But I am glad that our Gospels do not leave out this realistic note. Where is he that is born King of the Jews—asked the wise men. And the first recorded comment is, King Herod was troubled and so was all of Jerusalem. But why? Let us look into this trouble a little further.
WHY WERE THEY TROUBLED?
Firstly, there was trouble because the authorities had not been consulted. The civil authority had not been consulted. Here, they said, was a new king. But surely the reigning sovereign has a right to know something about the birth of the heir to the throne. And Herod had not been consulted at all, the news was sprung on him. And the religious authorities had not been consulted either. They were hurriedly hustled together to look it up in their official tomes, under pressure.
Now civil and religious authorities don’t like that kind of treatment. It troubles them. It always has done so, even when the event has been the coming of Christ. I need not stay to illustrate that. Has there ever been a civil authority that didn’t stir uneasily when the name of Christ was invoked in its council chambers, even in respect to slavery or child labor? And are the religious authorities better? We know at least what happened when Wesley offered Christ to thousands of English pagans. The Anglican authorities were not consulted, and they were troubled.
“Hurrah!” We say. “We’re all agin the government. Let the easy rogues in ermine and plush be discomfited.” But wait. There is one place, if only one, where you are the authority. What happens there? When Christ comes, as, from time to time, he does come, elbowing his way through the jostling crowd of interests and ambitions that pass through your mind—what then? When he says, as he has been saying for 1900 years—“never mind your history, never mind your ledgers, never mind your legal practice, never mind your college fellowship—follow me!” What then? I know, that is the trouble, that is where the shoe pinches. But again, further. . .
Secondly, there was trouble because a new set of standards was involved. I have spoken of “the immense majesty of Roman peace.” Even Herod was no pale imitation of the greater Roman ruler. And there was no newborn king in his court. Nor was there any royal messiah in the Temple court. You know what there was. There was a baby, supposed illegitimate (for that was the natural inference from the circumstances), in a stable, at the village of Bethlehem. The new king was a different king, and at this rate he was going to turn the world upside down.
There is nothing revolutionary about Christianity but this—that its kings are servants and their weapons are love. But there are few revolutions more disturbing than that. It may be well enough to shout for a bloody revolution, but if the blood is going to be your own, it is a different matter. The question for this: was Herod going to climb down before the newborn infant of a peasant woman? And the answer was— not likely! Slaughter a thousand infants first. You recognize the choice of course, for you have had to make it, and like me, you have sometimes, chosen with Herod. There have been no massacres but we have done so. It is a choice, a challenge to trouble anyone. And we can see why.
Thirdly, there was trouble because Herod was, in fact, confronted with the unknown. There was coming into the known, or at least comprehensible situation, the unknown the incomprehensible something, the incalculable factor that upsets the schemes of every planner. Into the plain human world came God, the one factor in life which is by definition beyond our grasp and beyond our control. There is nothing like the unknown to lay the cold clutch of fear on our hearts. We have all seen it, and most of us have experienced it. Felt it maybe, as the ambulance surged through the hospital gates, or when as children we stepped into the big new school alone, or when we went into our first job. And certainly we have felt it, or shall one day feel it in ourselves or in the world about us tells us that death after all is a real thing and not a name.
The coming of Jesus means the coming of the Unknown. “What will this mean for my Kingdom?” asked Herod. And what will this mean for my kingdom asks everyone whose territory Christ has invaded. Where is he that is born King of the Jews? And trouble fell on everyone—in chancery, in university, and in Church. And that is the beginning of hope. If it were not so, I should have found something else to talk about.
When people are troubled, there is always hope. I will tell you how I have seen that happen. I have seen people begin their studies in a severe self-confidence, a far greater confidence that they have settled the problems of theology than I dare admit. And I have no hope of their learning anything worth learning until they begin to be troubled, to see that the ocean of truth is a bigger thing than the parish pool they thought of. Bishop Westcott was once asked why there is in the Prayer Book no prayer for theological students. “Oh, but,” he said, “there is.” “Which is it then?” “Why the one headed ‘for those at sea.’’’ Well let me have the person that is at sea, rather than the one who is roped up to his homeport, and has never ventured out. Whenever a person is troubled in mind, in spirit, or in conscience, there is hope. How? Why? Let us look into this.
THE TROUBLE THAT IS THE GROUND OF HOPE
Of course not every sort of trouble has this result. But let us run the film through backwards and see the result. Why were the people troubled? You will remember the answers we suggested: 1) because the authorities had not been consulted. Don’t think that I’m saying that to commend anarchy—the complete absence of authorities. What was happening was that the old partial authorities were being superceded by a new authority. It is not a bad thing for a political tyranny like Herod’s to be superceded. It is not a bad thing for a religious tyranny that will see no light but its own to be superceded. But more, I spoke of that one small sphere where at least, if nowhere else, we ourselves are in authority. We are in authority, and that is precisely the trouble. We are the center of our own circle. All roads lead, not to Rome, but to ourselves. That is the very essence of untouched human life. And for that to be ended is always a good thing.
That is one of the best things about Christmas. It takes people out of the center of their own interests and affections. For once at least in the year we consider others—their happiness, their well-being, not our own. There’s the meaning of the Christmas classic about Scrooge and Bob Cratchit and the rest of them. What happened to the old miser Scrooge? He ceased to be his own authority. Of course it was upsetting but it was worth it in the end.
That is why Christianity is the hope of the world. It is no mere annual festival of good nature. If it means anything at all, it means the dethronement of self. That leads at once to the next thing. We have begun to speak of it already.
A new set of standards was involved. Not before time either. The old standards arose out of the very simple principle that we have been considering, the principle that I come first and that anything that ministers to my pleasure, to my self-satisfaction, and to my will power is right. And the new standards mean turning that upside down.
Now I am not taking back anything of what I have said. That does cause trouble. It is profoundly upsetting. If you have ever given up, for the benefit of someone else, a course of action you have cherished, you will know how upsetting that is. Charington knew, when he gave up the million pounds that he could have had in his father’s brewery because he saw a drunken lout knock his wife into the gutter. I do not say that that was an easy thing to do. But I do say that there is the way of hope for humanity. Look at this thing on the purely human level, as, for the moment I am prepared to do. There is something in the way of Bethlehem that can out do all of Herod’s Palace.
But how can these things be? Who can reorient his life around a new center? Who can set himself to follow so new, so exciting a standard? There is one thing more to say and it is the key to all the rest.
They were troubled by the coming of the unknown. The old was confronted by the new and altogether different. The old situation was known, yes, but it was too well known. We know so well the old circle of life about ourselves as pivot, because the wheels always turn so. There is no changing it. Of course we know that way of life, we have lived it thirty years, and
