Sunday, November 30, 2025: "Hope in a Fearful World: In the Days of King Herod"
The First United Presbyterian Church
“Hope in a Fearful World: In the Days of King Herod”
Rev. Amy Morgan
November 30, 2025
Lamentations 3:55-57
I called on your name, O Lord,
from the depths of the pit;
you heard my plea, “Do not close your ear
to my cry for help, but give me relief!”
You came near when I called on you;
you said, “Do not fear!”
Luke 1:5-13
In the days of King Herod of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah, who belonged to the priestly order of Abijah. His wife was descended from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. Both of them were righteous before God, living blamelessly according to all the commandments and regulations of the Lord. But they had no children because Elizabeth was barren, and both were getting on in years.
Once when he was serving as priest before God during his section’s turn of duty, he was chosen by lot, according to the custom of the priesthood, to enter the sanctuary of the Lord to offer incense. Now at the time of the incense offering, the whole assembly of the people was praying outside. Then there appeared to him an angel of the Lord, standing at the right side of the altar of incense. When Zechariah saw him, he was terrified, and fear overwhelmed him. But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will name him John.“
In the days of King Herod of Judea…” This is, for the gospels of Luke and Matthew, their “Once upon a time,” or, perhaps more accurately, “It was a dark and stormy night.” This phrase sets the scene for the gospel of Jesus Christ, the good news of God’s Messiah coming into the world. It sets the scene in the reign of a despotic tyrant, known for glamorous building projects constructed on the backs of his people through oppressive taxes so he could curry favor with Roman elites. He executed at least one of his wives and three of his own sons, along with numerous opponents, real and suspected. He had a personal guard of over 2000 men and a secret police squad that would sniff out insurrectionists and have them swiftly dealt with.
“In the days of King Herod,” fear is rampant, and hope is in short supply. People feel powerless as they watch their hard-earned wages passed up the ladder to the super wealthy, as they watch their faith leaders either bow to a perversion of their religion or be silenced, as they watch brutality and violence come to define politics. People are afraid – for their livelihoods, for their children’s future, for their very lives.
“In the days of King Herod” is a very evocative setting for a gospel narrative. What better place for good news to arrive than in the midst of a time saturated with very bad news?
Living in these days of King Herod is a priest named Zechariah. Now, the priests of Israel had their own set of complaints against Herod that had nothing to do with taxes or brutality. Herod had embarked on a massive capital improvement project for the temple in Jerusalem. It was expanded and embellished with gold and precious stones. Which should have pleased the priests. However, in a nod to the Roman emperor who kept Herod in power, he also added a golden eagle over the main gate, an offense to the Jews because of the idolatry it demonstrated and the Roman influence it exhibited. At one point, a group of two dozen students and their teacher attempted to remove the idol. Herod’s response was to have them all burned alive.
“In the days of King Herod,” being a religious leader involved a careful dance between faithfulness to God and saving your neck.
But this was not the only thing troubling old Zechariah. He and his wife, Elizabeth, were childless. In the first-century Jewish worldview, barrenness was interpreted as punishment from God, but Luke makes it abundantly clear that Zechariah and Elizabeth had done nothing to deserve this. Both of them were righteous before God, living blamelessly according to all the commandments and regulations of the Lord.
In a way, this makes the situation even more hopeless. If they’d done something wrong, if there were some sin to atone for, perhaps repentance or penance or sacrifice could convince God to forgive them and bless them with children. At the very least, there would be a reason, some logical place to put this grief and longing.
But Zechariah shuffles into the temple, as he’s done so many times before, shoulders curved with the weight of his years, the weight of his people’s troubles, the weight of his own broken heart.
I want to stop here and point out what is truly remarkable in this moment. Here is a man who is doing everything God asks of him. Every moment of every day, he is doing all the right things. He is praying, serving, giving.
And, in return, God has given him nothing. Not wealth or power. Not fame or privilege. Not even a child to carry on his name.
And yet. He continues to be faithful to God, faithful to his calling, faithful to his community. He keeps praying to a God who doesn’t answer. He keeps serving a God who doesn’t reward him. He keeps hoping in a God who has failed to deliver.
And friends, this is what hope looks like in a time of fear. “In the days of King Herod,” in his childless old age, Zechariah puts one foot in front of the other and says his prayers and makes his offerings and burns the incense, not because God has been so good to him or to his people, but because in times like these, hope is the most powerful tool of resistance there is.
