How Jesus’ Birth Foretells His Death: Herod
The end of Jesus’ story is found in the beginning. Every detail of God-made-flesh in the manger points to the crucified Savior on the cross.
Today, we consider Herod and Pontius Pilate, two heads whose rule was threatened by the coming King: Jesus. Their political savvy could neither outmatch nor outmaneuver the true King of the Jews.
Herod the Great was raised as a Jew with ties to the Roman government. Herod’s father, Antipater, was entrusted by Julius Cesar to care for the public affairs of Judea. Familial relationships with Rome already established, Herod rose to power by cozying up to Sextus Caesar, the acting Roman governor of Syria.
The Rise of Herod
In his twenties, Herod established himself as a darling of Rome by turning Galilee into a cash cow for Rome with his successful procurement of taxes. That led to Herod’s promotion to tetrarch by Mark Antony. But all was not well. A challenger Antigonus took the throne by force and Herod was forced to flee to Rome to plea for intervention. Herod utilized every ounce of his political skill to garner the Senate’s support.
With the backing of the Roman Senate and the muscle of her army, Herod returned to Judea and took the throne back from Antigonus. In 37 BC, with the power of Mark Antony’s troops, Herod captured Jerusalem and executed Antigonus. Trying to consolidate power, Herod banished his first wife and child in order to marry a relative of Antigonus’s: Mariamne.
Herod was a political animal by nature, adept at grabbing hold of power, and fighting off attempts to have that power taken. He spent a lifetime accumulating the power to bear the title, King of the Jews.
Herod loved the opulence of his life. He spent lavishly, constructing ambitious building projects around the empire, many of which can still be seen today, such as the construction of the Temple Mount and the harbor at Caesarea and several fortresses.
Herod didn’t bat an eyelash when he had the opportunity to obliterate any threat to his clutch on that power. A tyrannical despot by nature, he executed several members of his own family, including his wife Mariamne.
An Infant Threat to Herod
When Herod is introduced in Matthew’s gospel, we see Herod in slimy fashion attempting to get the Magi to do his bidding. He wants to evaluate the threat of this child who the signs foretold. “Go and search diligently for the child, and when you have found him, bring me word, that I too may come and worship him,”[i] Herod instructs.
The Magi never return to Herod, but the fear of a threat to his claim on the title, “The King of the Jews” remains. Herod is furious and his forces descend on Bethlehem to kill every male child under two years of age in Bethlehem. Just as the Pharaoh had once attempted to secure his power over the Israelites through infanticide, so does Herod. Before his orders can be carried out, an angel tells Mary and Joseph to flee to Egypt so that Jesus might escape death.
Herod the Great is outmaneuvered.
Herod and Pilate
Fast forward three decades. Herod the Great came to a horrific demise with a painful and disgusting illness. His kingdom was split among his children with his son, Herod Antipas, reigning in Galilee. As his father lurked in the shadows of Jesus’ birth, the younger Herod would lurk in the shadow of Jesus’ death.
The attempted murder of Jesus the infant because he threatened the King of the Jews would lead to Jesus’ actual murder as he landed in the political crosshairs.
Herod’s governing counterpart in Judea, Pontius Pilate, would try to drag Herod front and center, but like his slithering father, Herod knew how to dodge a political trap when he saw one. Handed over to Pilate by the Jewish authorities on the charge that he claimed to be “The King of the Jews,” Pilate quickly discerned that Jesus was no political rival. “Take him yourselves and judge him by your own law,”[ii] Pilate rebuffed the Sanhedrin. He had no interest in the chief priests pulling the puppet strings and forcing him to use his power to execute for their will. Pilate had far from a genial relationship with the Jewish leaders and he wasn’t about to serve at their bidding.
The King Who Won’t Play Along
But Pilate was trapped. By delivering Jesus to Pilate with the charge that he claimed to be the King of the Jews, Pilate knew he couldn’t let a man accused of claiming the crown off without the threat of emperor Tiberius hanging over his head. Rome didn’t shrug off competing threats to the throne. It squashed them.
Pilate ushers Jesus back to his private quarters. He’s got to help coax this man to do what is in both of their interests: reject the claim of his kingship. This should be easy, Jesus’ simple denial of any claim to being king will save his own neck and let Pilate not have the blood of this popular miracle worker and teacher on his hands. Irritating the chief priests would be gravy.
“Are you the King of the Jews?”[iii] Pilate asks. Simple enough.
Jesus complicates things, with a question of his own, “Do you say this of your own accord, or did others say it to you about me?” Jesus is pressing to see if Pilate has any personal stake in this question, or if this is just a political matter for Pilate.
It’s all politics for Pilate. He’s no Jew. He has no interest in the internal wranglings of Jews. He has bigger fish to fry. He just needs to figure out how to appease the Sanhedrin. “Am I a Jew?” Pilate asks, “Your own nation and the chief priests have delivered you over to me. What have you done?” Pilate has no interest in your claims of Messianic kingship. He needs to figure out how to solve this political mess. What did Jesus do to make the Jewish rulers so angry?
What is Truth?
But Jesus isn’t interested in solving Pilate’s problem. He won’t back down from the truth. He’s about his Father’s business. “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.” Did you catch that? Jesus isn’t saying that he has a claim on the throne, but that he sits on the throne. Tiberius’s throne is not under threat because of Jesus any more than your local high school basketball team’s title is under threat because of LeBron James. Pilate and Tiberius have no idea the scale of Jesus’ throne nor the span of Jesus’ kingdom.
You can almost see Pilate’s head spin, “So you are a king?”
“You say that I am a king. For this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.” Jesus’ kingdom is already established. Everything he is doing is bearing witness to that established fact.
Pilate is lost: “What is truth?”
Outmaneuvered
Pilate has no clue what type of king Jesus is, but he knows that Jesus is not an immanent threat to Tiberius. He returns to the chief priests, “I find no guilt in him.”
But, with Jesus unwilling to offer any help and the Jewish leaders rallying their supporters, Pilate cannot release Jesus.
Pilate is outmaneuvered.
Jesus hung on the cross, “The King of the Jews” inscribed over his head. He was the King of the Jews. He was far more.
The infant Jesus’ life was nearly snuffed out because of the ruthless political ambitions of one man. Jesus, the adult, would have his life snuffed out because of the political opportunism and cowardice of another. And yet neither had the control that he wished for. Only Jesus himself had that control.
Petty, oily men grappling over politics cast their shadows over Jesus’ birth and death and left destruction in their paths. And yet, only one wasn’t outmaneuvered: the true King of the Jews.
And yet he used his sovereign power not for his own good but for the good of his people. He was the true King and he is the true King.
How Jesus’ Birth Foretells His Death:
[i] Matthew 2:8
[ii] John 18:31
[iii] The following echange is taken from John 18:33-30