When his daughter Herodias came in and danced, she pleased Herod and his guests, and the king said to the girl, "Ask me about what you want 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 and told his mother: "What should I ask?" She replied: "The head of John the Baptist." (Mark 6:23-24)
We had a baptism this morning, and I think if you had searched through the Bible for the most inappropriate Gospel story to feature today, you could not have done better (or rather, worse) that we had this morning - the story of the death of John the Baptist!
When you work with the lectionary, of course, that's all the luck he represents. We could have had Jesus said: "Let the little children come to me", but we did not. We got this story of lust and murder, humiliation and death.
And perhaps it is only correct if we want to encourage our newly baptized to "fight bravely under his banner against sin, the world and the devil," we warn them first when the match had to take them! Or maybe I should have just over-ridden the lectionary today and opted for a more family-friendly reading?
For it is not just the fact that this Gospel reading focuses on the tragic death of John. It is all the Grizzly detail that you get in history. It is as if we were Hollywood, X-rated version of the story, because I think you'll agree that most tragic stories you read about in the Bible, you get the ABC version.
Compare, for example, the biblical account of Herod's subsequent murder of James (brother of John) that we in Acts: "About that time, Herod arrested some people who belonged to the church and assaulted them. He even had James the brother of John killed with a sword. "(Acts 12:1-2) The end! That was it - short, concise, tragic, but we get over it and moving on!
But not in this account of the death of the Baptist! We will only have the dirty details about Herod's personal life, giving rise to the criticism he gets from John. We get in prison, the party, dancing on the young girl, and ultimately Grizzly details of how John's head was served to the girl's mother on a dinner plate!
It would have been something of a scene, and it must have been quite a dance, and I did consider trying to recreate the atmosphere this morning by trying a dance itself, but I decided that although I obviously do look good in a dress, my shipment of the dance of the seven army surplice blankets would never do it justice.
In any case, the real question: "What is the story here?" And I am not just "what is it doing here, is read at a baptism?" But "what does this passage in the Bible at all?"
It's almost as if at a very early meeting of the Bible Society someone has said, "we're just not moving enough copies of this book! We need more sex and violence here," and then Mark whistled and said, " how about I include the death of John the Baptist? "
OK. I am sure that there was not really so. Yes, I suppose the reason this story is so drawn out, probably for the sake of the supporters of the Baptist, as John was a very popular guy, and his disciples no doubt want to know the details.
Yet there is not much that is encouraging in this story, supporters of the Baptist. It's not as though any of his last words were recorded in this story. Yes, we hear nothing from John in this story, as of the time he makes his personal appearance he is no longer able to speak! And it's disappointing, because I think it would have been very useful to know what were the last words and final thoughts Baptist.
We like to assume, of course, that when it comes to the death of a great man in the belief that the Baptist that they leave full of courage and grace like Maximillian Kolbe.
Kolbe, you may remember, was the Catholic priest was murdered by the Nazis, who left this earthly scene sing hymns from his hunger bunker until the guards were so fed up that they finally finished him off with a lethal injection.
But not all martyrs die quite so glorious. If you read the last recorded words, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, for example, who was also murdered by the Nazis, you can find someone with much more confidence and interrogation, and I believe that John the Baptist was something more like this.
The only word we hear from the Baptist while he was in prison are words in doubt. He messages from Jesus prison, you can remember asking him: "Are you the one we were waiting for, or should we wait for a second?" (Matthew 11:3)
John had been so sure at an early stage - both about Jesus and about his own work, proclaim Jesus as "Lamb of God, which removes the sins of the world" (Jn 1:29), while railing so openly about Herod's personal indiscretions as he did above everything else that ticked him.
Perhaps John had thought untouchable, or maybe he does not care what happened to him at that time? But it began to look different from inside his prison cell, and John was in doubt.
