Matthew 2.11, 16 - And going into the house they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Then, opening their treasures,they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh….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.
The juxtaposition in this text is very well written literature. The pagan magi with their sorcery are the ones kneeling before the king of the Jews, and the Jewish king (at least by title) is calling for the full blown slaughter of Bethlehem. This text is a very good one to see the two ways that people must respond to the message of Jesus – obedience or obstinance. Those are the only two options.
The trouble is that several lay people, scholars, pastors, and theologians make the error to assume that there are additional options in response to Jesus. Many may say he is a good teacher, a moral man, a failed messianic zealot, or philosopher. The strange this is that when those options were available to his contemporaries, not many used them to describe the man in their midst. Matthew sets firm ground in the start of his gospel giving the credentials of Jesus through his genealogy, then angelic announcement, followed by old testament witness, and final affirmation by the chief priests and scribes. Our enlightened western scholarship, due to its pluralism cannot see what the eye-witnesses did. At least Herod, understood that this boy was who the scriptures, magi, chief priests, and scribes said he was – the Messiah.
At this time, I think it will be beneficial to share the words of C.S. Lewis from Mere Christianity which is far more winsome:
A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic – on the level with a man who says he is a poached egg – or he would be the devil of hell. You must take your choice. Either this was, and is, the son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us.
