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Near the start of my ministry, I was very fortunate to receive a scholarship to study for 10 days in Israel with St. George’s College, Jerusalem. The course I did was “The Palestine of Jesus”, and one of the first places we went to see was Bethlehem.
Before we got there, we stopped at Herodium, Herod’s Palace at the time. It was kind of like his retreat home really. There would have been a pool and a theater, which in his time meant more broadway and less flat screen tv. It was also very well positioned on a hill about halfway between Jerusalem and Bethlehem, giving a lot of room to observe anyone, really any army, from miles and miles.
You can’t really see the full grandeur of the place anymore though. It is a ruin. In truth, it’s really an archaeological dig.
On the other hand, the cave in Bethlehem where Jesus was born doesn’t look like a cave anymore. So much of it is encrusted with silver and other precious metals and gems. In fact, while I was there, the place was doing through renovation so it would stay beautiful for worshipers for years to come.
While we were at Herodium, our leader and guide told us why he wanted us to see it and compare it with the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. The words he told us have stayed with me. He said that “the power of God is found in the village, not in the palace.”
That is the truth that both the Wise Men and Joseph came to discover. The Wise Men originally sought Herod believing that the palace was the place to find the king of Israel. They learned from their later visions that it was not. After seeing Jesus, they were able to make such a deep connection with the Lord that they were warned by an angel not to return to Herod. That action was a factor in saving the young Christ Child’s life.
Joseph’s dream helped as well. It was from his own encounter with God that Joseph too learned the truth. The palace is not where God was to be found. God’s power instead was to be found with the tiny, insignificant child in his care. That is why even after Herod the Great’s death, Joseph was cautious when it came to living close to the modern royalty.
We would do well to learn the same as the Wise Men and Joseph did. True power is not found out there in the world where we often look for it. As Paul says in 2 Corinthians 12:9, the power of God “is made perfect in weakness.”
Don’t follow after worldly power or even the ways of the world itself. That is where moth and rust consume, as Jesus Himself tells us. Instead, follow that power the Wise Men found in a tiny town in an insignificant corner of the world and Roman Empire. It may be a power that seems weak and insignificant, yet it is the only power that will last.