Herod: Go... and Kill!

When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by

the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill...

Matthew 2:16 

King Herod finishes out the Christmas story with the unthinkable.  Haunted by the gossip of singing angels, a standout star, visiting royalty and a newborn King, furious that the Magi had hightailed it home in another direction, and driven almost to madness by his frantic hold on power, Herod turned even more brutal and deadly. 

Fulfilling the prophecy in Jeremiah 31:15 (A voice is heard in Raman, mourning and great weeping, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more), Herod ordered the death of every male child aged two and under in Bethlehem and all the surrounding regions.  His soldiers rode out from Jerusalem on their sinister mission, returning with calloused hearts and bloody swords.  Every male child, from infant to toddler, was sacrificed on the altar of Herod's crushing ego.

Every little boy, that is, except one.  The child that Herod sought to destroy was safely away in Egypt.  There the little family would stay until the king was dead, and God called them to return to their home in Nazareth. 

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No more let sin and sorrow grow, or thorns infest the ground.

He comes to make His blessings flow

Far as the curse is found, far as the curse is found,

Far as, far as the curse is found.

The United Methodist Hymnal, No. 246