aroma of baking bread as you rise to greet the dawn.

 

3 miles to the SE a man-made mountain towers 400 feet into the morning sky, casting an intimidating shadow over the land.  On its top a huge palace fortress covering more than 40 acres, is silhouetted in the morning light.  Even from this distance you can see the 10 story palace soaring above the fortress walls. This is the Herodium, built by the usurper Rome has installed as King over Israel. He calls himself Herod the Great.

 

The opulence and power of the place is staggering - swimming pools, steam rooms, theaters. It is the 3^rd largest fortress/palace complex in the world at that time. A garrison of Roman soldiers is stationed there. Herod’s purpose in building it wasn’t only personal comfort and security it was to intimidate anyone who would dare dispute his claim to be king.

 

Are you familiar with intimidation?  Herod was a gifted intimidator, a bully whose paranoia turned him into a murderous ego maniac. He may have been the world’s single greatest builder and organizer, but nobody remembers him for that. What we remember him for is slaughtering the babies of Bethlehem.

 

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Back to early morning in Bethlehem. It doesn’t take long for the news to get out. Mary, Joseph and the baby are gone. They must have left in the night without a word to anyone. Where did they go? Maybe back to Nazareth. Except we know better. An angel appeared to Joseph in the night.  “Get up and 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.”  Mt 2:13

 

What it’s like to wake up every morning in the shadow of the Herodium? If you aren’t sure what that means, ask yourself the question, “What intimidates me?”  1000 years earlier, the Shepherd King David, caring for his flocks in this very place wrote, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for you are with me.”   

 

What intimidated David?  Was it bandits, other shepherds, lions or bears, thunderstorms, earthquakes?  He had fought lions and bears.  He killed Goliath. What could possibly intimidate a guy like David?  Something did - or he wouldn’t have written these words!

 

This world is a dangerous place. We live in the shadow of earthquakes and tsunamis, recessions and diseases, famines, disasters, bullies of many kinds. Like those residents of ancient Bethlehem, we live in the shadow of the Herodium!

Everyday we get bombarded with intimidating messages, you’re too old, too young, you’re not pretty enough or smart enough, you should be this, you should be that. We have health issues, job issues, financial issues, marriage and family issues, and earthquake issues.

 

Imagine Joseph loading up his family in the middle of the night and heading south.  He had to walk right past the Herodium silhouetted against the eastern sky. Did he quote David’s Psalm? “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil for you are with me.” Did he mutter a prayer, “Are you really, Lord? Are you really with me, here in the shadow of Herod’s tower?”

 

It’s hard not to be intimidated by power, beauty, success and the uncertainty of the world around us. 33 years later, Jesus’ disciples, gawking like country bumpkins in Manhattan, looked at the incredible temple Herod erected in Jerusalem and said, “Master, look at these incredible buildings!”  Jesus said, “It won’t be long and all this will all be a pile of rubble.”  

 

Less than 40 years later, the Romans leveled it. Today the Herodium is a pile of rocks. Its power to intimidate gone. Herod’s legacy isn’t that he was maybe the greatest politician, builder, international diplomat the world has ever known but that he murdered babies.

 

There is an important lesson for us here. How did Herod go from being a gifted leader with incredible potential for good to simply being the baby killer?  The Bible tells us that God has gifted us as human beings in incredible ways. We’ve been given dominion – that means we’ve each been crowned with unique power and authority to function as God’s stewards.

 

But we’ve mistaken dominion for domination.  Either we duck our responsibility to use our God given power to serve and care and defend, or we misuse our God given power to exalt ourselves and dominate others.

 

Turn back to Psalm 2.  “Why do the nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the LORD and against his Anointed One.” Psalm 2: 1-2

 

Human history is like a great game of “king of the hill”.  Maybe that’s the reason the cult reality show Survivor is so popular. It pits person against person, tribe against tribe, nation against nation, everybody striving to be king. We make alliances and secret strategies. We steal, lie, and scheme our way to the top. The problem is it’s all based on a lie.

 

There is nothing at the top – nothing that ultimately matters. Verse 2 says The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the LORD and against his Anointed One.” Psalm 2: 1-2

When we can’t get what we want by fighting each other, we blame God. We accuse God of being the problem. We work together to push God off the top of the hill so we can be king.

 

The words “Anointed One” is the same word as the word Christ in the New Testament.  It means, “King”. Jesus was crucified because his Kingship threatened the desires of religious and political leaders to be their own king.  As a result, bitter enemies became allies against God and his Anointed One at the cross. How strange!

Vs 3 “Let us break their chains’, they say, “and throw off their fetters!” Psalm 2:3   The lie is that God is in the way of our freedom. This lie originated in heaven when Lucifer, the great angel, created by God to serve him, said about his creator, “I will ascend to the throne of the most High”.

 He took it upon himself to play king of the hill with his creator! He was thrown down from heaven along with the angels that joined him in his lie, and throughout human history he’s been tempting humankind to join the revolt.  It’s amazing how susceptible we are to his lie.

 

The complication in all this is that he’s whispering the same lie to everyone of us - so here we go – hammer and tongs playing king of the hill with each other, living in a world filled with pain and fear, intimidating and being intimidated, killing and being killed.  What a chaotic mess!

 

Look at verse 4 “The One enthroned in heaven laughs; the Lord scoffs at them.” How ridiculous we must look! How hilarious if it weren’t so tragic!  God could have abandoned us to live in the shadow of the Herodium forever.  Here’s the kicker, Herod, up in the top of his 10 story palace, surrounded by the Roman army, is the most paranoid of all!  It seems the more power we have, the closer we get to the top of the hill, the more insecure we become.

 

Vs 5 “Then he (God) rebukes them in his anger and terrifies them in his wrath, saying, “I have installed my King on Zion, my holy hill.”  Caesar was on the throne in Rome, Cleopatra was on the throne in Egypt, Herod was be on the throne in Jerusalem – they were all playing the domination game.  

 

But the true king, the King over all kings, the one who truly had dominion, was born in a stable, in the shadow of the Herodium, in Bethlehem. He came to serve, his coronation would be a cross.

 

 

So let’s back up a bit to Joseph, Mary, Jesus, scurrying through the night. Is it because God is powerless against the murderous paranoia of Herod?  Obviously not! God has his reasons, but fear of Herod isn’t one of them.  So where is the power? Is it with Herod or with Joseph and Mary? Are we willing to believe that God, Immanuel, is physically there with Mary and Joseph even as they scurry past the intimidating towers of the Herodium? Is Jesus enough for us?

 

2 days before he was crucified Jesus said to his disciples. "Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be great earthquakes, famines and pestilences in various places, and fearful events and great signs from heaven. But before all this, they will lay hands on you and persecute you. They will deliver you to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors, and all on account of my name... (Sounds like life in the shadow of the Herodium!)