I couldn’t help feeling a bit smug when, in preparation for this column, I meditated on Herod’s fright over news of a birth. Because (I reasoned) why on earth would a figure with this much power be so very undone by a report from some wandering astrologers that the king of the Jews had been born unless on some level Herod knew that the unadulterated goodness and love embodied by this child would mark the end of reigns such as his own? Do not (I went on to ask myself) all those who wield power abusively carry in their bones the fearful understanding that it is not worldly might that will ultimately overtake them, but that which seems, at first glance, vulnerable and weak? And isn’t this (I concluded triumphantly) what Jesus is all about?
Well, no. There are two problems with my line of thinking. First, an argument proceeding from smug triumphalism is already rotten at its core. Second, I don’t think it is primarily fear that Herod feels. Yes, the NRSVue uses the word frightened to describe Herod’s state, but other major translations go with disturbed (NIV) or troubled (KJV, NASB)—choices that make sense because the Greek verbal root used here denotes emotional or physical agitation.
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I’m sure the NRSVue translators had good reasons for going with frightened. Perhaps they wanted a word with more emotional resonance than troubled, which to the modern ear may sound stiff or even antiquated. Or maybe troubled was seen as unspecific, just as—to use a modern example—calling someone upset can mean many things. Good writing does call for specificity. Maybe the translators were aiming for good writing.
Still, we lose something when we go from troubled to frightened. I don’t think frightened is wrong. I simply want to point out that frightened narrows the emotional register to a single feeling, instead of capturing the range of emotions that might be stirred up in Herod when he hears the news. Maybe understanding Herod’s emotional state calls for a less specific and therefore more capacious word.
Because yes, Herod might be afraid. But maybe also irritated. And curious. Or furious. Maybe he feels, too, somewhere in the seat of his soul, a sense that his life is profoundly entangled with that which extends far beyond his sight, beyond the reach of his powers. Maybe, for a second or two, he feels something like an invitation, both vast and personal, to participate somehow in what is unfolding. And maybe it is this very confusion of reactions that he hates. Maybe his resulting bloodlust is little more than a cold, iron no to the ripple that went through all of reality when Christ was born—and to the uncomfortable and contradictory directions of his own heart.
Perhaps this imagining strains credulity. I’m not naive about who Herod was. By all accounts, biblical and otherwise, he could be staggeringly cruel. And yet every other time this verbal root appears in the synoptic gospels, it’s describing an unnerving holy encounter. The disciples are troubled when Jesus walks on water (Matt. 14:26; Mark 6:50). Zechariah is troubled by the appearance of an angel (Luke 1:12); in Luke’s resurrection narrative, Jesus askes the disciples, “Why are you troubled?” (24:38)
I’d argue that the Magi, too, are troubled. The fact that they don’t feel joy until the star stops at Jesus’ home suggests that their journey is something more complicated than an exercise in happy, faithful expectation. Maybe what drives them into a strange land, and into a treacherous political situation, is simply a willingness to be moved by that marvelous ripple, to let it stir the waters of their own souls, to say yes to an unsettling mystery—or, at the very least, not say no quite yet.
Epiphany celebrates the manifestation of Christ to all people—the way that, as the Ephesians reading puts it, “the gentiles have become fellow heirs, members of the same body, and sharers in the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.” Indeed the Magi are marvelous figures here; indeed we should celebrate their holy journey. But maybe we are not celebrating an unblinking and coherent confidence in the purpose of their journey. Maybe the road to what the epistle calls the “boundless riches of Christ” is not so well marked. Maybe what we are celebrating is the unsettled, even uneasy acquiescence to a holy troubling, a disturbance of the spirit that may make a person feel many things, fear included.
I, for one, would do well to consider, on this Epiphany, that this kind of troubling is a difficult and priceless invitation to all, even the most vicious of kings.
