A Thought For The Week Of January 11, 2016

"When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him." (Matthew 2:3) Yesterday in church, I spoke on the subject of epiphany, using Isaiah's prophecy. This, of course, is the traditional epiphany reading - the story of the magi. And as I read it last week I found myself wondering why "all Jerusalem" was disturbed? Herod I could understand. The fact that someone else (even a child) was being called "the King of the Jews" was a threat to him. But why "all Jerusalem"? I would have thought that at least a big part of Jerusalem would have been overjoyed at the thought that someone else might be the "King of the Jews." Herod, after all, was a ruthless, petty tyrant, who had no legitimate claim to the throne. He was a Roman puppet, despised by the people at least in part for that reason. So - shouldn't at least some of Jerusalem be happy at this news? Perhaps even overjoyed? Shouldn't this be an early version of Palm Sunday? Haven't the magi who spoke to Herod essentially brought a message of the liberation of the people from Herod's rule (and, by extension, Rome's rule)? And doesn't that make this even messianic? And yet, "all Jerusalem" was "disturbed." Why? I wonder if the people weren't simply worried that this potential liberator or messiah might just upset the apple cart, so to speak? Living under the rule of Rome and Herod was no picnic - but perhaps there was a bit of "the devil we know" attitude here. Just how much trouble might the appearance of messiah cause? (Plenty, as it would turn out, and pretty quickly!) Perhaps the people would have preferred just to leave everything as it was. And perhaps we learn something about ourselves from this. The reality is that for many people their troubles are rather predictable. We can get into a routine with them, find coping mechanisms, learn to live with them. There's a certain comfort to a routine - even if it's not a happy one. But Jesus promises change - and change can be a frightening thing, even if the status quo isn't all that pleasant. Maybe it's not that hard to understand why "all Jerusalem" was "disturbed" by messiah's appearance; maybe it's not that hard to understand why so many today prefer to ignore or dismiss Jesus. In some ways that makes everything so much easier, because change is frightening. Jesus might very well turn the world upside down if we let him. In a way that might seem scary - but take a good, long look at the world and ask yourself: Would that really be a bad thing?