Mark 6:14-29
“Fatal Confrontation”
July 15, 2012 - Seventh Sunday after Pentecost

         A ghost appears before the castle of Elsinore. That’s how Shakespeare’s Hamlet begins. The spirit of murdered king Hamlet arrives to haunt those on guard. They bring his son prince Hamlet to listen to the ghost and learn his father was murdered by the king’s brother Claudius so that he could marry the queen and assume the throne. Now young Hamlet is charged by this apparition from beyond the grave to seek revenge for his father’s murder and the betrayal of his mother.

         Our text today likewise opens with king Herod’s sense that he is haunted by the ghost of a man he murdered. In verses 14 to 16 we find Herod disturbed and worried by what he’s been hearing about Jesus. Last week we heard how Jesus sent out his disciples to preach and heal. Evidently they talked about Jesus widely enough that reports came back to Herod about Jesus’ own teaching and miracles.

         Mark tells us three popular viewpoints on Jesus. When we get to the end of chapter 8, we will hear them again: Jesus is either: 1) John the Baptist risen from the dead, 2) the second coming of Elijah, or 3) someone like and with the power of one of the ancient prophets. That’s what people were saying in order to explain how Jesus spoke so powerfully and did such amazing miracles. But when Herod hears about it, one of those explanations strikes him to the heart. In verse 16 he says, “John, whom I beheaded, has been raised.”

         Herod’s mistaken confusion of Jesus with John the Baptist is the product of a guilty conscience. As we learn in the rest of the text, Herod had John in his prison, but his mind was totally mixed up about him. He wanted to execute him, but the thought of doing it pained him. It was going to take a trick played on him by his new wife and stepdaughter to push him over the edge.

         But we’re moving a little fast here. We need to take note of a couple things. First, we need to think about how this story about John the Baptist fits into Mark’s story about Jesus. And then we need to hear a little background on the whole thing. Who is Herod and what exactly is going on here between him and John?

         The first question is, why does Mark slip this long account of the death of John the Baptist into his Gospel? He’s telling us about Jesus, right? Remember we said back at the beginning of the year that Mark is the “action Gospel.” It’s the shortest, most succinct version of the story of Jesus among the four. But when it comes to this bit, which is not even directly about Jesus, Mark’s version is longer than the rest. Matthew 14 tells us the story too, but shortens it quite a bit. Luke gives us just the part about Herod worrying that Jesus was John raised from the dead. And though John’s Gospel focuses on John the Baptist quite a bit in the beginning, it tells us nothing about John’s death.

         What’s Mark up to, then? Why this long, sordid story about a dancing girl and a head on a plate? Oscar Wilde pulled it out of Scripture and turned it into the play Salome, which Richard Strauss made into an opera about how Herodias’ daughter became fascinated with John the Baptist and tried to seduce him. When he rejected her, she connived with her mother to murder John, only to be seen at the end of the opera crooning her sick love to John’s severed head. But what’s in this story for Mark? For Jesus? For us?

         For right now, let’s notice that we are in fact in the middle of another of Mark’s story “sandwiches.” Last week we heard in the verse just before how Jesus sent out His disciples to preach and cast out demons and heal people. Next week we’ll pick up with verse 30 in which we find the disciples returning to Jesus with their report, telling Him all about what “they had done and taught.” The disciples go out, the disciples come back. But slipped into the center of that story, is this story of the death of John the Baptist.

         Which means our text today is all the stuff that goes into the center of a sandwich. It’s low-carb, high-protein food. Despite Mark’s long treatment, there’s no padding, no “bread” here. Mark wants us to understand that as far as the Gospel of Jesus Christ goes, what happened to John is a thick, solid slab of lean, rare meat, meant for us to chew on awhile.

         O.K., let’s fill in some background before we start chewing. First, this Herod is one of four Herods we meet in the New Testament. He is Herod Antipas. Antipas was the son of Herod the Great, who was the guy who tried to use the wise men to find and kill Jesus when He was a toddler. Herod the Great had no less than ten wives and Antipas was the son of the fourth wife. That sets up some of the convoluted relationships that are part of this story.

