“Stink, Stank, Stunk”
The Appomattox Court House Presbyterian Church Pulpit
Rev. Cameron S. Smith
The Lord's Day, December 24, 2006
Psalm 2:1-4
Matthew 2:1-8
"Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, saying, 'Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.' When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him...."
THE GLORY OF MATTHEW 2
The focus of this chapter in Matthew has traditionally been on the wise men from the east. Following the eastern star to the doorsteps of Mary and Joseph, they bear gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh to the newborn Savior.
For the last two years, I have offered meditations on the meaning of the magi. It's a good Christmas story: In the visit, salvation has been revealed to the ends of the earth. The nations of the earth are coming to the Savior's light.
THE VILLIAN
But, this morning, we come to Matthew 2 from a different perspective. From the title of this sermon, you see that the subject matter is quite different. "Stink, Stank, Stunk."
These words come from Dr. Seuss' Christmas classic, "How the Grinch Stole Christmas." Thurl Ravenscroft's booming bass voice is immortal in the song, You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch:
You're a mean one, Mr. Grinch, You really are a heel,
You're as cuddly as a cactus, You're as charming as an eel, Mr. Grinch.
You're a bad banana with a greasy black peel!....
You're a foul one, Mr. Grinch, You're a nasty wasty skunk,
Your heart is full of unwashed socks, Your soul is full of gunk, Mr. Grinch.
The three words that best describe you are as follows, and I quote, "Stink, stank, stunk!"
In those three words, I think, the villain in the Matthew 2 is best described. King Herod. This Herod, not to be confused with his son, Herod Antipas, who was the one Jesus, years later, called "that fox" (Luke 13:32). Antipas was the vile one who presented the head of John the Baptist to his wife on a platter; and it was Antipas who persecuted the Church in the early part of the Book of Acts.
HIS GREATNESS?
With such an inglorious résumé of the son, you can well imagine that the block from which this chip fell wouldn't be much better. However, Herod the Great, as he was known, was undeniably talented and able as a ruler. He single-handedly saved his entire region from a severe famine by orchestrating mass shipments in relief supplies and food. He gave generously and sacrificially out of his own personal treasury to avert widespread disease and death.
Herod undertook impressive building projects, rebuilt cities, imported the finest of Roman culture in his territory and began a lifelong venture to restore the Jerusalem Temple to even greater proportions and grandeur than Solomon's original Temple. Quite an accomplishment! In hindsight, if Herod's greatness is to be measured solely by his political and architectural prowess, he is aptly named, "The Great."
NOT SO FAST, MY FRIEND....
But Scripture has a far different verdict on the man. If I may borrow the Seuss line again, and I quote "Stink, Stank, Stunk!" Herod was perpetually paranoid that someone might try to take his throne. He was power hungry and suspicious of anybody who might gain the least bit of favor in the eyes of the people.
For instance, at the insistence of his wife, he made his brother-in-law, Aristobulus, high priest. But, Aristobulus turned out to be a very gifted priest. He was handsome and eloquent, and his stature increased. Herod noticed, and became jealous. So, he invited his brother-in-law to a swimming party on the banks of the Jordan. As Aristobulus went down into the water, some men hired by the King, held him under the water until he drowned, making it look like they were just rough-housing and having fun. To curry favor, Herod wept loudly and mourned for his brother-in-law at the funeral.
Herod had a quick trigger finger when it came to signing death warrants for little or no provocation. With his own immediate family, he was just as ruthless. He murdered his wife's infirm grandfather; he murdered many of his ten wives; he even ordered the death of many of his own children.
The Roman politician and writer, Macrobius wrote that "when [Caesar] Augustus heard that among the children whom Herod ordered to be killed, Herod's own son (Antipater) was slain, he remarked, It would be better to be one of Herod's swine than Herod's sons." (Herod being a professed Jew, his swine as unclean were safe from death, his sons were not.) [from Fausset's Bible Dictionary].
