SO Not the Plan... (1)

Most of us are already familiar with the story of Christ's birth.  We've heard the story about Herod the Great, the King of the Jews at the time, who sought to have Jesus killed as a baby.  I guess I had always just taken it for granted, but after two decades of hearing this story, I started to wonder, why would Herod be so terrified?  Why would he so violently set out an emergency attack to murder this baby Jesus?

This was supposed to be his Messiah.

This should have been his good news.

But to Herod the Great, the arrival of the long-awaited Messiah was no good news at all.  Jesus was a descendant of Jacob.  Herod was a descendant of Esau.  The descendants of Jacob and Esau had fought through the ages to rule over one another.  Finally, Esau was winning.  Esau's line had taken the throne.  Herod was king, and he would have no other ruler, not even God Himself, take over his throne.

Oh, assumptions and misunderstandings.  We're so good at them.  Herod assumed Jesus the Messiah would be after his throne.  He misunderstood that Jesus wasn't in need of any throne.  Jesus was in need of a cross.

We are Herod.

We long for our Messiah to come.  We wait for God to reveal Himself.  Until the King does come and He's not what we expected.  We fear His threat to our kingdoms, our ways.  We're building a life for ourselves, and the idea that He might tamper with our success, well, it's a little disturbing.  So Herod kills his very own Messiah, and we crucify our very own Christ because to let Him live, to let Him reign in our place, would be very, very expensive.

The people were no better.  Many dreamed of a Messiah who would come and destroy their enemies, set up their kingdoms, and settle their prosperity.  But prosperity was not the priority of Christ.  People.  People were the priority of Christ.  In all of His odd, unexpected ways, Jesus set out to restore the kingdom of God among men, but it was nothing like they had imagined.  Instead of ruling, there was serving.  Instead of fighting, there was forgiving.  Instead of vengeance, there was sacrifice, rooted and grounded in love.

This is not the Messiah we requested.  Can we send this One back?

This was so not the plan...