Hope is the most powerful tool of resistance. Hope is all Zechariah has, but it is all that he needs to resist Herod’s reign of sacrilegious terror, to resist the voices whispering conjecture about what he must have done to deserve this, to resist the despair that threatens every moment to overwhelm him. Hope is the most powerful tool of resistance because hope testifies that fear does not ultimately win.
It is not a blind hope that fuels Zechariah. It is not a hope that depends on certain outcomes. It is not a hope that expects God to fulfill our wishes and dreams and demands a miracle. It is a hope that keeps showing up, that keeps going, that walks through dark tunnels of longing and heartbreak without a glimmer of light in sight. But it is a hope that still believes light exists, that light is possible.
And so it is into this hope that an angel appears to Zechariah. And he is shocked. It’s as though he’s been sitting in a dark room for years and someone suddenly flicks on the light switch. But when his sight adjusts to the brightness, what he sees truly terrifies him, and a deeper fear starts to set in.
There are two words used here that indicate different kinds of fear. At first, Zechariah is terrified, a word that, in Greek, indicates that sudden, jump-scare kind of fear. But then fear overwhelms him. It’s the word from which we get the English word phobia. It’s a lasting and deep-seated fear. And it is this fear that the angel rebukes. It’s fine for Zechariah to be shocked. But he can’t let fear take over, he can’t let it define him, he can’t let it diminish his incredible hope.
God has heard Zechariah’s prayer. That’s the first assurance he receives, and perhaps the one that matters most. God hasn’t been ignoring him. God is deaf to his cries and pleas. God isn’t a figment of his imagination. God is real. God is listening. God hears him.
But God’s answer isn’t, “you will have exactly the son you’d hoped for, named after you and following you into the priesthood, living in a time of peace and prosperity.” No, God’s answer is, “you will have a son, and you will name him John.” In Hebrew, the name John means “God is gracious.” This son will be named for the gift, the grace, that he is. His name will be a reminder that God is giving, regardless of our deserving.
This is an especially powerful message “in the days of King Herod,” in days defined by revenge and retribution, of patronage and bribery. The name John, the very idea of God’s graciousness, is resistance bordering on rebellion.
And this son of Zechariah’s will not be a priest like his father. He will instead be a prophet. A prophet who will prepare the way for God’s Messiah, but who will also be executed for speaking truth to power. This is likely not the life Zechariah imagined for his heir. God heard Zechariah’s prayers and longing, but God’s answer was a child who would fulfill God’s plans for the salvation of the world, not Zechariah’s plans for a happy family and lineage.
Hope “in the days of King Herod,” hope in a time of fear, is not hope that everything will turn out as we planned. It is hope that everything will turn out as God planned.
It is not difficult to find connections between “the days of King Herod” and the days we are currently living in, though I would caution us to not draw the parallels too directly. There are powers and authorities in the civic, corporate, and institutional spheres of our world that oppress the poor to enrich the wealthy, that profane what is sacred, that maintain their grip on power through brutality and violence. Each of us may have a different Herod in mind, but each of us can name at least one of these figures, these people or entities that make us feel powerless, powerless as we watch our hard-earned wages passed up the ladder to the super wealthy, as we watch our faith leaders either bow to a perversion of our religion or be silenced, as we watch brutality and violence come to define politics. Fear is rampant, and hope is in short supply.
Which makes today the perfect time and place for good news to arrive, this time saturated with very bad news.
The good news that has arrived, is arriving still, and will someday arrive fully, is that everything will turn out as God planned. This plan was inaugurated in the birth, life and ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This plan continues through all of us who, like old Zechariah, live with hope in fear-filled days. This plan will be complete on the day when God makes all things new.
Until then, it is up to you and me, and all of us who are called and equipped to live in hope, to keep putting one foot in front of the other and saying our prayers and living as faithfully as we can, not because God has been so good to us or to our people, but because in times like these, hope is the most powerful tool of resistance there is. If we fail in hope, if we fail to believe light is possible in the darkest, most fearful times, then we succumb to those powers that oppress, destroy, and debase us. That is why the angel warns Zechariah, and why that refrain echoes throughout the scriptures, “do not fear.” Yes, we may be shocked, surprised, even shaken to our core. Terrifying things may happen. But we cannot let that fear seep into our psyche to the point where we become phobic, permanently dwelling in fear.
Hope is all that we have, and it is all that we need, to resist whatever people or powers are darkening these days. Hope is our resistance. It is our power. It is God’s gift to us in times of fear. May we use it wisely and well.
To God be all glory forever and ever. Amen.
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