8th Sunday after Pentecost , Year B1
Mark 6:14-29
Today’s Gospel isn’t an easy one. The stories in Mark are usually brief and he moves on quickly, but here he gives a lot more detail which tells me there’s a reason for that and we should pay close attention. There is more here than first meets the eye.
There have been almost as many movies, operas, art, and plays about the beheading of John the Baptist as there have been of Jesus’ crucifixion. Titian, Caravaggio, and Gustave Moreau, among others, painted it; Oscar Wilde wrote a famous play about it (Salome) that Richard Strauss used as the basis of his very successful opera; Ken Russell and Billy Wilder incorporated it in films. Probably no aspect of the New Testament apart from the passion of the Christ has provided greater stimulation for the artistic imagination.2 It is full of all the intrigue that Hollywood gravitates to: seduction, murder, political ambition, scandal, greed, and cowardice. And in a tragedy like this, much like a Shakespearean play, the good guy is killed.
John the Baptist was the forerunner, the prophet announcing the arrival of the Messiah, the one the prophet Isaiah told us about, who also foreshadowed the death of Jesus. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus tells his disciples, “Do not fear those who kill the body,” and John doesn’t.
It is so easy to get sidetracked by all this drama that we are drawn to that we miss the real theme of this passage of scripture. It is not the drama of intrigue and death, love and hate, that so easily captivates our imaginations; it is the confrontation of political power and prophetic faith. The great struggle is the struggle between the baptizer and the king, between the message of repentance and the power of empire.
It is interesting that Mark refers to Herod Antipas as “king” because the Romans refused to let him have that title after his father, Herod the Great, had died. According to the ancient historian, Josephus, Herod Antipas ended his days in Gaul (now France) where he was banished in 39 A.D. by Emperor Gaius Caligula, because he had dared to ask for the title of king. Herod’s insatiable desire for power and privilege remained his downfall to the end of his life which ended in banishment and insignificance.
In this passage we are forced to face a world that is in opposition to the innocent, a world where injustice and brutal power prevail.3 Mark gives us a lot of detail in this passage and we can see Herod wrestle with his admiration of John and afterwards the tales he was hearing about Jesus. Even though he had arrested John for publicly calling him out on his illicit marriage to Herodias, Herod still protected him for a while because he recognized that John was a righteous and holy man. In public and in prison, it seems, Herod had listened intently to what John was preaching. Interestingly, he found John credible and compelling. But Herod did not have the courage to save his life.
So when he hears of Jesus’ reputation as teacher and preacher, his anxiety and nervous suspicion leads him to believe John has returned from the dead. One can almost hear him pacing the floors because his guilt has caused him to feel haunted by John’s presence even after his death. Mark enables us to see Herod not simply as an agent of evil but as a weak human being who has given way to temptation. Herod’s evil was more cowardice than vicious, but nevertheless he was in a position of power and his weakness and pride led him to decisions that have reverberated through the millennia and are still known today.
Cowardice is a fatal flaw. Acting out of fear usually causes harm. But in this passage, we start to see that Mark wants us to understand something about Herod, John, and Jesus that speaks to what is happening below the surface of what this situation appears to be. Mark is always pointing us to the divinity of Jesus and what we see in this passage is a story about power. Who really holds the greater power?
The earth is littered with the ruins of empires that believed themselves to be endless. Herod is an example of this, as is the mighty Roman Empire. Jesus knows of a greater power at work in the world as easy to see as the wind. “Now faith is the evidence of things not seen” we read in the book of Hebrews. That is the power that our faith is based on, not on the principalities of this world. It is the reason Jesus began speaking early on to his disciples about those who kill the body but cannot kill one’s being. They were confused and shocked at John’s death and later were going to be really upended by Jesus’ death, but the promise of Jesus was also embedded in them, “I will be with you always, yes, even until the end of the age.” Herod would not, and could not, promise that. The Roman leaders who even called themselves gods had hoped they could keep power that long, but they could not. Earthly empires rise and fall, it will be Jesus that walks the whole, long road of life with us and meets us at the end.
In his Gospel, Mark confronts the reader to see what they do not want to see and hear what is best left unspoken. We think of evil as dealing with demons but evil is also found in the centers of power, both political and religious. Not much has changed in this regard since this Gospel was written. In this passage we are forced to face a world that is in opposition to the innocent, a world where injustice and brutal powers prevail. It is into this world of oppression and power grabbing that God sent a prophet to call us to repentance and to announce a poor boy from an unwed mother had come to change the world and restore us to the fullness of life. John knew he belonged to this Messiah, not Herod, not Rome.
Mark lets us see, though, the grace which was also extended to Herod. Herod felt convicted and had heard in John’s words the truth that resonated in him, compelling him to listen to John, and drew him in. He was given a choice between the innocent and the politically expedient. His moment of choice is a palatable moment of grace, waiting to be accepted or rejected. Herod’s rejection of grace results in the death of John. This is not power, it is weakness. To choose the convenient and the advantageous is cowardice while the powerlessness of John to stand for what was right took courage and strength. The powerlessness of John’s preaching dared to confront the political power of Herod. John did not succumb to fear, he stood by the truth.
And facing these realities of life then and now allows the Gospel to unveil for us the contrast of the Good News. The curtains are pulled back to reveal the life that comes forth in the resurrection of Jesus Christ to declare that while we may have to tarry awhile in darkness, while the suffering of the innocent is still on our news feeds, and while we share the loss and pain many carry in this congregation; grace, faith, and hope hold the broken and scarred tissue of ravaged lives and, with sighs too deep for words, anticipate the day of resurrection.
It is the eternal God, the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ that we worship every Sunday. This was the truth of which John knew before any of the disciples. The evidence of the power of Christ which we place our faith in that is greater than the greed, the political manipulation that misuses God to create empires that oppress and cause the poor and marginalized to suffer. It is also the power we are given by the Holy Spirit that enables us to speak truth to power, that speaks up for those who have no voice, that does not turn a blind eye to the suffering of others when it would be so much more convenient to do so.
John the Baptist gave voice to this in the wilderness–repent of these wrong doings! We are part of a body of Christ that together we can do so much more than we can ask or imagine. There are folks out there who are suffering and we will be called into account for what we did or did not do for the least of these. It is not, and never has been, the comfortable option, but it is a requirement of a Christian. And since we can also understand the conflict in Herod, we, like he, are offered the grace to choose. When this grace, this groaning and longing, is accepted, the fragrance of life fills the sanctuary and worship fills the hearts of the faithful. This worship is not naive in regard to suffering. It is not escapist. It is worship that is deeply rooted in faith in its knowledge that all things will be made new. That is the Good News of Jesus Christ. Hold on to it. Empires rise and fall, and we will speak truth to the powerful through the greater power that is in Jesus Christ knowing that all things will be made new. It is our hope and it is our promise.
Hope is a state of mind, not of the world. Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously heading for success, but rather an ability to work for something because it is good, not because it stands for a chance to succeed.4
I close with the words of Paul, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” Romans 15:13 (NIV UK)
- Photo credit: https://rolinbrunoauthor.blogspot.com/2017/03/real-bible-people-family-of-antipas.html ↩︎
- Feasting on Word (B), Cheryl Bridges Johns. ↩︎
- Feasting on Word (B), Cheryl Bridges Johns. ↩︎
- Vaclav Havel in Lyrics for Re-Creation by James Conlon ↩︎
Magdalena's Musings 