Thursday, 9/24/15
This Herod is the grandson of tha Herod who was responsible
for the death of the boys under two in Bethlehem. Then, the Romans allowed four
descendents of that Herod the Great, to rule over four sections of the Holy
Land that remained subject to
Rome.
When this Herod took over the wife of his brother Phillip, John
the Baptist condemned him and her. That wife, Herodias, then goaded Herod into
putting John into a basement cell..
Highly fascinated with John, Herod used to sit halfway down
the cellar stairs from where he could listen to John speaking with the jailor.
In the next chapter of this story, when Herodias had her
daughter request the head of John the Baptist on a platter, Herod, for fear of
having his guests laugh at him, sent a man to cut off John’s head.
Next, when Herod heard about Jesus, the wonder worker, he
found him even more fascinating than John the Baptist.
And then, he was happy as could be when Pontius Pilate sent
Jesus over to him. The play “Jesus Christ
Superstar” gave a very good picture of Herod when he sang, “Come on Jesus, play the fool; walk across my swimming pool.”
The Bible does not give us these pictures of Herod so that
we might enjoy ourselves scorning him. No, Herod is there to warn us from falling
into his faults. We should not develop a similar faulty character, ruled by our
love of ease and by our worry about what worldly people think of us.
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