You are not the hero of the story

Matthew 2:13–18, Luke 2:39

We are going through all four Gospels in chronological order, we finally come to one of the first discrepancies in the Gospels themselves. More importantly, we will look at how each of us are more like the murderer King Herod than the faithful Joseph.

13 After they were gone, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, “Get up! Take the child and His mother, flee to Egypt, and stay there until I tell you. For Herod is about to search for the child to destroy Him.” 

14 So he got up, took the child and His mother during the night, and escaped to Egypt. 15 He stayed there until Herod’s death, so that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet might be fulfilled: Out of Egypt I called My Son. (Hosea 11:1)

16 Then Herod, when he saw that he had been outwitted by the wise men, flew into a rage. He gave orders to massacre all the male children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old and under, in keeping with the time he had learned from the wise men. 17 Then what was spoken through Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled:

18 A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children; and she refused to be consoled, because they were no more. (Jer 31:15)

19 After Herod died, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, 20 saying, “Get up! Take the child and His mother and go to the land of Israel, because those who sought the child’s life are dead.” 

21 So he got up, took the child and His mother, and entered the land of Israel. 22 But when he heard that Archelaus was ruling over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. And being warned in a dream, he withdrew to the region of Galilee. 

23 Then he went and settled in a town called Nazareth to fulfill what was spoken through the prophets, that He will be called a Nazarene. (Is 11:1)

Mt 2:19–23

And here we see how Luke “leaps” over all of the history surrounding the nativity, the Magi, and the flight to Egypt and simply tells us that at some later time,

39 When they had completed everything according to the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth. 40 The boy grew up and became strong, filled with wisdom, and God’s grace was on Him.

Luke 2:39

In order to learn from this story, you have to see yourself in the story. Who do you identify with? Is it toddler Jesus, being carried away to be protected in a foreign land? Is it Joseph struggling and sacrificing to help his family? Or is it King Herod who has determined to lie and even murder to protect the things he values?

Spoiler, you are not the hero, you are the villain.

1. Fear drives me to hopelessness

In King Herod we have a powerful example of fear driving someone to hopelessness and, when hopelessness begins to determine how you see the world, you begin to live day to day because fear keeps you in the here and now. When you are afraid you can’t think about the future because you can’t be afraid and have hope at the same time. 

“For God has not given us a spirit of fearfulness, but one of power, love, and sound judgment.”

2 Timothy 1:7

Fear pushes you away from helping others because, when you are fearful, self-preservation sets in and everything becomes about you: what you want and what you think should happen. 

“when he was outwitted, he flew into a rage…” and this was natural for him.

Herod didn’t just kill his rivals, he even burned one man alive just for touching his stuff. Fear makes you anxious, suspicious, selfish, and it drives us to attack those we love. In contrast, consider Moses’ mom, she was concerned about her son more than herself. 

We see this same love in Joseph. We see no fear for himself but only concern for the safety of his boy. While Herod lived in fear and attacked his family, God’s people live in hope and suffer for the sake of their families. To love is to sacrifice.

And this is important, the purpose of even mentioning Herod here is to provide a contrast between right and wrong, evil and good. Each of us should see ourselves in Herod because, given enough money, influence, and power. Any one of us could easily become Herods. 

Of course, you may not murder your sons but, if you were afraid enough, you would at least lie, manipulate, and cheat to get your way. Like Herod, many of us rule our kingdoms through fear but we should be like Jesus who rules his kingdom through love and self-sacrifice. 

2. Hopelessness drives me to selfishness

When selfish terrible people want something from you, but they can’t make you do it, what do they do? You manipulate. A CEO caught stealing will donate to charity. A politician caught in adultery will attend church. A king who lives off the backs of his subjects will lighten taxes.

This is literally what Herod did. When things were tough, he cancelled taxes to ease the burden. During the famine of 25 BC he melted down his own gold plate to buy corn for the starving people but all of this was manipulation. It was all for show. When you are hopeless you begin to protect even what people think about you at all costs and that is selfish.

The problem is that selfish people don’t even know they are selfish. They occasionally do nice things and expect everyone to applaud their tiny bit of effort and forget all of their past sins. It is just manipulation. This is because they are not focused on their future hope, they are purely focused on keeping what they have here and now. 

Again, try to identify with Herod. Herod was self-serving and that is also our default. When he was faced with his own faults, he denied it, manipulated them, and had them killed. He was so selfish that despite declaring himself to be the “king of the Jews,” when a better king was on the rise, rather than want what was best for his people, he tried to have him killed.

It was for this reason that the murder of the 20 or 30 babies in the tiny village of Bethlehem didn’t even make a blip in the history books. In fact, as Herod grew weaker, he gave orders to arrest and execute some of the most distinguished citizens of Jerusalem because he was well aware that no one would mourn his death, so he planned to ensure that at least some tears would be shed when he died.