         Antipas was first married to the daughter of Aretas, the king of Nabatea, east of the Dead Sea. But as we see in our text in verse 17, he got a hankering after his half-brother Philip’s wife Herodias. Philip was Herod the Great’s son through his third wife. So Antipas persuaded Herodias to divorce Philip, and he in turn divorced the daughter of Aretas, and he married his brother’s wife while his brother was still alive. Which was totally contrary to Jewish law and morality.

         To top it all off, like some of the relationships in Hamlet, there are incestuous overtones to this whole business, because Herodias, as you might guess from her name, is also part of the family. She, it turns out, was Herod the Great’s granddaughter through his second wife, which makes her Antipas’ niece. If you are inclined to say “Yuck!” at this point, that would be appropriate.

         Antipas and Herodias were quite happy together. So neither one of them was pleased when John the Baptist shows up as we’re told in verse 18 to tell Antipas, “It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.” Like Amos speaking to King Jeroboam in our Old Testament lesson today, John was sent to tell the king something he didn’t want to hear. And just as for Amos, it didn’t make John very popular.

         Amaziah the priest just tried to get Amos to leave, but Herod Antipas took John and put him in prison. Herodias had a lasting grudge against John for impugning her marriage and her morals. She wanted him dead. She’s left the weaker, poorer brother for the richer, more powerful one. She likes her setup and wants to get rid of anyone who might mess with it. But her husband had just enough spiritual sensitivity that he recognized, in verse 20, that John was “a righteous and holy man.” So Herodias didn’t get her way and John stayed in prison.

         And, here’s the really amazing thing. At the end of verse 20, Herod protects John and “liked to listen to him.” Here’s a guy telling him that his whole life was corrupt and immoral and yet he couldn’t stop listening. Herod was “perplexed” or “puzzled,” but he keeps John alive and keeps hearing him preach.

         Like anyone who doesn’t get her way, Herodias nursed her grudge against John. She wasn’t about to have her happy and comfortable life ruined by some country preacher who claimed to speak for God telling her she was out of line. So she bided her time and waited for an opportunity, which shows up in verse 21.

         In Hamlet, you may remember, the prince takes the opportunity of a little entertainment in the castle to demonstrate the guilt of his uncle Claudius. Traveling players put on a production which includes a bit about a queen whose husband is murdered by poison poured in his ear. You remember. Hamlet says, “The play’s the thing, wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king.”

         For Herod it wasn’t a play, it was a dance. Evidently his taste in women didn’t just mean marrying his niece. He was ready to enjoy in some depraved way watching her daughter, his stepdaughter, dance for him and his friends on his birthday. Josephus tells us the stepdaughter’s name was Salome. Caught up in the spectacle and probably drunk, Herod offered to reward Salome with up to half his kingdom in verse 23.

         At this point, Herodias stepped in to finally satisfy her grudge against John the Baptist. She sent the girl to ask for John’s head on a platter. Like Hamlet wavering back and forth with his “To be or not to be…” Herod still has mixed emotions about it. He was “deeply grieved” we read in verse 26, but also like Hamlet, in the end he decided to commit the murder. He ordered John’s head cut off and they brought it to Salome, who in turn gave it to her mother.

         It’s a great tragic story. It makes a great opera. It could be a great television mini-series for those of us who like our entertainment full of passion and pathos. But we’re still left with the question of what’s in it for us as Christians? Why did Mark sandwich this ugly episode into His Gospel for followers of Jesus to read down through the ages? What are we supposed to learn from all this?

         We could just take it strictly as an example of courage and honesty in the face of evil and power. John the Baptist is a perfect model for anyone who needs to stand up to corruption and immorality among powerful people, whether in government or business. He represents the bravery of standing by your convictions and telling the truth when it needs to be heard. It would be well for all of us to remember John whenever we are tempted to be silent about some evil or injustice we’ve witnessed.

         Or we could reflect a bit on the negative example of Herod Antipas. Consider his weakness, his wavering heart that felt the pull of righteousness but in the end gave into lust and pride and the easy way out. As much as we would want to be like John the Baptist, we don’t want to be like Herod the king.

         Yet there’s something even meatier here than John’s courageous example or Herod’s cowardly failure. There’s more to chew on than just inspiration for righteous whistleblowers, however brave and true they may be. John’s story speaks to the heart of the Christian faith, about what Jesus came to do for us, and what we can expect when we follow Jesus.

