Herod doesn’t feature too much in today’s rather saccharine nativity plays. It’s not because his part in the birth narratives isn’t commemorated in the church until Holy Innocents Day (28 December in the Church of England) After all, schools and play groups performances are stuffed full of wise men (not til Epiphany on January 6th according to the liturgical purists). No, the figure of Herod has more or less consciously been photoshopped out of the picture.

Naturally in today’s cotton-wool culture we don’t want our school splashed over the internet (“Terrifying Nativity Slammed by Angry Mums”) Not like the Middle Ages Mystery Plays where Herod was booed and heckled like a pantomime villain and blood splashed the spectators.

According to St Matthew, when Herod discovers from the Wise Men that a king is to be born “he is afraid and all of Jerusalem with him”. It’s unsurprising that everyone would be afraid, since Herod dealt ruthlessly with all potential threats to his throne, killing his wife and two sons among many others. On this occasion, when he discovers the Wise Men have lived up to their name and not revealed the birthplace of the Messiah, Herod orders the killing of all the male children in Bethlehem under the age of two. Some modern scholars have questioned the veracity of Matthew’s account which seems too conveniently to parallel Moses’ escape from Pharaoh’s massacre and which goes unreported by Herod’s early non-Christian but decidedly hostile biographers. Others explain that silence by pointing out that given the population of Bethlehem at the time the number of male children killed may have been “only” 20 or so. Hardly worth a mention in the general unpleasantness of first century Palestine. But there are some Biblical scholars who also question the historic value of pretty well every other part of the nativity story: no, there is another reason why Herod doesn’t the cast list.

Herod represents oppressive State power. He stands for the naked power which the Christ child subverts and overcomes. In the Mystery Plays of the Middle Ages, he represents the unjust tyrant the people know all too well. Ironically my internet provider now has to keep a record of my internet search history till next December (Drone Strike Casualties for example).  And it is just possible that you have made a government watch list just by reading this blog: I think part of me secretly hopes so.

I sat in the comfort of my living room in front of a festive log fire and I watched the good news that British armaments will once again be under the Saudi Royal Family’s Christmas tree again, the better to fight their war in Yemen. I wondered what would Herod have done today. Call in a drone strike? Just the same as any of our leaders today, trying to “neutralize a potential threat”. In terms of modern “collateral damage” only 20 innocent casualties wouldn’t make the headlines today either.

The next nativity you watch, with it’s halting lines,  tripping angels and wandering donkeys, spare a thought for Herod. Perhaps we can’t bear to have Herod on the stage because he represents the secret of who we really have become.