The Tyrant, and the Child within

Our passage today from Matthew 2:13-23 is among the most disturbing in the Christian story. It speaks of raw unadulterated political power, terror, and the slaughter of innocent children. 

Interestingly, historically speaking, we have no independent evidence outside Matthew’s Gospel that King Herod ever ordered a massacre of children in Bethlehem. Ancient historians who describe Herod’s reign don’t mention it. But his reign was brutal, and the fact that he killed even his own sons to protect his own power shows he was entirely capable of carrying out such an atrocity. Even so, many scholars over time have also noticed that this story closely parallels an earlier story: the story of Pharaoh ordering the death of Hebrew infants, while the baby Moses is hidden and saved.

This strongly suggests that Matthew is not simply reporting an event, but telling history through what some scholars call ‘typology’. In other words the echoes of  an older story and an older sacred pattern is used to amplify a deeper truth in the story of Jesus. And so in Matthew’s hands, Jesus becomes the new Moses. Egypt becomes a place of refuge while on this occasion it is the land of Judea and it’s ruler that becomes the land of oppression. Once again, a tyrant fears and exterminates little children. And once again innocence is threatened by power.

And so many scholars today would say that this story is theologically true, even if it is not historically provable. It represents a universal pattern, not just an event. It tells the truth about how power reacts with ruthless cruelty towards the vulnerable and the innocent when it feels it is under threat.

Matthew is revealing how easily entrenched power and privilege is threatened if the only truth it knows is the truth of power and dominance.  He also reveals that when a truly alternative way of being human enters the world, empires of power respond with violence.  

And so firstly in this story, we can say that King Herod, is not merely a historical king. Herod is the embodiment of all fear-driven power: ego, paranoia, the ruthless need to control and dominate.

And we can recognise the spirit of Herod all too easily on the world stage.  We see it when civilians are bombed in the name of security. When children are killed as “collateral damage.” When terror is unleashed to protect ideology or territory or wounded pride. When the power of the state is misused and abused and innocent people become its victims. 

When we see such events unfolding on our TV screens in various places in the world, they express the same ancient pattern: fear defending itself through ruthless violence.

This is the truth that Matthew is telling us about the world. But the story is not just about events that occur outside of ourselves that we can point to in judgment somewhere else. The story also invites each of us to turn inward so see these patterns within ourselves. 

And this is where Jungian psychology and Voice Dialogue Therapy invite us to tread carefully, because it is always easier to point outward and say, ‘There is Herod’.  It is much harder to ask: Where does Herod, the fearful tyrant live in me?

According to Carl Jung, those things that we refuse to see in ourselves don’t simply disappear - they go underground and gain power. Voice Dialogue therapy puts it like this: Every voice within (and we all have multiple voices within) that we disown controls us from the shadows.

Both Carl Jung and Voice Dialogue Therapy would suggest that the tyrant Herod is an inner voice that lives inside each of us. He is the part of us that reacts when we feel threatened. The part that tightens, hardens, lashes out. The part of us that says, I must stay in control at all costs or I will not survive. He is the tyrant within,  desperate to stamp out the voices that leave us feeling threatened and vulnerable. 

And the inner Herod shows up in ordinary relationships: When criticism feels unbearable and we respond, lashing out with anger.  Herod appears when fear makes us manipulative or dismissive towards others. When we protect our ego rather than our integrity.  When we sacrifice compassion for the illusion of control and safety. 

Left unchecked, this inner Herod builds a fortress around the heart with weapons pointing outward always ready to attack.  

And I guess the question we are left with is this: How does this voice of Herod lose power within us and also outside of us in the world?  

As with so many things in life the answer to our inner healing (and the healing of the world) always begins with awareness: This is the surprising strategy for dealing with tyrants both of the outer and inner varieties.

Awareness does not say: Deny Herod exists. It says: Name him.  And in the light of such awareness the inner Herod already begins to lost his grip. It is like the story of the Emperor with no clothes… as a child names the truth about the Emperor’s nakedness so the Emperor begins to lose his power.   It begins with awareness and the willingness to name the Herod’s that live within us and indeed the Herod’s that live in our world. 

