A Miserable Man
Christ is the Greatest Gift of All
Matthew 2:13-23
Rev. Tim Callow
Preached Sun. Dec. 28th, 2025
Augustine of Hippo, an old bishop and great preacher, once remarked that God is indiscriminate in his blessings, but reserves the greatest blessing to those who love him. God’s generosity is such that he makes the rain to fall on the just and the unjust alike. God gives great wealth, health, and power without condition. Sometimes it may seem unfair to us. But these blessings can become a snare to us as well. They can be a snare unless they are coupled with God’s greatest blessing: himself. His own presence. The indwelling Holy Spirit. That which alone gives us true peace and joy. That which alone helps us to make use of all the other blessings our Lord provides.
Herod the Great is an example of what Augustine means when he points this out about God’s generosity. Herod was born the son of a high ranking official in the court of the King of the Jews. His father was a good friend of a roman general by the name of Julius Caesar. Herod was able to use his connections to rise in power and, eventually, become declared King of the Jews by the Roman Senate. Having vanquished his enemies Herod became a wealthy client king of Rome and spent his fortune on lavish building projects. Among those building projects was a multi decade remodeling of the Temple in Jerusalem.
But Herod is not known to history because of his building projects. He is not known to history for his fabulous wealth. He is not known to history for maintaining the peace in a tempestuous region of the world. Rather, Herod is known to history to being a paranoid and miserable tyrant. And that is exemplified in our reading this morning. The massacre of the innocents.
The visit of a delegation from the east caught all of Jerusalem off guard. They had arrived with gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. They were astrologers from the royal court, and claimed they saw a star rising that indicated the birth of a king in Judea. But Herod was old in age, and he had no recent children. He immediately perceived this delegation as a threat. He had been declared King of the Jews by the Roman Senate, but here these wise men claimed the very stars of heaven had declared a new King. This new King could undo everything he had worked to build.
So he asks his scribes to consult the scriptures. Where is the King of the Jews to be born? When they tell him Bethlehem he sends the wise men on their way, but with the caveat that when they find the King they should tell him. He would like to see the king too.
But the wise men are warned in a dream about his ploy. They don’t come back, but go to their land by another way. Herod, infuriated, orders the murder of every male child under the age of two. Just to be safe. This king of the Jews becomes more like pharaoh of Egypt who also famously ordered the death of the hebrew boys. But Joseph is also warned in a dream and flees to Egypt from the King of Judah.
Matthew hauntingly gives no description of this horrifying event. But instead quotes 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.”
Herod is a man who has received every gift God has to offer under the sun. He is a man of tremendous wealth. He would live a very long life of good health. He was powerful and well regarded by those more powerful than him. He ate far better, slept far better, and lived far better than most anyone in his day. And yet when word came that the messiah was born his response was not to praise God that the end of the ages had come. It was not to rejoice in the salvation by the forgiveness of sins. He didn’t marvel at the gospel of Emmanuel. God with us.
He hears the gospel and decides the boy must die.
And that decision leads to the death of countless others.
All the blessing Herod had known meant nothing because he possessed them without having received the greatest possession: love. Without love all these blessings turned him into a monster. He could not be happy because he was afraid they’d be taken from him. The message of the messiah was not good news for Herod because all it meant was what he might lose. He could not see what he stood to gain.
God gives many gifts. But the greatest of them all he reserves to those who love him and those he loves. And that is himself. His presence that cannot be withheld. His forgiveness that cannot be revoked. This gift alone makes all the other gifts truly gifts. And it is this gift that we come to remember this Christmas season. The gift of God with us.