Page 54 - laten-08-06-2020

Herod

Silence and resilience

Luke 23 : 6 - 12
Introduction

o find Herod and Jesus in their historical contexts is to
Tunravel deeper questions of theological ambiguities that lie
in the violent and the non-violent God of the Bible.Christian
stories portray Herod as the brutal villain and Jesus as the heroic
insurgent who dies while raging against the orders of the then
worlds that belonged only to Caesars and Herods.
Herod Antipas ruled Galilee in Jesus’ time. He succeeded
his father, Herod the Great, and served as Tetrarch (appointed
by the emperor Augustus to rule over one quarter of his father’s
kingdom) from 4 B.C. until 39 A.D., almost exactly the lifetime
of Jesus. Yet there is relatively little about Antipas in the Bible.
Unlike his brother, researchers believe that he took care not
to offend the religious sensibilities of his Jewish subjects with
graven images and pagan temples, unlike his father, which
actually furthered the grip of the empire among the enslaved.
However, the Bible understands Herod as a brutal,
blood-thirsty ruler, who at the birth of Jesus was threatened by
the Magis’ understanding of Jesus' birth, went on to massacre
all the first-born male babies who were two years and under,
resonating the deep weeping at Ramah and a wider history of
God's liberation story where the first born sons of the Pharaoh
and his people were massacred, hinting at the climax of empires
that cling to male dependency.The episode also discloses the
fear of the empire in witnessing the growing population of male
dependents among the enslaved masses.

According to Luke, Jesus belonged to Herod's
jurisdiction. It is said that Herod greatly anticipated meeting
Jesus, was loaded with great expectations. However, Herod was

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Lenten Meditations Re - Imaging People