Identifying the Herod within, can begin when we can say to ourselves, “This is my fear speaking inside of me”, “This is my need for control”, “This is my inner Herod reacting”. And when we do this, the Herod within us already begins to lose his the grip on power. This is true also of outer tyrants. Behind every tyrant in this world fear is speaking, a deep seated need for control. But the more people can name tyranical behaviour for what it is, the more the Herod’s of this world will lose their grip on power. 

But awareness alone is not enough to loosen the power of the Herod within. Herod loses power within us not only when he is named, but also when other voices inside of us are strengthened. And especially the Christ voice within us, the voice of humility, of trust, integrity, and love.  These must be nurtured and given space to grow. Not dominance. Not suppression. But a wiser authority.

Secondly in the story there is the figure of Rachel: “A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.”

Rachel represents all innocent victims of history. But she also represents something within each of us us.  Rachel is the part of us that feels, the part that grieves, the part that knows pain and refuses cheap consolation.

If Herod builds walls and lashes out with violence, Rachel weeps. And here is a crucial truth:
Listening to Rachel is one of the strongest antidotes to Herod.

A colleague of mine in South Africa, Rev. Trevor Hudson, early on in his ministry asked a mentor what would help him grow to become a good minister. The mentor replied: ‘When you preach, always remember that there is a pool of tears next to every person sitting in the pews.’

That is not only pastorally true, it is psychologically true. When we attend to suffering, our own and others’, our hearts begin to soften. And softened hearts begin to break down the walls of protection and defensiveness that Herod builds.

And so Rachel in our story asks of each of us: What pool of tears do you sit beside today? What grief in the world are you tempted to ignore because it feels overwhelming?  What grief within yourself have you learned to silence?

Listening to Rachel, both out there in the world and in here, in our own hearts, keeps Herod from building defensive walls around our hearts and from ruling unchecked within us.

And finally in the story, there is the child. The Christ child does not confront Herod head-on.
He is hidden, protected, and taken into exile. Psychologically, this is the inner child of joy, truth, and tenderness, the most vulnerable part of us.

When fear dominates us, the inner child goes into hiding, creativity and playfulness dims within us, a sense of wonder retreats, and our love becomes cautious. But the story does not end in exile.  Herod dies.  Not through violence, but through time, truth, and the slow work of transformation.  And when fear loosens its grip, the child can return from Exile.

And as the inner Herod loses power, space opens for joy. For trust. For a more spacious way of being human.

And so this is not just a story about ancient cruelty alone. It is a mirror held up both to history, and to the soul.

And it asks us, gently but firmly:
Which voice will rule our hearts? The voice of Herod? Or the Voice of the Holy Child of Inocence and Joy?
Which child will we protect?
And which tears are we ready to hear?

Amen.

The Leap of Joy - Luke 1:39–45

The lighting of the Advent Candles invites us on a journey. We begin with Hope - a candle lit in the growing darkness of winter. We move into Peace - the place where stillness begins to steady us. And today we arrive at Joy - not the loud, glittering joy that often fills December, but the quiet, deep joy that rises from within us when life begins to stir in unexpected places, and unexpected ways.

Our passage today from Luke 1:39-45 is a story of two women, Mary and Elizabeth. Two women who live on the margins of their society. Two women holding mysteries within their bodies. Two women whose meeting becomes one of the great moments of joy in the entire biblical story.

And this morning, I want to reflect on the three invitations this story gives us on this Third Sunday of Advent, the Sunday of Joy.

1. Firstly Joy in Friendship and Relationship

Luke tells us that “Mary got up and hurried to the hill country” to visit her cousin Elizabeth. She has just received the most bewildering news of her life.  She is young, unmarried, vulnerable, and suddenly carrying a story too big for words.

And where does she go? She goes to someone she trusts. Someone whose wisdom and presence can hold her uncertainty. Someone who understands what it feels like to carry a strange new life within her. She goes to Elizabeth.

This is one of the key places where joy begins, in relationship, in the human connections that see us, steady us, and strengthen what is emerging within us.

I have always been moved by a saying from the Buddha that fits this passage perfectly. Ananda, his cousin and attendant asks a question: Is friendship half the spiritual life?, to which the great sage answers:  “Spiritual friendship is not half the spiritual life, it is the whole of the spiritual life.”

At this junction in their lives, Mary needed Elizabeth, and Elizabeth needed Mary, and joy grew between them in their togetherness.

