This month is the Feast of Epiphany, when we celebrate the coming of the magi to the Christ child and recognize that Jesus came for all—Gentiles and Jews, even mysterious “astrologers from the east.”
When I read the texts this year, however, the part of the story that sticks out to me isn’t the magi following the star or their lavish gifts for baby Jesus. Instead, I can’t stop thinking about King Herod.
The Herod of Matthew 2 is almost a Disney villain. “A new king? How exciting!” he says to the magi. “Let me know when you find him so that I too can pay my respects.” I picture him immediately then turning around and rubbing his hands together gleefully. “They’ll never know my true plan,” he tells his evil Disney sidekick. “I will kill the baby and be king forever!”
The magi, of course, don’t fall for Herod’s trickery. Scripture tells us they have a dream warning them to return home by another route. Or maybe Herod just wasn’t as good of an actor as he thought he was. Either way, the child Jesus remains safe and hidden until his parents can take him to Egypt.
In the next verses of Matthew Chapter 2, the part we don’t hear in church during this feast day, Herod doesn’t respond well to being ignored. In a pique, he orders his men to kill all children ages 2 and under around Bethlehem. He will kill this baby maybe-king by any means necessary.
An inept despotic ruler prone to fits of rage that result in people getting killed. This story is starting to hit a little close to home.
Before anyone accuses me of false comparisons or says to me, “President Trump never ordered all babies killed!” let me say it right now: I am not making a direct parallel between Herod and Donald Trump. But many families—those worried about how to preserve the safety of their LGBTQ+ children, scared of the rising violence against women and people of color since the election, or unsure if parents or family members will be deported—might identify with both the holy family’s decision to flee to Egypt and the fear and grief of the families who stayed only to lose their own beloved children. Each of those babies killed was someone’s entire world, just as Jesus was Mary and Joseph’s.
It turns out that the fear many of us are facing—some of us for the first time (I’m looking at you, fellow upper-middle-class white women)—this fear that we and our families won’t be the same when these four years are over, is nothing new to many people. All the way back to Jesus’ time—and before—those in power have had no qualms climbing over the bodies of those they govern to reach their goals.
My point here isn’t that we should shrug our shoulders and bury our heads in the blankets for the next four years or that we should consider taking one of those four-year-long cruises offering an “escape” from the Trump presidency. I also don’t mean to say that, well, humanity survived slavery and the Holocaust, so we’ll survive this. Because, in fact, many people didn’t.
Scripture is full of people doing small brave things to save lives. Esther tricks the king and prevents the slaughter of the Jewish people. The Good Samaritan stops for a wounded man on the side of the road. The magi go home by another way. If and when you are called, what small brave thing will you do?
This article also appears in the January 2025 issue of U.S. Catholic (Vol. 90, No. 1, page 9). Click here to subscribe to the magazine.
Image: J. Le Breton, Three Wise Men Are Warned in a Dream by an Angel not to Return to Herod, Vanderbilt Library
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