Category: Pondering Peace
Matthew’s Christmas Story in 2025
The story of Jesus’s birth, as told in the Gospel of Matthew, is one that is filled with drama. There are villains and good guys, an evil plot and a narrow escape. Although the story is familiar, this year we approach it from an altered national context, and this affects what message it may hold for us.
In the year since last Christmas, things have changed dramatically in the United States. As a country we have been sliding from democracy toward autocracy. From day one, the president has been working to consolidate his power, firing civil servants and judges, appointing loyalists who do his will, eroding democratic institutions, disregarding all attempts to hold him accountable, undermining checks and balances, and threatening those who oppose him. This administration has relentlessly targeted immigrants for detention and deportation, often in ways that are needlessly traumatic and cruel, causing whole communities to live in fear. As we read the news each day, many of us are stunned by what is happening, never imagining this could occur in our country. Some have spoken about our nation being near an “authoritarian breakthrough.”
We are just starting to gain a little better understanding of what life would be like under a tyrannical king, and this draws us into Matthew’s narrative with a new perspective. King Herod was a cruel despot with almost absolute power. Being an Idumean, he didn’t really meet the criteria for being king of the Jews. However, by military conquest and by expressing loyalty to the Roman emperor, he gained the position and served as a client king for Rome. He was a builder, a “real estate developer” if you will, who oversaw building fortresses, cities, and magnificent buildings, including the expansion of the Second Jewish Temple. All of this was financed through taxation of the people, which increasingly impoverished them. He was also a brutal man, nursing vengeance and attacking anyone who was a threat to his reign. He even had his wife and several sons killed to retain his power. He would say he followed the Jewish faith, but his actions belied his words. He clearly had no respect for human life.
When the wise men came to Jerusalem asking for the child who had been born king of the Jews, the text says King Herod was frightened. Considering his brutal tendencies when threatened, all of Jerusalem was frightened as well. Upon learning that the Messiah was to be born in Bethlehem and when the star appeared, King Herod sent the wise men on their way. Despite saying he wanted to pay homage, undoubtedly he was already plotting the baby’s destruction.
Matthew tells us that when King Herod realized that the wise men did not obey his command to return and tell him where the baby was, he was infuriated. Not knowing which baby might be a potential threat, he ordered all children in Bethlehem who were two and under to be killed. This slaughter of the innocents demonstrated what he was capable of doing when he didn’t get what he wanted. It exposed his cruelty and utter disregard for innocent human life. King Herod is definitely the evil villain in the story.
But he was aided by the chief priests and scribes. They cooperated with King Herod by telling him that the Scriptures said the Messiah was to be born in Bethlehem. Surely they knew that King Herod would be threatened by this and would not tolerate a baby deemed to be the messianic king. And yet they complied with his request and gave him the answer he needed to eventually carry out the massacre.
The chief priests were the priestly ruling class associated with managing the Temple. They were appointed to these positions not because of their priestly lineage but rather because of their loyalty to the king. The scribes were the professional class of experts in religious and civil law as found in their Scriptures and Jewish tradition. In return for supporting the king, the chief priests and scribes benefited by gaining power and wealth. They collaborated and participated in an oppressive domination system that increased wealth for themselves and further impoverished ordinary persons. Although they were supposedly the religious leaders, they were not moved by the coming of the wise men and made no effort to see if indeed the messiah had been born in Bethlehem. Religion is often used by cruel rulers to further their purposes, and too often there are religious leaders who are willing to cooperate and give support to their rule.
The magi (or wise men) were foreigners with a different religion, seekers after wisdom through exploring the supernatural and mystical. They were open to the divine messages they believed they found through interpreting dreams and the positioning of stars. They were earnest in responding to what they believed this star meant, traveling a great distance to pay homage to the newborn king of the Jews.
Their discernment and responsiveness to the divine initiative contrast markedly with that of the chief priests and scribes. So does their reaction to King Herod. Instead of obeying the king by returning to tell him where the baby was, they paid attention to the divine message in a dream, and they went home by another way. They are models of resistance to tyranny, willing to disobey and do what’s right even though they would have paid a price if they had been caught.
Joseph is called “a righteous man” in this narrative and models for us that righteousness is not a rigid adherence to the letter of the law but rather living by its spirit, with love and care for others. It is protecting the vulnerable, whether the unwed but pregnant Mary or the newborn baby targeted by King Herod’s wrath. It is being attentive to and discerning divine guidance and putting oneself aside to follow it. When an angel in his dream told Joseph to get up and flee to Egypt with Mary and Jesus, he did so immediately, and thereby narrowly escaped King Herod’s murderous plot. Seeking asylum in Egypt, the Holy Family were refugees in a foreign land for the early years of Jesus’s life.
We live in troubling times in our country, with this administration using greatly expanded powers to hunt down the most vulnerable, treat them with undue harshness, and ignore their human rights. There are religious leaders eager to affirm these actions, quick to declare the president as being chosen by God, while they enjoy the power and influence gained through proximity to the him. Matthew’s birth narrative gives us models for how to respond to this situation.
The model of the wise men calls us to be attentive and discerning of divine initiative, and to engage in holy resistance and civil disobedience to rules and demands that are unjust and can result in great harm. In a corrupt and violent context, Joseph provides us with a model of righteousness that listens to divine guidance and does what one can to protect the most vulnerable. In the darkness of these days, we can remember how God was actively working throughout the events of this sacred story, making the divine presence known through dreams and stars and working through those who were paying attention. As we seek to follow this way of wisdom and righteousness, we can remember with hope that the name brought to fulfillment in the Christ Child was Immanuel – “God is with us”.
Rev. Ruth Rosell, Ph.D. Director of the Buttry Center for Peace and Nonviolence
Associate Professor of Pastoral Theology Emerita
Central Seminary, Overland Park, KS
The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author.
Photo by Anton Acosta on Unsplash, Trinidad and Tobago