This is true for us as well.

In our world, and especially in our part of the world, loneliness is an epidemic. Northern Ireland has some of the highest levels of isolation and emotional distress in the UK, and tragically, our suicide rates reflect that, particularly among men who for a variety of reasons don’t open up or form deep relationships quite as easily as most women do. So many carry their burdens alone. So many have no Elizabeth to go to, no one to speak their truth to, no one who brings out their deepest and best self.

The Visitation reminds us that joy is rarely found in solitude. It is found when we share the journey together, when we dare to reach out, when we dare to be vulnerable, when we allow others into the sacred spaces of our lives. Joy is born when one soul recognises another. This is what happens in that little hill-country home. Two women recognise each other’s sacredness. And joy begins to rise. 

2. Listening to the Leap of Joy Within Us

The second invitation of the passage is deeper and perhaps more mysterious. When Mary greets Elizabeth, Luke tells us that “the child leaped in her womb.” Elizabeth feels it instantly, a surge of recognition, a moment of inner clarity, a pulse of joy.

We may not carry children in the literal sense, but we all have a metaphorical child that still lives within us, something within us that leaps when truth comes close; a stirring of the heart; an inner yes; a quiet movement of joy or resonance; a flash of recognition that says to us: ‘Pay attention. Something sacred is happening here.’

Most of us have experienced this inner leap at some point.  Sometimes it comes as a sudden warmth, a feeling of rightness. Sometimes it comes as excitement, surprise, or a sense of possibility.
Sometimes it’s a pull toward someone, or a nudge toward a path we’re meant to walk.
Sometimes it’s simply the feeling that this moment matters, something significant is happening. 

Advent invites us to listen to that leap, to trust that inner movement of joy, because joy is not always loud. Joy is sometimes the quietest of inner shifts. It lives in the deep places of our hearts, waiting to be noticed.

Mary’s arrival awakened something in Elizabeth that she had not yet recognised. Sometimes another person awakens joy in us. Sometimes it may be a line in a poem, or a conversation, a piece of music, a memory, a moment of silence and inner stillness. 

If we are open and aware, we might discover that our inner life is full of these movements, tiny leaps of awakening, small signs of life, inviting  us to move in the direction of love and joy.  But we must learn to listen.

And so one of the deep truths of this story is this: Joy is not something we manufacture, it is something we notice. Joy is something we welcome when we feel it leap.

And Advent, this season of waiting, watching, and listening, is the perfect time to pay attention to the movements of life, joy and love within us.

What is leaping within you today? What desire? What hope? What stirring toward something new?

Elizabeth felt the leap of joy, and she knew Life (with a capital L) was speaking to her. May we have the same courage to listen when God, the Divine, The Greater Life whispers joy into our hearts. 

3. Joy Overflows in Blessings

The third movement in the story is simple but profound.  Elizabeth feels the leap of joy, and immediately she begins to bless Mary.

“Blessed are you among women.”
“Blessed is the fruit of your womb.”
“Blessed is she who believed.”

Joy in this story is not a private experience. It spills outward. It becomes blessing. It becomes affirmation. It overflows into encouragement.

This is the heart of spiritual companionship. Elizabeth doesn’t just receive her own joy, she recognises joy in Mary. She speaks words that strengthen Mary, words that confirm Mary’s calling, words that help Mary stand tall and strong in a moment of confusion.  This is what blessing is: seeing the sacred in others and naming it out loud.

At important moments in our lives, all of us need someone who speaks blessing into our lives, someone who sees our goodness, who honours our courage, someone who encourages the life growing within us.  All of us need someone like Elizabeth. 

And sometimes, just as importantly, we are called to be that Elizabeth for someone else: To listen deeply, to affirm gently, to bless generously, to help others hear the truth of who they are, to bring out the best in them when they are unsure, afraid, or carrying something fragile.

Blessing does not need to be grandiose. It is often as simple as saying:
“I see you.”
“You matter.”
“You are doing better than you think.”
“There is goodness in you.”
“What you feel is real.”
“You’re not alone.”

These are words that create joy, words that create courage, words that create life. And Elizabeth’s blessing of Mary causes joy to overflow in Mary as she bursts forth in the song, as she sings the Magnificat, ‘Tell out my soul, the Greatness of the Lord’ as it is expressed in our opening hymn today. 

