Yes, Herod was the King of the Jews who killed children to hold onto his power, but Jesus, He is the Christ, the King of the Jews who surrendered his power, became a child and was killed for his children. When our suffering and the suffering of this world seems too much we have to ask God to give us the heart to see his King of the Jews, strung up and pinned down on the cross, forsaken and left to die, not only by humanity, but by his Father too. 

The Human Rights Chief of the United Nations, Volker Turk, reported that a “quarter of humanity is caught in global conflicts.” That’s two billion people. We might wonder what comfort the Christian story offers to folks who will not plan easter egg hunts for their children, or cook a President’s Choice spiral ham, or attend a Easter Sunday worship service, but instead must listen to gunfire and missiles, struggle to find food and water, flee to refugee camps.

The story in Matthew 2:1–18 talks about a King of the Jews called Herod who cared little for the people he governed and mostly obsessed over his own legacy – a leader like many who rule today. At the time of Christ’s birth Herod the Great was in charge and this passage tells us a lot about his lust for dominance and disregard for human life.

There’s more.

Titled King of Judea by Marc Antony himself, Herod was a vassal of Rome and given to building things and tyranny. This King of the Jews had 45 members of the Sanhedrin killed, ordered his favourite wife murdered, then her mother, brother, and two sons, and in 4 BC he had 40 dissenting Jewish students burned alive. The week before he died he had his first born son executed and it is said he had influential men imprisoned, ordering they be killed as soon as he died, so Israel would be sure to grieve.

History describes Herod as a friend to powerful men, a visionary, ambitious, ruthless, obsessive, jealous, cruel. Herod, King of the Jews, wanted to be seen and known by everyone but had no desire to see and know his own people or their suffering. In fact, he caused much of it.

This Herod, King of the Jews, is a lot like the wicked rulers of today, brooding and afraid in his palace, ordering others to do his murderous work. Like most monarchs there was probably no dirt under his fingernails, no dust on his sandals, no literal blood on his hands. We see and know him, don’t we. He’s the King of the Jews who had his family, influential citizens, dissenting students, and children murdered.

But all the while, during Herod’s unstable reign, there was another King of the Jews who would eternally supplant him; a King of peace for the war weary world.

Years before King Herod would walk the earth the prophet Micah promised that out of lowly Bethlehem, a town of no great reputation, would come the greatest King (Mic. 5:2).

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