Herod the Unwise

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern

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Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

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And now, here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg. The Holy Gospel according to St.

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Matthew, chapter 2, verses 1 -12. After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked,

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Where is the one who has been born King of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him.

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When King Herod heard this he was disturbed and all Jerusalem with him. When he had called together all the peoples, chief priests and the teachers of the law, he asked them where the

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Christ was to be born. In Bethlehem in Judea they replied, For this is what the prophet has written,

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But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judea, are by no means least among the rulers of Judea.

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For out of you will come a ruler who will be the shepherd of my people, Israel. Then Herod called the

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Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. He sent them to Bethlehem and said,

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Go and make a careful search for the child and as soon as you find him report to me so that I too may go and worship him.

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After they had heard the king they went on their way and the star they had seen in the east went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was.

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When they saw the star they were overjoyed. On coming to the house they saw the child with his mother

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Mary and they bowed down and worshipped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, of incense, and of myrrh.

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And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.

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In the name of Jesus. Here again the words of the prophet

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Isaiah from our Old Testament reading this morning. Arise, shine, for your light has come and the glory of the

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Lord rises upon you. See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples, but the

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Lord rises upon you and His glory appears over you. Nations will come to your light and kings to the brightness of your dawn.

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What a wonderful prophecy regarding what it is we just read in our Gospel text, that kings will come to the brightness of our

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Lord. Now, this is Epiphany Sunday. Now, technically we're recognizing

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Epiphany today, although it was on the 6th, so we're cheating a little bit liturgically, but I won't tell anybody if you don't, okay?

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The idea behind Epiphany is it's the revealing of Christ. And Epiphany Sunday has that great text of the visit of the

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Magi. And a good way to think about it is that this is Christmas for the Gentiles.

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You see, at Christmastime, we had shepherds come and worship Christ, but they were all

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Jewish shepherds. This, the Gentiles are showing up. And if you remember, in the history of Israel, Israel, when they, well, betrayed

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God and God had to exact the curses portion of the Mosaic Covenant on them, at one point sent them into exile in the east, in Babylon.

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And now we have Magi coming out of the east, following the word of God that they learned through the people of Israel who were exiled in the east, and following a star to come and worship the king of the

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Jews. So we go back to our text. After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea during the time of King Herod.

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Now, if this was being narrated, if this was a television program and there was narration, you know, the narrator would say, and after Jesus was born in Judea during the time of King Herod, you'd hear, dun, dun, dun.

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King Herod, no bueno. This man, well, the way the kids say it now, the phrase goes, this is one sick puppy.

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All right, now let me give you an example of what I mean by this. I did a little bit of research on our antagonist this morning.

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Herod, he was an Edomite. You know, Edom, you know, right? Esau. Remember Jacob and Esau?

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Esau's children, his progeny, they became known as the Edomites. So he was an

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Edomite whose ancestors converted to Judaism, and Herod was actually ashamed of his origins, and he, no joke, attempted to, well, invent a genealogy for himself of Jewish descent.

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He was so embarrassed by this fact. But he's really not blood Jew, okay? So he was born about 74

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BCE in Idumea, and he was made the king of Judah, right?

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Under, of course, Augustus Caesar. So as Herod's reign progressed, he became increasingly paranoid, and how shall we put it, mentally unstable.

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There were indeed plots against him, as they generally are for people in power in those days, and those around him, well, they were guilty of manipulating his fears to their own advantage and leading him to lash out violently, including against members of his own family.

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Herod had a large number of people executed or assassinated, including members of his broader family and even some of his own wives and sons.

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One of Herod's main wives was named Mariamne, and she was of Hasmonean origin.

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Herod married her, at least in part, to cement ties with the nation's former ruling family.

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So there's, is it love or politics? Maybe both, who knows? Even as his own family was displacing it.

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So Herod professed that he loved Mariamne so much that on more than one occasion he gave orders for her to be killed if he himself died so that he might not be separated from her in death.

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Now that seems like an odd thing to do, but Herod was so disliked, it is also said that he ordered that upon his death that certain major popular leaders within Jerusalem would also have to be assassinated as well because he knew that nobody would mourn him.

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So if you have everyone else murdered upon his death, then there would definitely be mourning in Jerusalem.

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Thankfully that order was not followed out. Anyway, Mariamne, she became convinced that he did not really love her, and I'm wondering why, and relations between them, how shall we say it, they turned frosty, right?

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Loveless marriage, it's a difficult thing. Eventually Herod's sister convinced Herod that Mariamne was planning to poison him.

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He had Mariamne executed. Herod's sons, by the way, they didn't do any better. Two of Mariamne's sons,

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Alexander and Aristobulus, had, well, difficult relations with their father, we'll say that, and he suspected them of plotting against him, and eventually he brought them up on charges of treason before Augustus Caesar, who allowed

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Herod to convene a court in order to try them. So, you know, Caesar allowed this.