And that is how joy always works. Joy awakens joy. Blessing creates blessing. Courage calls forth courage.

And so, as we continue our journey on this Third Sunday of Advent, the Sunday of Joy, our passage today reminds us that we all need an Elizabeth and we are all called to be one for others.  

We all need someone in our lives we can turn to, someone who steadies our hearts, someone who blesses us and who brings out the best in us.

And sometimes, perhaps today, perhaps this week, we are invited to become Elizabeth for someone else, to be that safe place, that encouraging voice, that blessing presence, for a person who is anxious or confused or standing nervously on the edge of something new unfolding in their lives. .

Joy is born in these shared spaces, in these moments when one soul recognises another.

This is the heart of Advent joy, not the joy of noise and spectacle, but the joy that awakens when we meet each other with love, listen to the leap within us, and speak blessing into the world. Amen. 

​The Wisdom of Pondering   Luke 1:26–38

There’s a line many of us know from the Beatles song Let It Be:  “When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me, speaking words of wisdom, let it be.”

Whether intentionally or not, it is a song that echoes the deep wisdom of the story of the Annunciation. In a moment of disruption, confusion, and fear, Mary becomes a voice of stillness in the midst of life’s turbulence. She becomes a picture of the soul that can pause, reflect, ponder… and eventually say, “Let it be.”

Today I’d like to explore this story from Luke through the lens of three simple words or phrases:
Ponder… Virgin… Let it Be.   But first, a brief word about the story itself.

The Annunciation is for many a literal historical event. But throughout Christian history there have also been those spiritual writers, mystics, contemplatives who have said that the deepest truth of this story lies in its symbolism. That it is not only the story of something that happened once, but the story of something that happens in us again and again.

The meeting of Mary and Gabriel can be read as a picture of the soul encountering mystery. Mary becomes a symbol of the receptive, open, gentle inner spirit within each of us. Gabriel becomes the voice of divine wisdom that still speaks within the depths of the human heart. And the conception of Christ becomes an image of divine love, divine wisdom, divine compassion taking “flesh” within us.  And so we read the story not only for what it says about Mary, but for the way it reveals dimensions of the spiritual journey, the journey of the soul awakening to love.

And that leads us to our first word today.

1. Ponder:  Luke tells us that when the angel appeared to Mary, “She was deeply troubled and pondered what kind of greeting this might be.”

That word ponder  is worth pausing on.

We live in a culture that no longer knows how to ponder.  Our lives are filled, saturated, with noise, stimulation, scrolling, notifications, busyness, the radio or tv on constantly in the background.
For many today, the moment there is silence, we instinctively grab for the phone… as Wendy and I were reminded about two weeks ago when our mobile network went down. For four or five days there was hardly any signal at all, and for the first three days we kept reflexively checking. It was astonishing how compulsive the checking felt. But then something else happened: after three days, slowly, we both began to relax into the quiet that opened up. Space to breathe.  Space to think. Space to feel. Space… to ponder.

Pondering is the art of giving something enough room in our minds and hearts for clarity to arise.
It is different from worrying. It is different from obsessing To ponder is to hold something gently in awareness, not forcing a solution, not rushing to an answer, but letting it settle.

This is where the Tao Te Ching gives us a powerful and vivid image.
It asks:
“Can you wait until the mud settles and the water becomes clear?
 Can you remain unmoving till the right action arises by itself?”

Whether or not the words “pond” and “ponder” are etymologically linked, the image is beautifully appropriate.  A pond becomes clear not by stirring it, but by letting it be still.

When we ponder, we become like that pond.  All the sediment of fear, anxiety, ego-stories, old hurts, agitation, slowly begins to sink.  And then the inner water becomes clear.

This is what Mary does. Before she speaks, she ponders. Before she responds, she reflects. She gives space for wisdom to rise.

And so the story invites us into the same practice. To create interior space. To stop filling every moment. To let some silence return. To let our souls unclench.

Without pondering, nothing new can be conceived in us. Which leads to our second word.

2. Virgin:   Mary responds to Gabriel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?”

The word virgin is overflowing with symbolic meaning. Beyond the physical meaning, the tradition has always recognised a spiritual dimension.  At the deepest level, virginity represents the untouched, unspoiled, original purity at the centre of every human soul, untouched by the ego’s calculation, cynicism, or bitterness.  It is that inner place of innocence, not childish naïveté, but the pure awareness beneath our fears, ego-stories, conditioning, and wounds.

