From Compassion to Depravity
May 19th, 2009 § Leave a Comment
Previously I marveled at the compassion of Joseph found in Matthew 1. Today I turn to the account of Herod The Great found in Matthew 2. None of Joseph’s compassion was found there. In fact I found someone so depraved that he would slaughter toddlers to attempt to thwart a prophecy of one who would come and rule Herod’s people one day.
Matthew’s account puts it this way:
Then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, became furious, and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had ascertained from the wise men. Matthew 2:16 ESV
What kind of man would do this?
A man who feared becoming irrelevant. A man who feared losing his position. A man who feared losing his possessions. A man who was selfish. A man not unlike you or I.
Writing about another Holocaust in more recent memory, Jewish historian Saul Friedlander writes:
“Not one social group, not one religious community, not one scholarly institution or professional association in Germany and throughout Europe declared its solidarity with the Jews.”
Friedlander and other historians argue that it wasn’t monsters or sociopaths who perpetrated the Nazi Holocaust but ordinary Germans. People a lot like you and me.
The common thread between us and them is our sin nature. We are as equally capable of depravity as Herod or a Nazi concentration camp guard. All it takes is for us to minimize how our sin is an affront to a holy and just God. To justify those things that God hates. To say to ourselves “surely my sin isn’t that bad, is it?”