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So the court found them guilty, and they were put to death, and they were killed by strangulation, which is just an awful way to die.

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You know, you are my son, my own flesh and blood. I think you're trying to kill me, so we're going to have you executed, and you're going to die.

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This is just awful. I mean, this is, like, worse than most soap operas, not all of them, but most, right?

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So they were, these were the last of Herod's sons whom he had killed.

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Herod's firstborn son, Antipater, born of Herod's first wife, Dora, for many years was favored by Herod to be the heir of the throne, but he too was eventually brought up on charges of plotting against his father.

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He was executed 5 days before Herod's own death. Nice guy, yeah.

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In view of all of this, the emperor of Rome, Augustus Caesar, reportedly quipped, this is actually written down in a scroll that we have, it says, it,

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Herod said, not Herod, Augustus said, it is better to be Herod's pig than to be his son.

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Well, for the very reason that Herod's a Jew, and he doesn't eat bacon. So yes, it clearly would be better to be Herod's pig.

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So we kind of pick up this story, and this is the guy that the magi go and see.

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This isn't going to end well. That's who we're dealing with. So, and let me kind of put this here, as we read the rest of the story, keep in mind, kind of keep this dichotomy, with Proverbs 1 -7 in mind.

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The fear of the Lord, the fear of Yahweh is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.

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Fools despise wisdom and instruction. Who's wise and who's, shall we say, unwise in all of this circumstance?

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So the story continues, and the story goes that the magi from the east came to Jerusalem, and they asked, where is the one who has been born king of the

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Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him. When King Herod heard this, he was disturbed in all

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Jerusalem with him. Yeah, disturbed. Truly, he was disturbed.

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Why is he disturbed, king of the Jews? King of the Jews has been born in Jerusalem. Of course, the magi show up thinking, well, king of the

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Jews has been born. Well, Herod's the king. Maybe it's his son. Right? That's a possibility.

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So they basically show up quite innocently looking for the king of the Jews. We've seen his star.

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He's been born. Where is he? He's supposed to be here in Jerusalem. The palace is here. Well, we've noted during Christmas, Jesus wasn't born in a palace.

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He was born in a barn. So disturbed, when he says he's disturbed, he's disturbed because there's a usurper.

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There's a true king. I'm not even truly Jewish. Remember I had to have my genealogy fudged a little bit?

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His birth certificate was saying it was from Kenya. But anyway, did

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I say that out loud? That's kind of the issue here, right?

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So he's disturbed, all right, disturbed to the point where murderous thoughts begin to come up in his mind.

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He wants to murder this king of the Jews. That's what's really going on. Of course, he would murder his own sons.

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So here's what it says. When he had called together all the peoples, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, he asked them where the

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Christ was to be born. In Bethlehem in Judea, they replied, for this is what the prophet has written.

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They knew where the Messiah was going to be born. 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 be the shepherd of my people,

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Israel. Then Herod called the Magi secretly. Come, let's talk.

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Let's have a little chat. So they have a little meeting, maybe serve coffee. So tell me, when did you see the star?

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Tell me a little bit more about all this star stuff. And so he found out from them the exact time the star had appeared.

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He sent them to Bethlehem and said, you go and make a careful search for that child, and as soon as you find him, report it to me so that I too can go and worship him.

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None of it's true. He does not want to know. He wants to know where the child is for sure so they can stick a knife in its neck, right?

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That's what he really wants to do. So after they heard the king, they went on their way, and the star that they had seen in the east went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was.

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So they're following this star, and that's our song, our opening song, you know, star of wonder, star of night, right?

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So they come. When they saw the star, they were overjoyed on coming to the house. Notice the order here.

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They saw the child with his mother Mary. It doesn't say they saw Mary and the child. It says they saw the child and his mother

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Mary. Now, keep in mind, despite the fact that we have no photographs of Jesus from this time, that the medieval depictions of Jesus with a halo are probably not historically accurate.

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So it wasn't like they were wandering through Bethlehem, and there's that kid with the halo. That must be him. So no, that's not what's going on.

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Jesus' divinity is hidden within his humanity, if you would, and so how did they know?

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The star told them, and God's word told them, this is the place they were, and coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother, and they bowed down, and they worshipped him, worshipped as if he's a god, and he is.

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So then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and of incense and myrrh.

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Now, remember from our song, the song that we opened up with actually explained what the gifts were about. Did you catch it?

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The gold is for the king. How about that incense, that frankincense?

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What's that all about? Well, that's regarding his divinity. Myrrh for his suffering and death, burial spices.

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Somewhat prophetic in their gifts. Now, because there are three gifts, this is the reason why people think there are three magi.

