“How Herod the Grinch Tried to Steal Christmas”

Sermon. “How Herod the Grinch Tried to Steal Christmas” or “God has a better plan” by Thomas E. Williams

Matthew 2:13-23

Now after they (the wise men) had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.”

Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, and remained there until the death of Herod.

This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, “Out of Egypt I have called my son.”

When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the wise men.

Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah: “A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.”

When Herod died, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who were seeking the child’s life are dead.” Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus was ruling over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. And after being warned in a dream, he went away to the district of Galilee. There he made his home in a town called Nazareth, so that what had been spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, “He will be called a Nazorean.”

Let us pray

Lord, touch my tongue that I may speak your message truly. Open our ears that we may hear clearly. Open our minds that we may understand. And open our hearts that we may accept your guidance. Amen.

How Herod the Grinch Tried to Steal Christmas Our liturgy is chronologically out of order. Next week, January 6th, is Epiphany, the visit of the wise men. However, this week’s reading takes place after the visit. As a matter of fact, it is because of the wise men’s visit that this week’s message is even necessary.

When the wisemen came seeking the child born to be king of the Jews, they naturally stopped at the palace to ask for directions.

You know they’re wise men because they stopped to ask directions.

You see they were confused. I mean, where else would a future king be born, but a palace? But the wise men saw that the guiding star that they were following didn’t stop at Herod’s palace.

Up until then no one was particularly looking for the Messiah. And they certainly weren’t seeking him as a baby. However, the wisemen’s visit started a whole chain of events.

When Herod heard this he was disturbed. He had one of those, wait-what? moments. A future king has been born? But I’m the king. I’d have to be dead for someone else to become king!

So, he gathering together the priests, and the scribes.

He said to them, “How come these foreigners know about some threat to MY throne, and you don’t? I want to know where and I want to know NOW!”

And they said to him: “In Bethlehem of Judea. For so it has been written by the prophet.

Herod called the wise men and told them,”Oh, sure, we knew all about this. He’s in Bethlehem. When you’ve found him, come back and tell me, so that I can go and adore him.”

He thought that was a great Grinchy trick, to use the wise men to target this threat for him.

But of course the wise men weren’t fooled because … well because … they were WISE men.

When Herod the Grinch thought that there was a chance of a child being born who threatened his throne, and the wise men didn’t come back, he started looking also.

We need a little background at this point to understand just how paranoid Herod the Great was, about keeping his throne.

• At one point he murdered his wife, who he claimed to love dearly, because felt she was plotting against him.

• two sons who he didn’t trust,

• his brother-in-law who he was afraid would seek revenge for his sister’s death,

• his mother-in-law,

• and his wife’s grandfather. At this point did he even need a reason?

• Oh yeah, he also murdered his oldest son, whom he feared coveted his throne.

So you now get an idea of what kind of man he was. Commanding the murder of all the male children who lived in and around Bethlehem was not something out of charecter for this Grinch.

So after the wise man had moved on, Herod sent his soldiers to Bethlehem with orders to seek out and destroy all boys aged 2 and under.

If you remember your Old Testament where the Pharaoh of Egypt sought to destroy a whole generation of Jews by having all the male children killed, because he saw them as a threat to his rule?

Yep. That’s the one where the baby Moses was placed in a waterproof basket and set in the crocodile infested waters of the Nile, in hopes that he would escape the certain murder to come. Yes his mother made a choice between possible death and certain death. Talk about a rock and a hard place.

Powerful and cruel rulers will always fear the innocent.

But let’s get back to today’s reading.

Joseph had a visitation from the Lord warning him that Herod was seeking to find and kill Jesus. He was told to take his family and flee to Egypt.

Now it had been a long, long time since the Hebrew people escaped slavery in Egypt, but they have a long, long memory.

As a matter of fact, every year, they have a celebration of Passover for the sole purpose of making sure that each new generation is told the story of their enslavement and the miraculous salvation given to the People by God.

So when Joseph was told to flee to Egypt, he must have been thinking, “You want me to go where? Hey I’ve got a better idea. Mary has a family, Elizabeth and Zak-a RI-us, in the hill country of Judea. We could go and stay with them. Jesus could grow up with his cousin John. That would work right?”

But God said, “Think about it, Joe, Herod would never think to look in Egypt. And even if he did, he would never send troops there.

He is on good terms with the ruler of Egypt, Cleopatra, who is in turn intimate Cesar. Herod would in no way risk jeopardizing his own Roman support by sending troops into Egypt.

God always has a better plan.

So often I’ve taken my perfect plan to God and ask him to bless it. Invariably, he looked past my plan at the goal and said, “I can do better than that!”

How about an “Amen” if God has ever changed your plans.

As a matter of fact, I’ve come to recognize God’s answered prayers because they came so unexpectedly and in the strangest ways! You know what I mean. Amen?

I’ll give you an example from Ella and my first year staying full-time in an RV.

Here was the question we were asked repeatedly, “Won’t you be cold this winter?”

This was in Iowa after all, and they really know how to have a winter: snow, freezing rain, more snow, more rain, ice storms, weeks on end when it never gets any warmer than zero degrees.

As a matter of fact, during one winter storm we had snow drifted up to the window in the door. Now understand that the bottom of the door was approximately 3′ above the ground.