         Last week we heard Jesus send His followers out to preach and heal while warning them that there would be towns where they would not be welcome. There would be people who would reject them just as Jesus Himself was rejected in Nazareth. So they go out, and before we hear about them coming back, Mark tells us about John the prophet, the man sent to pave the way for Jesus, being murdered by evil people.

         The end of last week’s text, verses 12 and 13, tell us that the disciples Jesus sent out were successful. They preached repentance, they cast out many demons, they anointed people with oil and God healed. But before Mark lets us hear how they came back to report all that success to Jesus, Mark warns us that following Jesus isn’t always that easy. The road of faith will have some bumps in it.

         Mark is setting up the trajectory of the whole story here. John the Baptist comes preaching the Gospel, calling people to God. John suffers and dies. Then on center stage, Jesus comes preaching the Good News, welcoming people into the grace and love of God. Jesus suffers and dies. What’s the logical next step? The followers of Jesus will go out preaching the Good News, sharing the grace and power of Jesus. And what should we expect will happen to them?

         There’s the tough meat in the middle of the sandwich. Chew on our own place in this story for awhile. If this is what happens to John and Jesus, we should not expect to follow in their steps without our own struggles, our own fatal confrontations with evil. If we live and speak the truth in Jesus’ name, then even if we don’t lose our heads for it, we may expect now and then to be misunderstood, to be flatly rejected, to get kicked in the teeth and beaten down for holding onto what is right and good and true.

         It’s hard for us to swallow this meat here in our comfortable church in the United States. It’s not that often we bump into people as evil and opposed to God as Herod or Herodias. It’s not often we are called to hang onto our faith in Christ when someone is threatening our lives because of it. But there are places and people in the world where today’s text would be immediately understood.

         Our Christian brothers and sister in Mali would get it. They would have teeth strong enough to chew on the death of John the Baptist for awhile. As they flee for their lives from town after town while Islamists take control, they feel the truth of this text in the soles of their feet.

         Youcef Nadarkhani would get it. On Wednesday he marked his thousandth day in prison in Iran sentenced to death for believing in Jesus. Last September the Iranian court gave him four chances to recant his faith and he refused each time. They asked him to “repent” of his conversion to Christianity. He replied, “Repent means to return. What should I return to? To the blasphemy that I had before my faith in Christ?” Youcef could swallow whole the meat of John’s story.

         And fifty Christians in Nigeria understand better than anyone still living on earth what Mark is getting at here. Persecuted for their faith in the village of Maseh, they took refuge at their pastor’s house. Last Saturday gunmen surrounded that home, came in and opened fire. Then they burnt the house to the ground. Those fifty along with their pastor, his wife and his children learned firsthand what Mark was trying to tell us here. Following Jesus can be very, very tough meat.

         I’m sorry. You’re probably very ready to forget about chewing on this story anymore and ready to turn to the snacks prepared for after worship. Those are lots easier to swallow. Yet I don’t want you to forget the meat we encountered here today, because in the end, even though it’s tough, it’s good food. It’s the best food. It’s strength and health and life.

         It might be easy to ignore the last verse, verse 29. Mark just tells us that John disciples came and got his body and laid it in a tomb. End of story. That’s it. But for anyone who knows the big story that Mark is telling, those words should jump out at us. They laid John in a tomb. Later other disciples would lay Jesus in a tomb. And that was not at all the end of the story. God raised Jesus out of His tomb and in that moment sealed His promise to raise all those who die for their faith, who die in faith, out of their tombs.

         That’s the hope in which we spread dirt on Don’s casket Friday afternoon, saying that we trust “in the great mercy of God, looking for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.” That’s the hope in which every Christian may live and die. Though following Jesus can be hard, though the road ends in death, we look beyond that, we look to the end of the story. God will raise us all, raise John the Baptist and raise Youcef Nadarkhani, raise those Christians in Nigeria and raise Don Ebner, raise us all from all our tombs. Then we will come and give our good report to Jesus of all that we have done, and rejoice in all that He has done for us.

         Amen.

         Valley Covenant Church
         Eugene/Springfield, Oregon
         Copyright © 2012 by Stephen S. Bilynskyj