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And church tradition has come up. We have names for these guys, and I don't know their names. I don't really buy into the tradition, so I don't particularly care for their names.

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But I'm of the opinion that if there were only three of them, Herod probably would have had them knocked off.

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So there had to be a few more than three. Herod, he's just an unstable guy, you know what

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I'm saying? So it says, They knelt before the lowly Christ, and they worshiped him, even though his glory and his divinity were utterly concealed by his two -year oldness,

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Jesus' two -year oldness. So we bow down, we bow down, and we worship the same Jesus, concealed and revealed for us in the word preached, in the bread and the cup that we have here every month, trusting as the wise men did that God is true to his word.

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So just as Jesus' divinity is not evident just by looking at him, it's hidden in his humanity, so Christ is here, kind of hidden in a way.

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He's hidden in the preached word. He's hidden in the Lord's Supper. He's hidden in the baptismal font.

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He's hidden in the absolution. But we, like them, are wise because we trust that God is true to his word.

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God was true to his word regarding the Christ. God is true to his word regarding the promises that he's given to us.

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And so now we kind of come to this thorny part of my sermon.

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I've got to pause here for a second, and we need to do a little reflection. Because when we talk about Herod, clearly a bad guy, and we look at the magi who are very wise because the fear of the

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Lord is the beginning of wisdom. They're wise. They're worshiping Christ. When you examine your own life as a

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Christian, you're going to find that you are at times similarly behaving like Herod, and there are times when you are similarly behaving like the magi worshiping

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Christ. Now, it gets a little bit thorny when you start getting down to the

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Herod portion of it. Herod has his little kingdom. He's going to protect it with all of his might, murderously so.

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And he, as I'm going to read here in a minute, will even go so far as to concoct a plot to assassinate

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Jesus. Now, I don't think we all go that far, but the reality is that you don't have to go that far in order to do the same thing.

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When God's word calls you to repent of your sins, and you say to yourself, oh, yeah, I can quit any time.

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It's not that big of a deal. Are you not being like Herod?

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When you try to control circumstances, manipulate them sinfully so, are you not being like Herod?

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Don't tell me what to do. Keep your hands off of me, God. Or how about, you know, what's this idea about Jesus kind of impacting all of my life?

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Isn't it enough that Jesus is just around on Sundays? Why do I need him on Monday or Tuesday?

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Just a little bit of Jesus. Who's acting as the

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Lord there? You or Christ? Or when we pick and choose those portions of God's word that we want to believe and not believe?

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I like this part over here, but I don't like that part over there. I like the part that makes me feel good about myself, that's happy and joyous and upbeat, and this other stuff seems so depressing.

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You know, that part that keeps telling me that I'm a sinner. I don't like that part.

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So you know what I'm going to do? I'm just going to X that out. I'm going to do the Thomas Jefferson thing, pull out an exacto knife, and those portions of Scripture that I disagree with, just toss them out.

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And now I've got my own Bible, and I believe all of the Bible that I have except for those parts of it that are omitted.

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Are you not behaving like Herod? Now, the reality is we're all guilty of doing this.

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In some ways, protecting our own little kingdoms, and believe me, they are small. All of our kingdoms are microscopic, whether it's your little family kingdom or your kingdom at work or your kingdom in the community.

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But if you're protecting that, murderously so, you are just like Herod.

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But there's another thing that goes on inside of us as Christians. We truly do worship

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Christ. We truly do bow down and thank

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God for the gift of a Savior. It seems like we're at odds with ourselves, don't we? We have a little bit of Magi in us, and we have a little bit of Herod in us, and they seem to be doing this all the time.

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That's the Christian life. This is what Paul talks about in Romans 7 when he says, The things I want to do

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I don't do, but the things I don't want to do I do, and the things

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I want to do I don't do. Who will save me from this body of death? You see, because each and every one of us is Christians, we still have our sinful nature, and our sinful nature behaves and acts exactly like Herod's sinful nature does.

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Because we all have that in common. But because you're baptized, because Christ has regenerated you, because you've been brought to penitent faith in Jesus, the

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Spirit has also worked in you. And the Holy Spirit is in you as a deposit guaranteeing your inheritance.

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So you see within yourself two conflicting desires. The one desire is wise, and the other desire is utterly foolish, as foolish as King Herod.

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And that's the Christian life. And this is why Luther correctly understood that the entire

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Christian life is one of penitence. And if you keep thinking about this, the

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Lord's Prayer, Give us this day our daily bread, we pray in the Lord's Prayer, right? That's a hint as to how often you should pray it.

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It's a hint. And if you're supposed to be praying the Lord's Prayer on a daily basis, because I'm praying for daily bread, there's also that phrase in there, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.

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Every day, every day, you sin and you trust in Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.

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And there is a day coming, a day coming when we will all rise from the grave if Christ doesn't come first.

