That Day...

Luke 23:12 states:

That day Herod and Pilate became friends—before this they had been enemies. 

It wasn't that long ago, maybe within the past two or three years, when I was at a Wednesday evening Lenten service and heard this verse read from the lectern.  All the Gospel writers commented on this particular event of Christ being brought before Pilate, but only Luke mentioned this quite notable fact, and I know that it certainly caught my attention that evening, so much so I looked it up when I got home to see if I was missing something, because I had not been familiar with this verse prior to that evening. To understand my surprise, let me remind you a bit about  the lineage of Herod.

Whenever we see the name Herod in the Bible, we need to remember that there were five, all related:

Herod the Great--King of Judea from 37-4 BC, and thus the Herod present at the birth of Jesus

Herod Archelaus--Governor of Judea and Samaria 4 BC-6 AD, and the Herod who ordered the newborns killed

Herod Antipas--Tetrarch of Galilee from 4 BC-39 AD, and the executor of John the Baptist AND the Herod referred to in the verse above

Herod Agrippa I--King of Judea 37-44 AD, and executor of James and for all you Acts BSF participants, the Herod of Acts 12:21-23 that was struck down when he didn't deny that he was God

Herod Agrippa II--King of Judea, and Paul went before him at in Acts 25:13-26:32

That's a lot of Herods, but one thing is constant amongst all of them--all are puppet rulers of the Romans, who were the true rulers of Judea and the surrounding area after the conquest by Pompey in 63 BC. As such, not only did all of Israel despise the Romans, so did its rulers, since their control and authority had been usurped by Romans. Nobody likes to be told what to do in their own territory, and that's what the people of Israel had been under for the prior 90+ years, with about 70 of those years being overseen by some form of Herodic rule.

And yet, when Christ was involved, Herod was displeased enough to become friends with Pilate, become friends with the man who ruled over him and his country, became friends with the man who would allow him to do what he himself couldn't do, order the crucifixion of Christ. We can't say for certain, but this may have occurred because Herod didn't get from Christ what he wanted--a show, a miracle, something to amuse and divert him. As Luke 23:8-11 make clear, when Herod didn't get what he wanted, he decided to get rid of a rabble-rousing irritant instead--after all, what's the point of having a miracle man around if he won't perform miracles?

The old saying goes "The enemy of my enemy is my friend," and that applies in this particular case between Herod and Pilate. After Christ's death and resurrection, we hear no more about Pilate or this particular Herod. The uneasy relationship between Israel and Rome would worsen until Herod's temple, built in 20 BC, would be desecrated and destroyed in 70 AD. But, for a brief moment of detente, two enemies came together to rid themselves of a common enemy. It was God's will that Jesus die for our sins and be resurrected, but it took the leaders of two nations to get it done--God wasn't going to make it easy. But in the end, it served a purpose--it took both Jew AND Gentile to execute Christ, and when he was resurrected, it was for the salvation of both Jew and Gentile.

Scott