Days before his own death, Herod ordered the execution of many well loved nobles to ensure that there would be heart-felt mourning during the time of his own funeral. Is it then really any wonder that when the wise men inquired of Herod, "Where is he who has been born king of the Jews….[that we may] worship him," that not only was Herod the king troubled, but "all Jerusalem with him" as well? They knew of his cruelty, firsthand. Heads would literally roll. This dark foreboding indeed came to pass in the form of all male children under the age of two being slaughtered in the region of Bethlehem. "Stink, stank, stunk!"
THE POINT OF THE STORY
But now, I want to tell you what I think Matthew wants you to understand and cherish from this story. If you are a student of the Bible, when you read this story about the madness of King Herod, you must recall similar circumstances in the Book of Exodus when Pharaoh, King of Egypt, grows nervous and uncomfortable with the growing numbers and strength of Hebrew people in his land. He orders the death of every newborn male child, later commanding that these newborns be thrown into the river Nile.
The one who would eventually deliver his people from this slavery, Moses, would be miraculously delivered from this holocaust, taking shelter -- ironically and providentially in Pharaoh's very own household!
The evil designs of the most powerful human ruler on the face of the earth could not prevent or defeat the purposes of God. I believe that here in our story this morning, Matthew has intentionally chosen to highlight this foretaste and foreshadow of the greater deliverance to come in the time surrounding the birth of Christ. King Herod, for all of his human power and greatness, cannot stop the plans of God to bring salvation to the world.
Moses was delivered from the hand of Pharaoh that he might lead his people out of the bondage of slavery to become a peculiar people, loved and cherished as "the apple of [God's] eye." (cf. Ps. 17:8; Zec. 2:8).
In the same way, Jesus was delivered from the hand of Herod that He might free us from our own bondage to sin and shame so that we might become, in the words of the apostle Peter,"a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession….Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people…" (1 Peter 2:9-10).
Evil people and purposes, no matter how strong and pervasive, are no match for the designs of the Almighty. Psalm 2 puts it quite bluntly,
"Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD and against his anointed, saying, 'Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.' [But] He who sits in the heavens laughs…[!]" (Ps. 2:1-4).
APPLYING
How does this speak to us on this Christmas Eve? I think it speaks to our fears and anxieties as we observe what seems to me to be the increasing instability of the world in which we live. Daily, we hear of the horrors of sectarian violence, murder and mayhem coming out of Iraq. The re-emergence of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. The seemingly endless flow of murderous threats from Al-Qaeda. Constantly wondering if the next jet flight you take is going to be terror-free. Worrying about the nuclear ambitions of Iran's Ahmadinejad. Wondering about what might happen in North Korea. The list could go on and on.
This sort of reminds me of a Youth Sunday that I participated in when I was a senior in high school. Three of us delivered the sermon on the Sunday before Christmas. We all pontificated on our wisdom and insight into the world that was the early eighties - cold war tensions, the evil empire, etc. My classmate, Tom, got up and made this startling statement in his "sermon": "Sometimes, I wonder why I'm planning to go to college when some political leader might throw a switch and blow up the world." This was Christmas Sunday! The birth of the Savior of the world; and we're talking about the world blowing up?
The point is that it is a scary world in which we live. Every day, when I start my morning at Presbyweb, I always, without fail, encounter a story of religious persecution somewhere in the world. I confess, it's become so common to me now that it doesn't shock me any more.
But over against all of that, and then some, there is Matthew's story of an evil, power hungry ruler who tried to snuff out the light that was lit in a Bethlehem manger. Didn't happen; no chance, no way, no how! No power on earth, either now or in the future, will ever defeat the saving purposes of our God. As Matthew gives us Jesus' words to Peter later in his Gospel, "the gates of hell shall not prevail against" God's plans. (cf. Matt. 16:18). This is the message of hope in the midst of world instability that I bring to you on this Christmas Eve. Amen.
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