What sells magazines? One only has to take a
glance at the publications on offer at the checkout counter in the grocery
store to answer that question. At least three things seem to sell magazines….
- Royalty. One can most always see photos of the British royals on display.
- Sex. “Who was in bed with who?” is a perennially favorite topic.
- Religion. Though this topic is not as popular as the other two, the tabloids do take an interest in the fall of a popular preacher, which seems to happen often enough.
Now, if you mix these three topics together, then
you have a bestseller on your hands. That is precisely what we have in the next
story in Mark’s Gospel. Listen to the words of the Gospel from Mark 6:14-29….
King Herod heard of it, for Jesus’ name had become known.
Some were saying, “John the baptizer has been raised from the dead; and for
this reason these powers are at work in him.” But others said, “It is Elijah.”
And others said, “It is a prophet, like one of the prophets of old.” But when
Herod heard of it, he said, “John, whom I beheaded, has been raised.”
For Herod himself had sent
men who arrested John, bound him, and put him in prison on account of Herodias,
his brother Philip’s wife, because Herod had married her. For John had been
telling Herod, “It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.” And
Herodias had a grudge against him, and wanted to kill him. But she could not,
for Herod feared John, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man, and he
protected him. When he heard him, he was greatly perplexed; and yet he liked to
listen to him. But an opportunity came when Herod on his birthday gave a
banquet for his courtiers and officers and for the leaders of Galilee. When his daughter Herodias came in and danced,
she pleased Herod and his guests; and the king said to the girl, “Ask me for
whatever you wish, and I will give it.” And he solemnly swore to her, “Whatever
you ask me, I will give you, even half of my kingdom.” She went out and said to
her mother, “What should I ask for?” She replied, “The head of John the
baptizer.” Immediately she rushed back to the king and requested, “I want you
to give me at once the head of John the Baptist on a platter.” The king was
deeply grieved; yet out of regard for his oaths and for the guests, he did not want
to refuse her. Immediately the king sent a soldier of the guard with orders to
bring John’s head. He went and beheaded him in the prison, brought his head on
a platter, and gave it to the girl. Then the girl gave it to her mother. When
his disciples heard about it, they came and took his body, and laid it in a
tomb.
The first thing we see in this passage is Three Verdicts on Jesus. The first verdict is that of a guilty
conscience. King Herod heard of the missionary exploits of Jesus’ disciples,
and he could not help but have heard of Jesus himself, for Jesus’ words and
deeds of power had become widely known. The New Revised Standard Version says
that “Some people were saying, ‘John the Baptizer has been raised from the
dead.’” However, other ancient manuscripts make this Herod’s statement. In
fact, Herod says the same thing again in verse sixteen: “John, whom I beheaded,
has been raised.”
Herod obviously felt guilty about having John the Baptist
executed. We will look into this further in a moment. For now, it is enough to
say that Herod was afraid that his sins were coming back to haunt him. He tried
to get rid of John, and his convicting sermons, but he was unsuccessful. Here
was someone just like John saying the same sorts of things.
This just goes to show that a person can never run away from
themselves. If we do wrong, we can be sure, as the Scripture says, that our sin
will find us out. And that is not because God wants us to feel guilty all
the time. It is because God wants us to confess our sin and come to him for
forgiveness.
The second verdict on
Jesus we see in this passage is that of the nationalist. Others thought
Jesus was Elijah come back from the dead. Many first century Jews were
expectantly awaiting the coming of the Messiah. Many thought he would be a
conquering hero who would free them from Roman domination. Along with this
expectation there was the thought that Elijah would come back before the
Messiah. The Jews believed this because the prophet Malachi had taught this. And Matthew identified John the Baptist as the fulfillment of
this prophecy.
However, many of the Jews did not recognize John the Baptist
as the second Elijah. Even to this day, when they celebrate the Passover they
leave an empty chair at the table for Elijah. They put a glass of wine at his
place and at a certain point in the service, they fling the door wide open for
Elijah to come in and announce the coming of the Messiah.
The third verdict on
Jesus that we see in this passage is of the one waiting for the voice of God.
Some of the Jews thought that Jesus was like one of the prophets of old. For
three hundred years, there had been no “word from the Lord”. The voice of the
prophets had been stilled. The Jews could listen to the disputations of the
rabbis. They could listen to teaching about the Hebrew Scriptures in the
synagogue. However, this was not the same as a prophet saying, “Thus says the
Lord….” Some people in Jesus’ day were obviously waiting, and longing, for such
a prophet to come. In Jesus, some believed they were hearing such a prophet.
Thus, we have the first, and most important point in this
passage, the three verdicts on Jesus. This raises the question: what is our verdict on Jesus? The
Gospels are constantly raising this question for us. We cannot evade it.
The second major thing we see in this passage, in addition
to the verdicts on Jesus, is The Drama
of Herod’s Family.
The story of Herod and John the Baptist has all the
characteristics of a great piece of theatre. First, there is the scene—the castle of Machaerus. According to the
historian Josephus, this is where the execution of John the Baptist took place.
William Barclay writes…
Machaerus stood on a lonely ridge,
surrounded by terrible ravines, overlooking the east side of the Dead Sea. It
was one of the loneliest and grimmest and most unassailable fortresses in the
world. To this day the dungeons are there, and the traveler can still see the staples
and the iron hooks in the wall to which John must have been bound. It was in
that bleak and desolate fortress that the last act of John’s life was played
out.
Next, we have a great
cast of characters in this play. First, there is Herod. This is
Herod Antipas; he was one of the many sons of Herod the Great who we read about
in Matthew 2 and Luke 1.
