“Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls; for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Holy Bible, Matthew 11:28-30)
As Christmas arrives each year, it reminds many of cultural celebrations, special times in childhood, and its truest meaning, the coming of the Savior of the world, God born as a human. The story starts in humility and ends in sacrifice.
Herod the Great
Jesus was born into a time when kings and nobles flaunted their wealth in front of peasants barely surviving with the necessities. The immense real estate of Israel’s king at that time, Herod the Great, and the opulence of his many palaces, compared to the stables where Jesus was born only in that both sheltered kings. But Herod lived in the world of nobles, and Jesus came to the common people. The humble understood Him, and their rulers wanted nothing to do with Him.
Ruthless, yet unstable, the troubled ruler Herod was described by 1st century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, as "a madman who murdered his own family and a great many rabbis”. Known for a compulsive building campaign during his thirty-year reign, some of Herod’s best known projects included the harbor at Caesarea, Masada’s hanging palace, multiple fortresses, and the monumental expansion of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, sometimes referred to as the Second Temple, or Herod’s Temple.
His crowning glory was his ultimate creation, the largest palace in the Roman world that he called the Herodium, including every luxury known at the time from gardens and swimming pools to a 700-seat theatre. The Herodium’s location eight miles south of Jerusalem on the border of Judea, was atop a 2500 foot high man-made mountain which offered a panorama of the surrounding countryside, including Jerusalem itself. When Herod died, he was buried there in 4 B.C. in an ornate two-story domed mausoleum part way up the northern face of the Herodium.
Jesus the Christ
Approximately two years earlier in the spring, a special Jewish baby was born not far from there. Only three miles away from the Herodium was a small Jewish town called Beit Lechem, known today as Bethlehem. The book of Matthew in the Bible states “Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king…” (2:1). It was a rural village with a population of mostly shepherds and farmers.
With the coming of labor pains, the new parents-to-be sought shelter for the birth in a small stable, having none of the amenities of privilege. There, surrounded by livestock and their smells and warm breaths, this king was born into the world and laid in a manger. Shepherds in the fields learned of the birth from angels and made their way to the stable. Coming from the southeast, they would have seen the giant silhouette of the Herodium behind it, even against the night sky; a building erected by man to honor a man. Yet the contrast likely escaped them as they hurried on toward the little family, rejoicing in the angels’ glad tidings of the fulfilled prophecy of the Savior’s birth and of God’s good will toward men.
What's in a Name?
Herod took the title “the Great” and built monuments to himself, basing his kingdom on his worldly wealth and power. Jesus lived in humility, lifting up others by his love and teaching; his only agenda, redemption. He revealed his kingship only when asked directly if he were a king. He was respectful even to those who tortured Him. When Pontius Pilate asked “Don’t you know that I have the power to crucify you and the power to release you?” Jesus answered “You could have no power at all over me except it were given to you from above…” (ibid, John 19, 10,11)
The Bible states that Jesus was “the reflection of God's glory..” (ibid, Hebrews 1:3), yet he did not lift himself up, but humbled himself as a servant (ibid, Philippians 2:8) – first to the Jewish people “to confirm the promises given to the Patriarchs,” and then to the gentiles so they “might glorify God” (ibid, Romans 15:8-9). He lived his life to honor God, and when he was at last lifted up, it was on the cross, to take away the sin of the world.
So it is little wonder that when God sent His Anointed child, He sent him in humble form to a humble birth (“…he hath respect for the lowly,” ibid, Psalm 138:6 KJV), bypassing the grandeur even of the Herodium for the nearby stable in Bethlehem.
References:
The Holy Bible, King James Version
The Jerusalem Post Christian Edition, December 2009
Marie Thomas - Marie Thomas (RieT) is an author in multiple genres, with 18 years in technical writing, and freelance work in science, biographical, and ...