That first year our answer was always, “We don’t know. Ask again in the spring.”

I had talked with other people who stayed through the winter in the campground, so I had some ideas of what I needed. I would need to completely enclose the area under the trailer with foam insulatetion board. and add an auxiliary heat source under the trailer to keep the water lines from freezing.

But the number one thing I knew I would need was plenty of liquid propane and extra LP tanks.

We had two 30 pound tanks that came with the RV. I planed to purchase two more 30 pounders, so that as they ran out, I could quickly replace them.

One Fall day I was out walking in the campground and a golf cart was coming down the road, I stopped to let them pass. However, they stopped and we began a conversation. It came up that Ella and I were spending the winter here. The man on the cart asked if I had plenty of propane.

I said, “not yet.”

He said, “Would you like a couple of 100 lb tanks?”

Not knowing what he was going to want for them. I hesitantly replied, “W..e..ll..”

He said you can have both of them for $50 and I’ve got the hoses and the regulator to hook them up to your system!

“Sold! Now all I need is a place to store them next summer.” Because I me that the campground rules forbade using the larger tanks during the summer.

“I’m glad you said that” he said, “I’ve got a small trailer in storage, that I only use like a storage shed and you can have it, if you take over the monthly storage fee.”

“Done and done!”

That had to be a God thing, ‘cuz I could never, ever have come up with a plan like that. There were too mangy twists and turns and ” coincidences.” I don’t believe in luck or coincidences. Those are words the devil invented to take the glory from God.

I’m sure that most, if not all, of you could tell a similar story of the mysterious, unexpected, and outright bizarre ways God has answered prayers in your life. Right?

Well Joseph followed God’s plan. He packed up his wife and baby son along with as many of their worldly possessions, that they could reasonably carry. Then they began the long journey back to the land this ancestors fled from.

And they they stayed until Herod the great was dead. Now, without the 24 news updates and the internet, God had to send an angel to give the holy family the good news. They could go back home.

However, even with Herod gone things weren’t all peachy keen, back in Israel.

On herod’s death, his kingdom was split between his three surviving sons.

Philip and Antipas (Thing One & Thing Two?) were sharing the smaller parts of the kingdom, while Archelaus (Ark eh lay us) was ruling over Judea and Samaria.

Joseph was afraid to go back to Judea because he feared that Archelaus would carry on the same type of Grinchy rule as Harod the Great.

Again Joseph was warned in a dream, so he took his family to the district of Galilee.

Now Galileans had the reputation of being … well … redneck hillbillies. If Jeff Foxworthy had been9 alive back then he might have made jokes that started off with, “You might be a Galilean if …You don’t need a clean shirt to go to work.” Or,

“You might be a Galilean if, every job you work, you would get paid at the end of the day.”

Yes Jesus life was totally different from what everyone expected for the Messiah, the forever King.

• Born in a stable

• Went into exile before he was old enough to walk.

• Raised in a small rural town

• Became a carpenter under the training of his earthly father.

• Was the servant to all

• Allowed himself to be beaten, humiliated, and crucified.

• Started a spiritual revolution that continues even to this day.

There it’s an old Yiddish proverb, Der mentsh trakht un got lakht.

The man plans and God laughs. It rings true to Proverbs 19:21

“There are many intentions in the heart of a man. But the will of the Lord shall stand firm.” Catholic public bible

God repeatedly is doing the unexpected.

He made a promise to Abraham, that his descendants would own all the land he walked on and that one of them would be a blessing to all the world.

Sounds good, right?

The problem was that he and his wife were old … like really old. So he had a son with Sarah’s handmaiden. It was their way of “helping” God to fufil his promise.

But God had a better plan. Sarah would have her own son to inherit the promise.

God used Gideon, who was hiding in a wine press, and was self-described as the least important person in the whole nation. God gave him an army, but then God had a better plan, he whittled that Army down to only 300 untrained soldiers, with only torches and bugles, to defeat the Midianites, the scourge of the Middle East.

God use Jonah, the worst prophet in the world, to deliver a message of warning to his enemies in Nineveh. Jonah hoped to witness their destruction. But God had a better plan. The Ninevites repented and we’re saved.

King Saul brought out an army to defeat the Philistines. But God had a better plan,

He used a teenager named David to defeat the Giant Goliath and deliver the Philistines into the hands of the Israelites.

Saul of Tarsus was hunting down the early Christians to destroy them. But God had a better plan. He used him to spread the gosple to the non Jewish nations and peoples.

God’s chosen people hoped for a mighty king born in the palace. But God had a better plan, He used a virgin to birth his son in a stable.

The Israelites assumed that the Messiah would be trained in all of the Arts of War. But God had a better plan, He entrusted the messiah’s earthly training to a blue collar worker named Joseph.

So remember, though this world is filled with Grinches that try to mislead us, tear us down, and yes kill our souls, trust that God has a better plan.

You can put your faith in God to direct your steps. You might never be visited by a

Messenger of God….. But then again you may, without recognize them as angels.

God will guide the feet of the righteous. So do all that you can to live a life of righteousness in tune with the will of God. He has sent His Spirit to dwell in his children who are called by his name.

Though the Grinch has a plan, God has a better plan for your life.

Amen.