New Year Reflections

We can all learn something from King Herod of old about how not to enter a new year.

Granted, in Matthew 2 we don't find this ruler, who was mean and cunning and who loved extravagance and great building projects, necessarily launching into a new calendar period, but we do discover that he is about to experience a profound change in his life. Little baby Jesus has been born in nearby Bethlehem and His arrival will transform everybody's existence. For centuries to come. How Herod dealt with his own personal slice of this change can illustrate for us at this season what attitudes and actions to avoid as we move into 2008.

For starters, we shouldn't take fear into the next twelve months. When this monarch got word from the visiting wise men, who had traveled a great distance in search of this child, that a new king had been born, he became anxious and afraid. Read it for yourself in verse 3. Ultimately Herod's alarm and dread, brought about by what he perceived as a threat to his sovereignty, led him to do some foolish and destructive things. We live in troubled, turbulent times. It is so easy to be apprehensive and even to panic. But Jesus is here! He is at work behind the scenes slowly unfolding His divine plan in all the events of life and history. To spend our days in fear would be to waste valuable time and show irreverent distrust in God's loving providence and maybe even take foolhardy precipitous actions to attempt to preserve our sense of security.

We also must not carry ignorance of scripture into 2008. I find it interesting that Herod, upon hearing news from the inquiring Magi about a royal child's birth in a supposedly nearby area, had to ask somebody else about what the ancient Old Testament texts said about the location of His nativity. Notice verse 4. Yes, the chief priests and scribes were well trained in the Hebrew prophecies, and there was nothing wrong with consulting those experts for advice, but why wasn't the king himself aware of what the scriptures predicted about something so momentous that was coming? God has given His Word to all of us. We should be reading it. Studying it. Memorizing it. Pastors are equipped to help quide us but each of us should be feeding ourselves and soaking up the richness of the Bible.

Let's not allow deception to be part of our trajectory in the new year, either. When Herod learned that the long-promised child was to be born in Bethlehem, he sent the increasingly eager wise men off to that little town and pledged that he would venture there himself to pay tribute to the toddler when it had been authenticated that he was residing there. The King was shrewd and crafty. He was lying! Check out verse 8. He tried to hoodwink a lot of people but his hidden, evil scheme eventually brought disastrous consequences for dozens of innocent persons. Whenever we try to connive and manipulate and twist or shade the truth, we're opening the door to potentially harmful results. And by the way, anger shouldn't journey with us into the upcoming 12 months. Herod's fury is graphically demonstrated in verses 16-18. Any bitterness or resentment left over from this year should be dealt with and eradicated now so as not to poison and cripple our lives and those of the folks close to us as the calendar turns.

And certainly don't step into 2008 without Jesus! Verse 19 tells us that this wicked King Herod finally died. Lost. Never knowing Christ and life's greatest joy and fulfilment. Alienated from God. Avoid that mistake at all cost. If you are not a Christian, receive Jesus today. If you are a believer, make it your aim to draw closer and closer to the Lord in the year fast approaching.