You and I are prone to this same level of selfishness. Out of fear, we will take advantage of those who can’t protect themselves, especially our families. For Herod, when he couldn’t control his children, he manipulated them. When that didn’t stop his fear, he imprisoned them. When prison wasn’t enough, he had them murdered.

 In the end, his legacy was a divided kingdom left to three of his remaining sons and they were all evil as well. One of his sons, Archelaus, began his reign slaughtering 3,000 of the most influential people in the country which is no doubt why Joseph changed course.

3. My calling must define me

“Anyone who wants to follow after Me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life because of Me will find it.”

Matthew 16:24–25

Herod tried to save his kingdom at all costs, while Godly people tried to grow God’s kingdom at all costs, even if it meant losing their lives. This is because, for us, our calling is our purpose. It gives our lives meaning and our deaths value and this faith cannot be taken from us. 

The Herods of the world confuse money, power, and success with meaning but that is not how you should view success. A great example are Paul’s words to his church before his death.

“...I am on my way to Jerusalem, bound in my spirit, not knowing what I will encounter there, except that in town after town the Holy Spirit testifies to me that chains and afflictions are waiting for me. But I count my life of no value to myself, so that I may finish my course and the ministry I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of God’s grace.”

Acts 20:22-24

King Herod was rich, feared, and could have people killed on a whim and yet, despite all of his power, he was miserable, filled with fear, and utterly alone. Paul was persecuted and suffered but he was content, filled with joy, and loved. The fact is that when you accept God’s purpose for your life, health and wealth and stuff do not define you anymore: God’s love defines you and God’s love is eternal and it is living in that love that guides our lives. 

4. God guides me when I obey

To obey is to follow Jesus so, by definition, God will not guide you if you are not following him. How could he? We live in a dark world and he is the only one with a lantern so, if you don’t follow him, you will get lost in the darkness. If you want him to guide you, you must obey.

Joseph was obedient even though he didn’t know how his story would end. His path was revealed one obedient step at a time. All Paul knew about his path was that it would bring suffering and yet, both of these men, walked the path with courage. Your path will be different.

We all have different backgrounds, different cultures, different abilities, different skills, and we all provide different examples but all of us are valuable.

I can relate to people who have struggled with drugs. David to veterans. College students can relate to HS students. You all can do things I can’t do and I can do things you can’t do and that is by design. Everyone one of us is an important part of God’s kingdom but you will never know what it feels like to be a part of something bigger than yourself until you obey which simply means you practice by following.

And this is why the stories in the gospels are so different. Most of what we read was Matthew’s gospel because Luke mentions none of these events and this is as it should be. Matthew was a wealthy Jewish tax collector who focused on Jesus as the king of Israel, Luke focused on marginalized people like women and the poor. 

Matthew tells us about the wealthy Magi and Herod. Luke tells us about the lowly shepherds and Mary’s poverty sacrifice. Matthew tells us about the news of the slaughtered children and flight to Egypt while Luke tells us about two elderly people meeting Jesus in the temple courtyard.

Both are true and both have a purpose ordained by God and you have a purpose as well. 

“By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed and set out for a place that he was going to receive as an inheritance. He went out, even though he did not know where he was going.”

Hebrews 11:8

It is this type of obedience, the practice of our faith, that truly changes your life. As you deny more and more of yourself, God blesses that sacrifice and the more you deny and the more he reveals. This is why scripture says he is a light to our paths and as your faith strengthens you will be able to face anything, even death, with courage because you have practiced your faith.

Consider Herod: fearful, paranoid, and he thinks everyone is against him. Compare him to Joseph. Joseph had practiced faithfulness so much that he knew the difference between a normal dream and a God-ordained dream. He was so confident that, in the middle of the night, he sacrificed everything he had, including his carpentry business for his son. 

I want the kind of courage and confidence that is willing to sacrifice everything if God asks and this begins with wanting to become the person God created you to be.  

And He personally gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, for the training of the saints in the work of ministry, to build up the body of Christ, until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of God’s Son, growing into a mature man with a stature measured by Christ’s fullness.

Ephesians 4:11–12

Why must we find our place in God’s kingdom?

You took off your former way of life, the old self that is corrupted by deceitful desires; you are being renewed in the spirit of your minds; you put on the new self, the one created according to God’s likeness in righteousness and purity of the truth. 

Ephesians 4:22-24

Every time you humble yourself and give another portion of your life to Jesus, you are taking off the old clothes and, when you really give them up, Jesus gives you a new garment to put on in its place. When you give it to Jesus, you no longer fear the loss of that thing because it’s not yours anymore, it is God’s and as you shed that fear, you open yourself up to contentment and joy.