Matthew the Evangelist begins his account of Jesus’ life with these words: “Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king.”

This season I’ve been mulling over that phrase, “the days of Herod the king.” It prompts the question: who was Herod? Short answer: a nasty piece of work.

After Rome conquered Palestine, they installed a puppet king—Herod the Great. In order to put down resistance to his rule, he employed widespread slaughter and a brutal siege of Jerusalem, what first-century historian Josephus called “wholesale massacre.” Having consolidated power, Herod was titled “King of the Jews.”

As Marcus Borg and Dominic Crossan observe, he “eliminated the old elites of wealth and power and replaced them with new elites who owed their position to him.”

Herod exploited the people with harsh tax policies that funded his colossal building projects and a life of extravagant luxury. Opulent estates multiplied. So did desperate peasant poverty. He lavished gifts on Imperial officials and funneled Jewish wealth to Rome. 

Herod governed with extraordinary brutality and violence. He ruthlessly repressed Jewish freedom movements. Threatened by the prospect of a rival king, Matthew 2:16-18 reports he ordered the slaughter of Bethlehem’s young boys. He named and fired at whim the High Priest of the Temple, many of them greedy and predatory, who managed the Temple for personal gain.

Herod was so savagely cruel, Emperor Augustus joked, that it was better to be Herod’s pig than his son, because, being Jewish, he couldn’t kill pigs. His subjects dubbed him ‘Herod the Monstrous.’ To maintain power, Richard Horsley says, “Herod instituted what today would be called a police state, complete with loyalty oaths, surveillance, informers, secret police, imprisonment, torture and brutal retaliation against any serious dissent.”

Does any of this sound familiar?

For those of us who loathe Trump, MAGA, and Project 2025, it’s been a tough year. He’s made America grotesque, not great. Countless lives shattered. Institutions mown down. Critics browbeaten and silenced 

The list of awfuls is long. Trade wrecked by tariffs. Vital civil servants sacked. Immigrants disappeared without due process. Medical research gutted. Green energy initiatives terminated. Independent agencies stripped of power. Tax cuts for the one-percent cut. Anti-poverty safety nets slashed. Autocratic world leaders coddled. DEI programs attacked. Trans people demonized. Universities, law firms, and journalists targeted. International humanitarian aid halted. The Department of Education dismantled. The Department of Justice weaponized. Public office monetized for personal enrichment. Armed troops planted on American streets.

Yeah. It’s been a tough year.

But I take heart in this: so was the time of Jesus. 

“Herod’s legacy of terror and exploitation,” Obery Hendricks observes, was the “dangerously volatile setting into which Jesus was born.” And more to the point: “the purpose of Jesus’ ministry, in great measure, was to alleviate the suffering, hopelessness, and diminished life chances that Herod’s reign had made so much worse for the people of Israel.”

As Madeleine L’Engle expresses in her Advent poem First Coming: check poem

He did not wait for the perfect time.
He came when the need was deep and great.

To that hurting world the angels shout God’s blessing: “Peace on earth and loving mercy towards all people”. To that aching world Jesus preached good news to the poor, healing to the brokenhearted, release to the captives, sight to the blind see, and freedom to the downtrodden. In a world of vicious cruelty, Jesus embodied God’s kindness and grace.

So what are those of us who follow Jesus to do in the stormy days of Donald—the aspiring king?

Canadian musician Ali Matthew offers an answer:

Finding the lost, feeding the hungry,
the motherless child without a prayer.
Ending the wars, calming the angry,
and soothing the souls in despair.
When we can love a world that’s broken apart,
that’s when Christmas will start.