The Horrid House of Herod

Midweek Vespers 

The Third Week after Epiphany 

A Reading from Mark’s Gospel:

They cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them. King Herod heard of it, for Jesus’ name had become known. Some were saying, “John the baptizer has been raised from the dead; and for this reason these powers are at work in him.” But others said, “It is Elijah.” And others said, “It is a prophet, like one of the prophets of old.” But when Herod heard of it, he said, “John, whom I beheaded, has been raised.”

For Herod himself had sent men who arrested John, bound him, and put him in prison on account of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife, because Herod had married her. For John had been telling Herod, “It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.” And Herodias had a grudge against him, and wanted to kill him. But she could not, for Herod feared John, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man, and he protected him. When he heard him, he was greatly perplexed; and yet he liked to listen to him.

But an opportunity came when Herod on his birthday gave a banquet for his courtiers and officers and for the leaders of Galilee. When his daughter Herodias came in and danced, she pleased Herod and his guests; and the king said to the girl, “Ask me for whatever you wish, and I will give it.” And he solemnly swore to her, “Whatever you ask me, I will give you, even half of my kingdom.” She went out and said to her mother, “What should I ask for?” She replied, “The head of John the baptizer.”

Immediately she rushed back to the king and requested, “I want you to give me at once the head of John the Baptist on a platter.” The king was deeply grieved; yet out of regard for his oaths and for the guests, he did not want to refuse her. Immediately the king sent a soldier of the guard with orders to bring John’s head. He went and beheaded him in the prison, brought his head on a platter, and gave it to the girl. Then the girl gave it to her mother. When his disciples heard about it, they came and took his body, and laid it in a tomb.

The Word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.

Homily:

Lord, we pray for the preacher, for You know his sins are great.

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

The House of Herod collectively consists of the greatest villains in the New Testament. Granted, they aren’t Judas or Satan himself, but from the very beginning of Jesus’ story, from birth through death to resurrection, the Herodians are there, persecuting, killing, and generally making the word a more terrible place.

A bit of backstory can help us here. It all begins with Herod the Great, whose father was Idumean, and mother Nabatean. The Idumeans—Edomites—were ancient antagonistic cousins of Israel, descended from Jacob’s Bigfoot brother Esau. You know how nasty family feuds can get. Imagine having a love/hate relationship with your neighbors that lasts for centuries, well over a thousand years.

In the generations just preceding Herod and Jesus, a family of priestly warriors, called the Maccabees or Hasmoneans, had thrown off the yoke of Alexander’s Grecian empire, winning Israel’s independence for the first time since the Exile. And one of the first things this newly freed nation did was to finally conquer the Idumeans to their south, forcibly converting their wayward cousins to Judaism.

The Hasmoneans made one great mistake, however, and that was making an alliance with Rome in order to kick out the Greeks—which, it turns out, is a bit like releasing rabid wolves into your home in order to combat a rat infestation. Once the Romans show up, they don’t leave. They aren’t your partners; they aren’t your friends. They’re now your godfathers, in the Don Corleone sense of the word.

Now, you may or may not know that the Romans, even as their empire expanded, fought a series of civil wars lasting some hundred years and more, the last of which involved Caesar’s general Marc Antony; Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt; and the man who would one day become the Emperor Augustus. In the course of this war, Herod managed to get himself set up as Rome’s puppet-king over Israel. This though was a bit of a sticky wicket, as the titular King of the Jews was now barely a Jew at all—at least not in the eyes of his subjects.

His father, as I said, was Idumean, converted to Judaism by the sword; and his mother was Nabatean, a powerful tribe of Arab traders further south. You may recall the canyon city of Petra from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. That was the Nabatean capital at the time. Even his bodyguards, believe it or not, were Celtic. He was in every way a foreign ruler.

Clearly Herod had to cement his shaky claim to the throne, so he married the last princess of the Hasmonean line—then promptly murdered her mother, her brother, eventually the princess herself, and several of his own children; all while scrupulously keeping kosher, of course. One must keep up appearances. This led Augustus to quip that it was safer to be one of Herod’s pigs than one of his sons.

Herod also embarked on massive building projects, constructing unassailable fortresses such as Masada, and expanding the Temple at Jerusalem into a wonder of the world. It was for these edifices that he earned the sobriquet “Herod the Great.”

This then was the same Herod who attempted to murder the infant Christchild along with all the babies born in Bethlehem, according to Matthew’s Christmas narrative. Finally, Herod died—horribly, we are told, and to the delight of his subjects, who pronounced him cursed by God. But by then, alas, there were plenty of little Herods to divvy up his lands and take his place as obsequious lapdogs of Rome.

All told, four generations of Herods will pop up throughout the New Testament: an incestuous dynasty of traitors, backstabbers, liars, and hypocrites. We met some of them in our Gospel reading this evening: the brothers Philip and Antipas, who swap their niece-turned-wife Herodias between them, while casually murdering John the Baptist for telling them how messed up that was.

But here’s the thing.

For all the long litany of the sins of the House of Herod, these were not moustache-twirling villains setting out to conquer the world. They were rather a dysfunctional, narcissistic, parasitic, aristocratic family, interested mostly in their own entertainments and in the indulgences of the flesh whatever the cost. Theirs is the story of the banality of evil, of casual cruelty destroying countless lives. These people weren’t evil geniuses. They were entitled, stupid, and inheritors of wealth and power which they had neither right nor ability to use.

It’s been 2000 years, yet the song is still the same. Those, like John and Jesus, who dare to speak for God—speaking up for the poor, the alien, the conquered, the oppressed—are opposed and ultimately crushed beneath the weight of unworthy men and women who accumulate money and power without any sort of thought or purpose beyond, “Me want more.”

Indeed, our opponents are not flesh and blood but powers of ignorance and darkness, of selfish overindulgence and mindless consumption, ever greedy, ever lazy, ever seeking stimulation and mistaking the public face of fame for having an actual soul. If that doesn’t all sound familiar, then just turn on the evening news.

And yet, the prophecy of John prevails. The Resurrection of Christ ignites! And so we wage a war not of fire and steel and blood but of goodness, truth, and beauty; a clarion call to take up arms of meaning and virtue and value in a society which understands only power and price.

There will always be Herods in our world, and sadly in our souls. But we are to pity them, not hate them; to pray for their salvation, not for their destruction. For the truth is that death is the trump card this fallen world can play—it has nothing beyond that, no weapon against truth. And Christ has already conquered death.

No wonder the Herods are afraid that John might have risen from his grave. If they had only known who Jesus truly is, they already would have lost, and thus been saved.

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.