Herod’s family had quite a complicated family tree. All
you have to remember to understand our story for today is that Herod Antipas
married his niece, Herodias, and stole her away from his half-brother Herod
Philip. This was the reason why John the Baptist denounced Herod
Antipas; Herod had broken Jewish law by marrying his half-brother’s wife. It
certainly took courage for John to speak out in this way against the very
powerful Herod Antipas.
Herod Antipas, for his
part, was an odd character. He could be persuaded by his wife Herodias to
have John arrested because she did not like his preaching. Of course, the
reason she did not like John was because his preaching veered off into meddling
with her love life. At the same time, Herod Antipas was intrigued enough by
John the Baptist’s preaching that he often brought him out of prison to listen
to him. Herod sensed that John was a righteous and holy man, so he had him
protected. However, Herod was not convicted enough to have John released. Herod
Antipas was a fence sitter if there ever was one.
Herod Antipas was also
a man who acted on impulse. He made a reckless promise to Salome without
thinking. He promised to give her anything she asked. Herod’s example ought to
teach us to think before we act and before we speak, but often we do not, do
we?
Herod Antipas also
feared what others might say about him. That is why he kept his promise to
Salome, even when she asked for the head of John the Baptist. Herod Antipas was
afraid of what his guests might say about him if he did not keep his promise.
Of course, we need to be more concerned about what God thinks of us, than what
others think of us; but God was not on Herod Antipas’ radar at this point.
Naturally, Herod Antipas is not the only character that
comes off looking rather evil in this story. We also see Salome and Herodias in
all their tawdriness. William Barclay says of Herodias:
The trouble with Herodias was that she
wished to eliminate the one man who had the courage to confront her with her
sin. She wished to do as she liked with no one to remind her of the moral law.
She murdered John that she might sin in peace. She forgot that while she need
no longer meet John, she still had to meet God.
And what of Salome? You can say that she is a mere girl in
this scene, a pawn. However, we must ask: What kind of girl performs an erotic
dance in front of her stepfather and his friends? What kind of young woman
listens to and obeys her mother when her mother tells her to ask her stepfather
to have a man killed? The evil we see in each of these characters is beyond
most of our reckoning. Yet, we know this sort of thing happens. We need only
look back to Hitler, and probably not even that far, to remember that great
evil has reigned in modern times as well.
Against this backdrop stands John the Baptist. Barclay says
of him…
He stands as the man of courage. He was
a child of the desert and of the wide open spaces, and to imprison him in the
dark dungeons of Machaerus must have been the last refinement of torture. But
John preferred death to falsehood. He lived for the truth and he died for it.
The man who brings to men the voice of God acts as a conscience. Many a man
would silence his conscience if he could, and therefore the man who speaks for
God must always take his life and his fortune in his hands.
The story is told of a
church that before its most recent building project lacked adequate restroom
facilities. One Sunday, the pastor of the church, preaching about the attributes
of John the Baptist, emphatically stated: “What this church needs is more
Johns.” The congregation busted out in laughter; all they had on their minds
was the church restrooms.[2]
However, it is true. The
church does need more people like John the Baptist.
What lessons are in
this story for us today? I think of two.
First, we too may have
to pay the ultimate price for discipleship just as John did.
Last week we looked at six marks of a true disciple. With
this story of the death of John the Baptist, Mark brings us to the lowest point
in his portrayal of what it means to be a disciple. That is to say, this is the
lowest point in the Gospel until Jesus himself dies on the cross. We see here
John, not merely as the forerunner of Jesus, but the prototype of what it means
to be a disciple. We must always remember that the Greek word for witness is
martyr.
We might be tempted to think: with all the miracles that
Jesus has done, that he will somehow miraculously spring his cousin John from
jail. However, that is not to be. Here we see why Jesus encourages us to count
the cost before choosing to follow him, because the cost may be great indeed.
To be a disciple means following Jesus to the cross…and beyond.
A second lesson in
this story for all of us is that faith is for dark days just as it is for
sunlit times.
In telling this story, Mark may be sending a message to the
first century church to which he is attached. He may be saying to them: Look,
you may have to suffer martyrdom just like John. Therefore, don’t get the idea
in your head that being a follower of Jesus is all about spiritual experiences
on the mountaintop. You may have to walk through the valley of the shadow as
well.
Certain segments of the Christian Church have always laid
stress on the miraculous, the exciting, or what is sometimes called “victorious
living”. That is one side of the equation, but only one side. We must remember
the other side too. There is a dark side to following Christ.
However, there is good news, even in this. If we are taught
to believe that following Christ will always produce victory, triumph, and
sunlit skies, then we will be surprised, and maybe even devastated when we
encounter darkness. However, if we are told ahead of time to expect these
things, then it will be somewhat easier to handle.
A few years ago I read a book by Barbara Brown Taylor
entitled, Learning to Walk in the Dark.
She says that often Christianity has focused too much on what she calls “solar
spirituality”. We forget that Jesus was born in a cave and was raised from one
too. Many of the great spiritual leaders of human history have spent a good
part of their lives in the dark. There are lessons that can only be learned in
the dungeons of life.
One of the favorite verses of victorious solar Christians
is: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13).
This verse can be taken in one of two ways. It can be taken to mean that if I
am a Christian I will always be successful, that I will always walk in the
light, if I follow Christ. Or it can be taken to mean that if I am a
Christ-follower then Jesus will always give me the strength I need to handle
any situation, even failure, darkness, and death. I believe the latter
interpretation is the correct one, both when viewing the life of Jesus, and of
Paul and the early Christians.
Of course, as we approach the end of the Gospel story we
will see that there is another light on the other side of the grave, for Jesus,
John, and us, a light that will never end. That too is the picture at the end
of the book of Revelation. In the New Jerusalem there will be no sun, for
there, the Lord will be our light. He will be the only light that we need.
(Revelation 21:23)
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