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I'm kind of hoping to skip that whole death thing, you know? That's kind of a nice thing. That's a wonderful caveat. If Jesus shows up today, none of us dies.

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Ta -da! You know, wouldn't it be great? But if Jesus continues to tarry in his own wisdom for whatever reasons he's chosen to do so, and we all end up out there rather than in here on a

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Sunday morning, well, there's a day coming when we're going to be called forth from the grave. We will not have sinful nature anymore.

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We will not have that old Adam who behaves like Herod, who does the bidding of the devil.

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Instead, we will all be transformed. New bodies, no sin, no death, no disease, no getting old.

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I'm thinking I'm going to be about 16, pretty spelled. You know, like for eternity. It's going to be cool, really cool, right?

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Yeah? Coming back to our text. It says this about the

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Magi. Having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they return to their country by another route.

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That's where our pericope ends. But I want to read a little bit more. So God is the one who summoned the

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Magi from the east and brought them to worship. They are Gentiles. They're not Jews. They worship Jesus, and they came in not knowing that Jesus wasn't born in Jerusalem, and they actually kind of set

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Herod off, which God knew that was going to happen. God's sending a message to Herod, by the way.

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You're not the true king of the Jews. The real one's here. So God warns these gentlemen in a dream, do not go back to Herod.

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They had no idea Herod had headed out for Jesus. So God warns them, and then they return by their country, taking another route.

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And it says this. When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream.

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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.

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So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night. That's how urgent this was.

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So after the Magi come and they worship, middle of the night, he gets a dream.

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And literally, it's this. Mary, we gotta go, and we gotta go now. We gotta get out of here now.

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Now, we've gotta go. They gather their stuff up. And this is the days before you have flashlights and cars and things like that.

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And they leave Bethlehem in the middle of the night. That's how quickly they got out of town.

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Joseph didn't question this revelation from God, didn't question it one bit. So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night, left for Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Herod.

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And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said to the prophet. Out of Egypt I called my son.

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It's the second time in the history of the Bible that a Joseph has led

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Israel into Egypt. That's because what happened in the

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Old Testament was pointing to this. And remember in the Old Testament, it was Pharaoh who was trying to have all of the young boys of Israel killed, right?

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Remember that? Well, listen to this with that in mind. When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the

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Magi, actually he was outwitted by God, it says this, he was furious, enraged.

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Well, there's a shock. And he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem. I can't imagine this.

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Putting an order out to murder infants two years old and under?

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I cannot imagine this. Definitely, it would be better to be a pig than to even be one of Herod's subjects.

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He was furious. He gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem in its vicinity who were two years old and under in accordance with the time he had learned from the

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Magi. Then what was said to the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled. A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping in great mourning,

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Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted because they are no more. If a king did this today, or a governor or a prince or a president, this would be splashed all over the headlines.

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This guy would be likened to Hitler. Could you imagine?

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But that's how our sinful nature reacts to Christ, the true king.

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So like I said, keeping in mind that Pharaoh tried to have the first, had all the young boys of Egypt murdered, that points us to this, which is the fulfillment.

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This is the reality. The Old Testament was the type in shadow. And Joseph leads, again, Israel, true

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Israel, Israel reduced to one person, a little boy at this point, probably two years old.

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Two years old takes Israel back into Egypt to fulfill the prophecy out of Egypt, I called my son.

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And you ask yourself, what's going on here? I can tell you what's going on here. God has stepped into human history.

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The true king has stepped onto the battlefield. And he's done it for you.

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He's done it for me. Satan, at this point, took the opportunity to knock him off, to kill him.

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And even then, he couldn't do it. But there's a bigger story going on.

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And it's an amazing story. God in human flesh, as a little boy, is whisked away in the middle of the night into Egypt.

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All of this for you. All of this for me. Perfectly living out God's law.

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And even at this age, he's already on his way to the cross to bleed and to die for your sins and mine.

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Let us rejoice with these Gentile magi and do what they've done.

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Worship this king, this true king of the Jews. And let us bring our gifts to him, not because we're justified by our gifts, but because we have been justified.

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Every morning here on Sunday, we pass a small plate. But even when you put a few coins in that plate, you are doing the same thing that the magi have done, giving of what

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God has given you to support the preaching of the gospel. Romans says that in light of God's mercy, because of what

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Christ has done for you, offer yourselves as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable, made holy and acceptable by what

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Christ has done. And the third gift is in all you do, do it unto the

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Lord in everything you do in your work. It doesn't matter if you're selling cars or you're a farmer or a housewife.

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Do everything because you are in Christ as if you are doing it for the king himself.

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You don't have gold or frankincense and myrrh, but you have those gifts, and those gifts are holy because Christ has made you holy.

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In the name of Jesus, amen. And again, that address is...

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