Herod the Great

"And now," said our guide.  "We are going to go aaaaaaaaaalllll  the way to Caesarea!"

As we drove north of Tel Aviv, he proceeded to tell us a little about the countryside we were passing through and then as we approached Caesarea, he told us more about that city.  "This was the new port that Herod the Great built to replace the old port of Jaffa.  It was a modern city when he built it, a Roman city.  It was the place where the Roman governors would rule from later on."

He went on to tell us more about the place we were about to visit, but one man's name became a theme:  Herod the Great. 

I had thought when we visited Israel that we would see a variety of sites, some from the time of Jesus, some maybe from the time of King Hezekiah, and some older, dating to the times of King David and Solomon.  More than anyone else, though, Herod's impact is still seen.  Whether it is Caesarea, the Temple Mount, or the Masada, the things he built remain -- at least to a certain extent.

Herod built cities and palaces.  He spent vast amounts of wealth and time building these and to what purpose?  I suppose to leave a legacy.

At the same time, when you travel to the places where massive stone structures were erected, all that can be seen now is rubble.  In some places, the modern Israelis have set up pillars that had fallen over with the passage of time and reconstructed walls from the rubble -- enough that one can still judge the greatness of these works in their day, but little else.

It reminds me a little of the poem of Ozymandias, by Shelley.  "Look on my works, ye Mighty and despair!"  Ozymandias is telling the mighty to despair because of the vastness of his works, but the reality is that they need to despair because none of his works survived.

Herod's legacy is found more in the stories of his cruelty and his bitterness.  Not the sort of thing that a few walls in the desert can cover up.

It seems as though many of the "great" men in history tried to build things that people would remember them by.  Large homes, huge tombs, and various buildings have been left behind, even as their names are largely forgotten.

It strikes me that another king who lived at very much the same time as Herod the Great has left a much bigger legacy.  Jesus Christ built nothing that we can see today, wrote nothing personally, did not even own His own home -- and yet, He impacted more lives than anyone else in history.  It was the way He came and lived and the way He died that speaks to us.

None of us will probably leave behind us huge monuments as a legacy or even vast sums of money for our heirs to waste in frivolous ways, but that wouldn't mean much anyway.  Far better to live each day as Jesus did, loving people who won't appreciate it and giving our all for them.

How people remember us is dependent not on what we build, but on who we are and who we follow.