I'm glad to have this opportunity to be here. I haven't addressed a group like this for years. Centuries, really. Perhaps I should introduce myself: I'm Herod. Historians call me "Herod the Great" -- as opposed to Herod the Lesser, I suppose. There were plenty of lesser Herods -- my sons and grandsons. But I alone was the great Herod. There was a time when I would have liked that title. I worked hard to be a great king.

You probably wonder what I'm doing here. Feels a little odd to me, too; more uncomfortable than I thought it would be. They warned me of that. But I've been begging for an opportunity like this for years, so you'll have to bear with me. I'm not about to leave before I've said some things to you.

Where I come from it's part of our sentence that we get exactly what we wanted most in our earthly lives. I wanted fame, to be remembered, to be thought great. I got what I wanted, and now I'm condemned to having my nose rubbed in it forever. They can arrange things like this, you know. Somehow, every time a historian writes "Herod the Great" I feel as though he's inscribing it on my chest; every time a minister reads from Matthew 2, I feel as though she's shouting in my ears; every time some snot-nose kid in a second-rate Christmas pageant, wearing his dad's old bathrobe and a cardboard crown, tries to look as mean as he can, I'm forced to watch the sorry scene. (Last year in a Baptist church in Memphis, some third grader pompously announced he was "Harold the Grape"! What's that make me? An old raisin?) I'm forced to experience it all. And believe me, fame isn't what I'd thought it would be. I got everything I wanted, mind you, but nothing of what I needed. That's beside the point, though.

I'm here because they finally gave in, as they always do. As I said, they give you what you want. No doubt this too will somehow hurt. But it will be worth it if I can just once set the record straight, just once give my side of the story.

No, I'm not going to deny that I did some pretty unpleasant stuff. Being king is a rough business, especially in the situation I was in.

My father was appointed procurator of Judea by Julius Caesar in 47 B.C. (according to your calendar), and he in turn appointed me military prefect of Galilee. It was a chance to make a name for myself. I did my job with the sort of efficiency and dedication the Romans love, so I somehow survived the upheaval in Rome when Caesar was assassinated. I kissed up to Antony, the new emperor, and by 40 B.C. I was declared "King of the Jews" by the Roman senate.

The Jews didn't think much of me because I was only partly Jewish. The Romans, on the other hand, were suspicious of me because I was partly Jewish. Tough position to be in, let me tell you. To survive, to have the power necessary to rule that unruly backwater of the Empire, I needed to consolidate my position. And it wasn't easy. If I wasn't loved, I had to be feared; if the people wouldn't willingly offer me their allegiance, I had to take it by force. If I couldn't maintain order the Romans would send their armies and, believe me, that would have been far worse for the Jews.