King of the Nations
Sunday 21 December 20254th Sunday of Advent, 4.30pm Choral Evensong
The Very Revd Nicholas Papadopulos, Dean of Salisbury
‘King of the Nations’
1 Samuel 1: 1–20
Revelation 22: 6–end
If the Nativity story was a pantomime, then King Herod would surely be the villain. He is frightened by the wise men’s news of a baby, born king of the Jews . He orders the massacre of all local children aged two years and under. He forces Joseph and his young family into exile. If the Nativity story was a pantomime, then the audience would boo and hiss at Herod’s every entrance and every exit, and they would be right to do so.
The palace that Herod built outside Bethlehem gives the visitor a glimpse of his character. It bears witness to a man who was – shall we say – not exactly consumed by self-doubt. Known as the Herodion, the palace is built into a mountain that Herod constructed solely for that purpose. Think Silbury Hill, but on a massive scale – it towers over the desert plain that surrounds it. At its foot is a huge, arcaded lake fed by aqueducts; atop it is the palace complex, with frescoed banqueting halls and a Roman bath. When Herod died he was buried here, the whole of his realm spread out beneath his mausoleum. It stands as a colossal monument to one man’s colossal ego and to the combined power of force and fear that the kings of his era wielded. Visiting it, St Matthew’s story of the massacre seems very plausible indeed.
The Herodion is located in the occupied West Bank, but is administered by Israel’s Nature and Parks Authority. The car and coach park is located four-fifths of the way up the mountain. When I last visited, in March 2024, my wife and I took a Palestinian taxi to the site, from Bethlehem. Our driver was Saba, a young Muslim man. We were barely halfway up to the car park when our way was barred by a huge metal security gate.
The Israeli security guard left his kiosk and came to speak to my wife and I. ‘You two can walk up’ he said. ‘He’, gesturing at Saba, ‘can’t come any further’. A look of resignation spread across Saba’s face. It was not the first time that this had happened. Access to the site for Palestinians and their vehicles is at the discretion of the guard. Saba remonstrated with him and offered to drive us up, drop us off, and then return. But the guard was adamant. He could go no further.
‘In which case’ we said, ‘none of us will go. We’ll leave now’. But Saba insisted that we should stay. ‘It’s fine’ he said, ‘I’ll stay here; I’ll say my prayers; you take as long as you want’. And with our hearts burning within us, we did just that. From the top of the mountain we could see him spread his prayer mat in the dirt and complete his afternoon devotion.
All the Advent antiphons, sung before and after the Magnificat in these last days of the season, are prayers of longing. All the Advent antiphons culminate in the invitation ‘Come’. And while all the Advent antiphons are addressed to Christ, they are addressed to a Christ who remains unnamed. Instead, titles derived from Hebrew Scripture are ascribed to him. In tonight’s antiphon, the sixth, the title is one that would have made King Herod salivate:
‘O King of the nations, and their desire,
the cornerstone making both one:
Come and save the human race,
which you fashioned from clay’.
King Herod’s stately pleasure-dome is a monument to the power of force and fear. To this day, out of fear, it exercises force against its local population. King Herod’s Roman overlords ordered their subjects to return to the cities of their birth, for where they were born and to whom they were born mattered – and at the Herodion, they still do. There was no room for Saba in this portion of the land in which he had lived all his life. So he sat in his car, looking across to the little town where, when there was no room in the inn, a space was found in the stable.
The sixth antiphon gives voice to our longing for a king of the nations, of all the nations. Whatever we believe or don’t believe, we know that everything is not well with us. We know that power in our world, as in Herod’s, too often consists of fear and force, and we know too that fear and force constitute a toxic and dangerous mix. Our hearts yearn for something better.
From the clay of the Judean plain Herod fashioned a monument to his own overweening vanity. From the clay of the Judean plain God fashioned men and women and chose in Christ to live as one of them. The stone ramparts of Herod’s ancient palace repelled the invader. The cornerstone that is Christ brings together what is divided and holds it in unity. After Herod’s death his Roman masters divided his kingdom into four and shared it among his children. After Christ’s death and resurrection he ascended into heaven there to reign as lord of lords and king of kings.
It’s Christ for whom we long. The king of the nations, and our desire. Come, Lord Jesus.
Let us pray:
Come, King of the Nations,
free us from the tyranny of fear,
which hardens our hearts.
Free us from the tyranny of force,
which destroys the innocent.
Enlarge our hearts, that we may weep with all who suffer at the hands of fear and force,
among them, this week, our Jewish brothers and sisters in Sydney and worldwide.
Come King of the Nations, come and save the human race
which you fashioned from clay.