Have you ever made a wager you’ve come to regret? Even if you’re not a gambler, and I’m not, maybe you’ve made decisions you later regret. If I put the question that way, I confess that I’ve made plenty of decisions I’ve come to regret. Fortunately, I’ve survived them! At least, so far!
This morning we meet up with Herod Antipas, son of the infamous King Herod the Great, and the self-styled King of Galilee. While he had royal titles, he was a vassal of the Roman Empire, which meant that whatever power he had, came from Rome. Rome put him in charge of Galilee, which is where Jesus lived and John the Baptist frequented. According to Mark’s Gospel, Herod Antipas made a wager that involved the death of John the Baptist that he came to regret, but more about that in a moment.
The reason John’s death appears in the story is that it involves Jesus’ growing popularity in Herod’s territory. Herod was concerned that Jesus might be John, who had been Herod’s nemesis, risen from the dead. That scared Herod who greatly feared John in life, and even more so after his death.
Our story begins after Jesus sent out the twelve disciples on a mission trip. That mission went quite well, which caught the ear of Herod. Like any ruler, Herod had to be on the lookout for troublemakers. One of those troublemakers had been John the Baptist, who pestered Herod about his marriage to Herodias, who was his brother’s wife. Herod took care of John by having him beheaded, but now he’s hearing stories about Jesus. Herod begins to worry that this might be John the Baptist risen from the dead. Even if that wasn’t true Jesus still might be a problem, which scared Herod.
Truth be told there was a connection between John and Jesus. Although Mark doesn’t connect them in the family way as cousins, Mark begins his gospel by telling us that God sent a messenger to prepare the way for the coming of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. That messenger happened to be John the Baptist who proclaimed a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. One day Jesus came to John at the Jordan and asked to be baptized. When Jesus emerged from the waters of baptism, a voice from heaven proclaimed Jesus to be God’s beloved Son (Mk 1:1-11).
We don’t read anything else about John in Mark’s Gospel until this point in the story. Nevertheless, there are many similarities between John’s message and Jesus’. So, it’s no wonder that Herod got worried when he heard reports about Jesus. It’s also quite possible that Jesus was originally part of John’s community and may have taken over leadership of that community after John’s death. While the Gospels don’t dwell on the relationship between John and Jesus, they are clearly linked. As James McGrath points out: "If we do not understand John correctly, we will misunderstand Jesus as well. On the other hand, we have missed an opportunity to allow what we know about Jesus to fill in our portrait of his mentor and thereby understand both better." [McGrath, Christmaker, p. 3].
Mark uses Herod’s concerns about Jesus to take us back to John’s execution. In this flashback scene, Herod orders John’s arrest, at the behest of his wife Herodias, who was angry because John was going around condemning her marriage to her brother-in-law. According to Mark’s account, Herodias wanted John to be killed, but since Herod was afraid of John, he protected him and even brought him in for conversation. In other words, Mark throws Herodias under the bus, blaming her for John’s death though he does make Herod look very weak.
Since Herodias didn’t have the power to have John executed, she devised a plan to force her reluctant husband’s hand. Her opportunity to act on this plan came when Herod decided to throw a birthday party for himself.
Normally it’s not appropriate to throw a birthday party for ourselves, but we’re not monarchs. Royalty has its privileges. As King Louis famously declared in History of the World, Part 1: “It’s good to be the king!” So Herod invited all the important people in the neighborhood to his party. You can imagine what a banquet like this might entail. There would be lots of food and drink. Then, after dinner, there would be entertainment. That’s when Herodias put her plan into action.
She sent a young woman out to dance for her husband. Mark identifies the young dancer as either Herod’s daughter or Herodias’ daughter. The text is a bit confusing on that score. Matthew says she was Herodias’ daughter and legend gave her the name Salome.
What the dance entailed no one knows for sure, but Hollywood has turned it into a rather erotic dance, which caught the attention of an inebriated king who lusted after his stepdaughter. Now, Hollywood takes significant liberties with the story, but Mark is clear that Herod falls prey to Herodias’ trap. He’s so entranced by the girl’s dance that he promises to give her whatever she wants, even half his kingdom.
The girl tells the king she needs to check with her mother who tells her to demand the head of John the Baptist on a platter. Here’s where the regret comes into play. According to Mark, Herod was “deeply grieved” by this request. Whether he grieved or not, and Herod had every reason to want John out of the way, he had to be concerned about what might happen next since John was popular with the people because he spoke truth to power.
Of course, Herod put himself in this position because he made a promise in front of his friends. He didn’t want to look bad in front of the movers and shakers of society, so he agreed to the terms and sent a soldier to have John beheaded. When the soldier returned with John’s head on a platter, he gave it to the girl who gave it to her mother who had gotten her revenge.
Mark suggests that John’s followers came for the body and laid it in a tomb. So, was that the end of John’s ministry or not? That’s what Herod feared when he began hearing reports about Jesus. He had gotten rid of one troublemaker, and now he faced another. You know what happened to him. One thing we can say is that people who speak truth to power often end up dead. That was true for Jesus, Paul, John, Peter, many of the prophets of the Old Testament, St. Oscar Romero of El Salvador, and Martin Luther King, Jr., to name but a few.
In this story, the dancer is nothing more than a pawn in a power struggle. Herod had put himself in a position where he couldn’t save John, even if he wanted to, and that’s questionable. However, he made a wager, and he felt obligated to honor it.
While Mark tells us something about John the Baptist’s execution, he offers it as the background to his discussion of Jesus’ identity. The question everyone asks in Mark’s gospel is who is this Jesus? People are continually astounded by what they see and hear. That got Herod worried. He too wanted to know who this Jesus was.
Mark answers that question by contrasting Jesus’ vision of God’s realm with earthly realms like Herod’s. Herod represents a form of raw, brute power, even if it comes to him from Rome. He can order the execution of a prophet and use fear to accomplish his goals. That’s the way of the world. It was true then and its true today. In fact, we’re seeing the rise of authoritarian figures all across the globe from Russia to Hungary, and even here at home. Authoritarian figures, like Herod, use fear and misinformation to gain and retain power.
The kind of power that John and Jesus spoke of comes from God. This power begins with a call for repentance together with an offer of forgiveness. While John preached a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, Jesus built his ministry on that foundation. Instead of inciting fear, Jesus offered a word of healing and hope, especially to the people who often got pushed to the margins of society by powerful people like Herod. According to the Gospels, John came into the world to prepare the way for the realm of God, which Jesus inaugurated in and through his life, his teachings, his death, and his resurrection.
We live in a political season where politicians and their allies want our attention and our votes. They make promises, many of which they can’t keep. While many of these politicians seek power over our lives, we, the people, must be discerning and careful so that we’re not swayed by flattery or by fear-mongering, especially when that fear involves people different from us. This is not the kind of realm that Jesus or John envisioned. The question for us is whether we will place ourselves on the right side of power. Will we stand with John and Jesus or with Herod and his friends?
As we ponder this question, the prophet Micah offers us a vision of what God desires from us:
He has told you, human one, what is good and what the Lord requires from you: to do justice, embrace faithful love, and walk humbly with your God. (Micah 6:8 CEB)
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