Jesus said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” And many contemplative teachers have suggested that this purity of heart is nothing other than the clarity of consciousness when the mud has settled.

It is the untainted core of our being, the place where love already exists, even when we feel we have lost it. The place to which the spiritual journey returns us.

Interestingly, we also use the word virgin to describe things in nature that are untouched by human interference:  a virgin forest,  a landscape unspoiled, a space where life can flourish freely.

In this symbolic sense, Mary the Virgin represents the inner sanctuary where love can be conceived;
that quiet, open, receptive part of us that listens deeply, that is capable of hearing the whisper of Spirit, that does not grasp or force but receives.

Love is always conceived in that inner virgin space: the space made clear through pondering,
the space made still enough for something new to arise.

And what arises next is the third phrase.

3. Let It Be

Mary’s final response to the angel is: “Let it be unto me according to your word.”

This is the wisdom of surrender. Not a passive resignation, not giving up, but a deep, trusting openness to the movement of God within.  It is the same wisdom the Beatles sang, 
perhaps unintentionally echoing Mary’s spirit:  “Speaking words of wisdom, let it be.”

Letting be is the natural companion of pondering. When we ponder, we create space. When we let be, we trust that clarity will come in its own time. We stop forcing solutions. We stop demanding immediate certainty. We stop fratically trying to push the river.

In the contemplative tradition, this “letting be” is essential.  Insight cannot be manufactured, it arises when conditions are right.  Compassion cannot be forced, it grows naturally in a softened heart. Love cannot be commanded, it springs up when fear relaxes its grip.

Neale Donald Walsch writes that there are only two basic energies in life: fear and love.
And Mary’s “Let it be” is the movement out of fear into love. “Do not be afraid,” Gabriel says, 
because only when the grip of fear loosens can love emerge. As the first letter of John reminds us, Perfect Love drives out all fear. 

Letting be means trusting the deeper wisdom within us. Trusting that God, the Divine, is at work even when we cannot see how. Trusting that something holy is being formed in the quiet places of our hearts.

This is how Christ is conceived within us: in pondering, in purity of heart, in letting be.

I’d like to share with you now two stories that perhaps give flesh to these insights today: 

The first is the story of Thomas Merton: 

Thomas Merton, the Trappist monk and writer, lived for years in silence and contemplation at the Abbey of Gethsemani. Much of his early monastic life was spent wrestling with questions of identity, purpose, and the tension between solitude and human solidarity.

One afternoon, after years of pondering, waiting, and letting the inner mud settle, he was given permission to go into Louisville for an appointment. Standing at a busy street corner, surrounded by shoppers, he suddenly experienced a profound moment of clarity.

His journal describes it this way:  “I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people… There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.”

That insight didn’t come from effort, analysis, or theological argument. It came after years of inner stillness, years of letting God soften and re-form him. When the mud settled, the water became clear, and he saw the divine presence in everyone around him.

He later said that moment changed the direction of his life.  It opened him to a more compassionate, outward-facing spirituality.

And secondly the story of Einstein and his quiet hour. 

Albert Einstein often said his breakthroughs didn’t come while working, but while walking, daydreaming, or simply sitting in silence.

He kept what he called an “hour of thought” every day. No papers, no equations, no distractions.
Just quiet sitting. Letting the problem rest. Letting the “mud settle.”

The breakthrough insight that led to his Theory of Special Relativity did not come during intense calculation, but rather it came when Einstein was daydreaming about what it would be like to ride on a beam of light.

Einstein’s greatest ideas emerged not from frantic activity, but from deep pondering, spacious awareness, and interior quiet.

And so the Annunciation becomes not only Mary’s story, but our story.  A story of how the divine meets the human heart. Of how wisdom speaks within us. Of how something new, something Christlike, can be conceived in our inner depths.

When we ponder, we give the waters time to clear.
When we honour the virgin space within, we return to our original purity and openness.
And when we say “Let it be,” we open ourselves to the gentle unfolding of divine love.

This Advent, perhaps the invitation is simple: Make space. Be still. Let fear soften. Let love arise.
Let it be.

Amen.