A Rude Epiphany
It might have been almost poetic if it weren't so horrifying. An attack on the seat of our government took place on the Feast of the Epiphany, the day we remember sages from a distant land journeying to see a little kid who would one day be known as the Prince of Peace. When the Magi told King Herod about it all, though, the paranoid ruler saw the child as a prince of a very different sort, as a threat to himself. The notion that Jesus intended to overthrow the Roman Empire and with it Herod's tetrarchy was fake news that led to violence. The tyrant imagined a danger, believed his own imagination, and sent his men on a rampage that ended in deaths. Herod was not in danger, and his hangers-on were not being oppressed (at least not by the child and his family). They feared losing power, and that fear is also what motivated the rioters of January 6, 2021. They were largely folks who felt that letting other folks have more rights would diminish their own hegemony, though they wou