"The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light: .... the Kingdom of Heaven." With these few words, God's entire plan for humanity is summed up and a throne reclaimed.
For thousands of years, the ancients marked time according to the reign of kings. For example, "in the forth year of King Cyrus the Great" or "in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar." With the Incarnation of God, the crossroads of human history is marked off and the rest of time bounded: Anno Domini .... "in the year of our Lord ...." For one king is worthy of our fealty.
We are called back to words spoken to the Prophet Samuel, the disconsolate words of our God:
|
".... for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me,
that I should not reign over them." (1 Sam 8:7) |
It seems that Israel has demanded a king, emulating their neighbors, that they might have worldly glory. What ensued would famously be a disaster. The willful and petty ego of the first king, Saul, will commence the new era. To be followed by the high point of royal history would produce an adulterer-murderer (King David) and a womanizer-idolator (King Solomon). The rest would devolve into division and tribal antagonisms with a Northern and a Southern Kingdom. And at length the glory of their neighbor's kings would indeed be their own .... through subjugation. The Assyrians would dominate the Northern Kingdom as well as their religion. And the Babylonians-Persians would dominate the Southern Kingdom and their religious beliefs. The era that followed would simply be called "the Lost Sheep of the House of Israel" with religious observances chiefly carried out by offering blood sacrifices, considered the most potent rite with the letting of life-force itself being sprayed about the holy place. The higher the animal, with doves representing the lowest place, the greater the force. It had been such for thousands of years and universally observed in the ancient world .... but was repugnant to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This distaste is recorded in Scripture:
|
"I will not take a bull from your house,
Nor goats out of your folds. For every beast of the forest is Mine, And the cattle on a thousand hills. I know all the birds of the mountains, And the wild beasts of the field are Mine. "If I were hungry, I would not tell you; For the world is Mine, and all its fullness. Will I eat the flesh of bulls, Or drink the blood of goats? Offer to God thanksgiving, And pay your vows to the Most High." (Ps 50:9-14) |
And again,
|
Hear the word of the Lord,
You rulers of Sodom; Give ear to the law of our God, You people of Gomorrah: "To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices to Me?" Says the Lord. "I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams And the fat of fed cattle. I do not delight in the blood of bulls, Or of lambs or goats." (Isa 1:10-11) |
In an elaborate drama carried out by angels on Mt. Moriah, Abraham is forbidden to offer blood sacrifice and, most of all, human sacrifice. How ironic, then, that Mt. Gerizim, the ancient shrine of the Northern Kingdom, and Mt. Zion, the ancient shrine of the Southern Kingdom, both should be claimed as the latter-day site of Mt. Moriah though they are soaked with the blood of animal sacrifice.
Military subjugation in the ancient world also meant adoption of the vanquisher's religion with its unending train of sacrifices offered to the victor's god. Mt. Gerizim would be accommodated to the Assyrian religion, and Mt. Zion would be accommodated to the Babylonian-Persian religion. Indeed, ancient Persian inscriptions attest that a primary responsibility of the king was to ensure that fitting worship be carried out in every part of his empire, as recent archeological work has discovered. (Yihai Kiel, "Reinventing the Mosaic Torah in Ezra-Nehemiah," Journal of Biblical Literature, 2017.) Even Hebrews who had fled Jerusalem to Elephantine seeking to offer decent worship to God were pursued by the emperor Cyrus the Great and compelled to offer blood sacrifice upon pain of death. (Bezalel Porten, Archive of Elephantine, Univ. of Calif. Press, 1968.)
But from the beginning, the religion of the Patriarchs might be carried out anywhere, and they had nothing to do with blood. Altars might be erected, sacred groves might be planted wherever God was encountered. And the ancient offering of Melchizidek, mysteriously, was that of bread and wine.
We have learned in a landmark study that it would not be until the century or so preceding Jesus' birth, that a domination of Judah-ism (the Persian religion of Judah) would be attempted for the first time. (Adler, The Origins of Judaism Yale Univ. Press, 2022.) With a new institution built for the purpose — the synagogue — the laws said to be given by Moses were doggedly promulgated from Arabia to Rome. Certainly, we do not see a Jewish people attempting to conform their lives to a Torah until after the Maccabees in the second century B.C.
Herod's response is predictable. He unleashes Judah-ism's most potent rite, blood sacrifice, even human sacrifice: the blood of 14,000 male children. Perhaps this will appease heaven's god. But Herod will find no peace — not in blood, not in sacrifice. For these only sicken God.
You see, wicked tenants have siezed the Vineyard — the Vineyard on Mt. Gerizim, the Vineyard on Mt. Zion. They have aspired to murder the Heir and to make the Vineyard their own.
|
"Therefore, when the Owner of the Vineyard comes,
what will he do to those vinedressers?" They said to Him, "He will destroy those wicked men miserably, and lease His Vineyard to other vinedressers who will render to him the fruits in their seasons." 'The stone which the builders rejected Has become the chief cornerstone. This was the Lord's doing, And it is marvelous in our eyes'? "Therefore I say to you, the Kingdom of God will be taken from you." (Mt 21:40-43) |
There is only one religion.
Herod strikes out at combatants who are not even visible to him. They are barely visible to "the star-led wizards" who discern their direction and guiding. The air is thick with angels — a celestial retinue attending our only King.
The Kingdom is at hand. It is the only Kingdom. Against its might, enemies strive in vain. As the Jews unwittingly tell Pilate, it proposes to be something greater than Caesar.
With the return of the King and continuance of His reign in the year of our Lord two thousand twenty-four, the Kingdom of God shimmers before us. We might honor Him by planting sacred groves or by establishing holy hermitages wherever we will. All who prepare themselves to enter His myriad temples may receive the offering of bread and wine. And all will be welcomed.
"Repent, the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand." Let us put on our wedding garments. Let us be renewed. For this was the Way from the beginning. And the hearts and souls and minds that we transform according to His will were our deepest selves all along.
"The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light ...."
Let us receive, with angels, our only King.
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.