Has John dies still full of doubt, or have the answers he received from Jesus appease him so that he died in peace? We do not know. We know nothing about the internal life of John at the end, but only by Grizzly details of his martyrdom - by the way, John crossed Herodian, Herod's wife, because Herod wanted to party at the seductive dance to entice the drunken king to lift up to half his kingdom to the young seductress, and the girl's Grizzly request.
And so we come back to our original question - what is this story doing here, this tale of drunken debauchery and murder? What does the Bible?
If it is here for the benefit of the disciples of John the Baptist, it is not really have anything positive to offer them and I am sure it is not the final chapter in the life of their master that they were expecting.
We obviously do not know exactly what John's supporters had expected, but we know that John was frequently compared with Elias and I expect that the disciples of the Baptist expected his career to follow a similar course
Elias had been the voice of God that the political leaders of His day. He challenged King Ahab and Queen Jezebel and had several death threats against him. Nevertheless, God met Elijah safe, and at last he saw the tables turned on those who tried to imprison him and kill him.
I expect the disciples of the Baptist expected his career to follow a similar course. And when they got the news that John head was served on a dinner plate to the Queen. It must have been hard to make sense of it all. And in truth, it's really a hard story to make sense of, even at this distance.
You know how in our traditional Christian wisdom, we say "yes, perhaps this tragedy did not make a lot of sense right now, but when we see the big picture, we'll see how it all fits together." Well ... it's 2000 years after the death of John the Baptist, and I still can not see the point!
I find it hard to believe that if John had died of old age, something else wonderful happened one way or another could not have happened (if you know what I mean),. It is not obvious that the assassination of John actually achieved something - not then and not since - and maybe sometimes we just have to accept that tragedies happen and that they do not always miracles in disguise, but simply a tragedy.
Nevertheless, I believe that the gospel writer intends for us to see this story as part of a larger, grand, story of hope, and the key to that I think is actually the way the story is introduced.
For you may remember that our Gospel reading does not actually start as a story about John the Baptist and Herod, let alone on Salome Herodian or the beginning instead of people asking questions about Jesus - "Who is this guy?". Some said Jesus was Elijah or one of the other prophets, but it is Herod, pointing to Jesus as John the Baptist, coming back to haunt him and said: "John, whom I beheaded, has been raised!" (Mark 6:16)
And Herod is totally wrong, of course, but in another sense he is absolutely right. Jesus is Jesus, not John - we need is no doubt about it - but what Herod did not realize, is to kill John not stop John's work as John's work was just part of a larger project that Jesus was continue!
And of course it is not really so much the Ministry of John goes on, but rather the work of the
John is dead, but fight for the Kingdom continues. Others before John and others after him have fallen in battle, but still God's work continues! Jesus himself would fall in this struggle, but God's work continues. Actually, not just in spite of his death, but through his death, continue to work with God.
For ultimately, the work of God is not so much a boxing match, where, when a fighter goes down, the show is over, have the good lost, and all go home. No. It is a relay race where a runner falls, he goes the baton to the next guy in line and the race continues!
It is the battle for the
For we must recognize that as we welcome new competitors in the field, others of us will fall from the track, and some of us are very tired and fail. And so we give thanks for these new athletes on the field as we see them start to take the baton and join a good fight.
That is what my father taught me - to work for God is like a flowing stream, and that when someone down a rock into the river, water flows around the rock. This is what the disciples of John were to discover. This is what the first century disciples of Jesus had to discover and it is the discovery that we continue to do today - that despite the decline, the hardships and in spite of those we lost along the way, God work continues, joy comes in the morning, or, in the words of Martin Luther, "The City of God remaineth."
Many have gone before us in this battle and others will follow, and none of us are invulnerable. All of us sooner or later, will fall, but God's work continues. I could go, but God's work will continue. You will drop at a time, but God's work will continue!
And sometimes all we can do is to collect the remains of those who have fallen and give them a proper burial. But we do so in confidence that whatever happens, God will be God, God's work will continue, love will ultimately triumph, will His kingdom come. Amen
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