Jesus rejects the Pharisees’ warning to run for His life, even when Herod had a contract out on His life. Christ’s response is not about accepting a fate that He can’t run away from. If He had run, He would have disobeyed His calling. In contrast, Herod was like Nero, cowering from his subjects after burning Rome in the movie Quo Vadis. He was like Stalin keeping 8 heavily secured bedrooms without telling anyone, in which one he was sleeping on a particular night. Jesus had no plan to lock Himself up instead of making His way to the cross.
And He makes an obvious insult against Herod by naming him a fox. Destructive political power will not take up God’s time, when there are demons to be cast out - bodies to be healed. Jesus’ response to tyranny like Herod’s inspired Reinhold Niebuhr to say: "Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible; but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary." In God’s time justice and righteousness will rule through the body of Christ.
Four centuries have proved “Jerusalem” adverse to democratic restraint of power. It remains mysteriously violent and conflicted in spite of the word “Salem” meaning peace or health. Jesus uses allegorical animal comparisons like Herod as a fox and the people of Jerusalem as a brood of chicks under the His wings, because Herod hunts people down like a fox hunts small birds. God wants to protect and nurture those same creatures who “refuse and turn away” until that royal welcome on Palm Sunday (Luke 19:38) “Blessed is he who comes in the name of God.” Notably, the cry “Hosanna” (Hebrew for “save us”) is not quoted (Psalm 118:25-26).
What keeps us from choosing God’s protection and salvation instead of running like scared cats from the foxes who use confusion and fear to control?
C.S. Lewis’ Arch demon Screwtape advises his apprentice Wormwood on effective satanic strategies that create complications and confusion out of simple situations that call for plain and obvious duties. This means that if we fail to make sense from overly complicated relationships, then the Devil may be hunting us down (like Herod hunted Jesus) until our mind and heart are rendered impotent and full of doubt. We can therefore fight against this and pray for God’s wisdom then practice it.
Don’t be like the Boston officials who made sure that no one felt safe to leave their cars parked overnight in the downtown area with an ordinance that reads: “On even-numbered dates park on the odd-numbered side of the street. On odd-numbered dates park on the even-numbered side. If you park after midnight, the rule is reversed. Where parking is allowed only on one side, park on the side opposite the “No Parking Anytime” sign.” Just today another town was reported with an ordinance that required all cars parked on the street to have their lights on through the night (get a ticket or a dead battery).
A British Navy box full of bombs read: “It is necessary for technical reasons, that these warheads be stored bottom-side-up, that is, with the top at the bottom and the bottom at the top. That there be no doubt which is the bottom, and which is the top, each warhead has been labeled with the word top!”
Even Columbus persevered through constant confusion: He didn’t know where he was going. When he got there, he didn’t know where he was. And when he got back he didn’t know where he’d been (Bits and Pieces).
Denial of our mortality is another way that the Devil tries to keep us away from crying out to God for salvation in Jesus Christ. Louis XV, King of France, foolishly ordained and ordered that death was never to be spoken of in his presence. Nothing that could in any way remind him of death was to be mentioned or displayed, and he sought to avoid every place and sign and monument, which in any way suggested death. He was like the ostrich sticking his head in the ground while his body is visible to the hunter.
Jesus compares the harmony of a more responsible bird that cares for her chicks while the wily fox tricks and deceives creatures to their destruction.
Jesus’ divine and human nature confronts doubters, naysayers, hotheads and even egg heads like me who are prone to confusion or denial about real suffering in this world. He restrains His divine power so that He can humanly choose to reject resentment and replace it with compassion according to the Father’s had a plan to redeem the world with His blood.
Restraint for the greater good is rare. Fictional movies like Crimson Tide romanticize how a submarine officer’s mutiny against his trigger-happy captain prevents nuclear holocaust (Denzel Washington and Gene Hackman 1995).
But Christ’s real practical stand-down down-to-earth love is less confusing and more steadfast and enduring in His magnificent defeat on the cross, than all our World War battles we might create or second coming retribution we can expect. Jesus takes on powerlessness and sacrifice as God’s protest against injustice. His cry is God’s cry that rises up from the cross. His words of forgiveness are God’s. This is not our normal take on worldly power with its vengeance, anger and futile self-preservation. It’s not even like when King Joash killed the prophet Zacheriah (2 Chronicles 24:20-24) or when prophet Uriah died instead of Jeremiah (26:20-23). Zacheriah and Jeremiah cursed the killers with vengeance. Jesus forgives at the cross.
God is here and now within our weak cry to save us. His power is in Jesus’ cry from Calvary. He calls to us and to God for reconciliation from the cross. He cries out from every corpse created by every cruel and unjust power. The word from the cross calls us to stand down and renounce violence, not to just put it off until we take the enemy by surprise and lay them low with firepower (John D. Caputo).
This Eucharist is the good gift at the right time for the right people. This is your life. You are his people by right of His suffering, death and resurrecting love.
Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for your clear message of love and forgiveness in the face of all the confusion, denial and violence around us. Save us from war, our hunting each other down, and our self-centered preservation. Teach to follow Your example in Jesus Christ, in His precious name, Amen.
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