255 Mark 6:14-29 Herod and John the Baptist

Talk 17 Mark 6:14-29  Herod and John the Baptist

Welcome to Talk 17 in our series on Mark’s Gospel. Today we’re looking at Mark 6:14-29 which relates the terrible story of the beheading of John the Baptist. The passage is set between Jesus sending out his disciples to proclaim the good news and their return to report to him all they had done and taught (v30). At first sight, the beheading of John the Baptist might seem to be something of a digression, but, when we remember the theme of our last talk, it becomes clear that there’s a very real continuity of thought in this passage.

Last time we saw how the people of Jesus’ home town rejected him and how, when Jesus sent out his disciples, he told them to shake the dust off their feet as a testimony against any who rejected their message about him. Today’s passage begins in verses 14-16 with the theme of people’s attitude to Jesus and his message, and continues with the story of how one particular person, King Herod, hardened his heart against the preaching of John the Baptist and ended up by ordering his execution. And we know from Acts 4:27 and Luke 23:12 that this eventually led to his conspiring with Pontius Pilate against Jesus himself.

But let’s begin by reading the passage to remind ourselves of the details.

14 King Herod heard about this, for Jesus’ name had become well known. Some were saying, “John the Baptist has been raised from the dead, and that is why miraculous powers are at work in him.” 15 Others said, “He is Elijah.” And still others claimed, “He is a prophet, like one of the prophets of long ago.” 16 But when Herod heard this, he said, “John, the man I beheaded, has been raised from the dead!” 17 For Herod himself had given orders to have John arrested, and he had him bound and put in prison. He did this because of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife, whom he had married. 18 For John had been saying to Herod, “It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.” 19 So Herodias nursed a grudge against John and wanted to kill him. But she was not able to, 20 because Herod feared John and protected him, knowing him to be a righteous and holy man. When Herod heard John, he was greatly puzzled; yet he liked to listen to him. 21 Finally the opportune time came. On his birthday Herod gave a banquet for his high officials and military commanders and the leading men of Galilee. 22 When the daughter of Herodias came in and danced, she pleased Herod and his dinner guests. The king said to the girl, “Ask me for anything you want, and I’ll give it to you.” 23 And he promised her with an oath, “Whatever you ask I will give you, up to half my kingdom.” 24 She went out and said to her mother, “What shall I ask for?” “The head of John the Baptist,” she answered. 25 At once the girl hurried in to the king with the request: “I want you to give me right now the head of John the Baptist on a platter. 26 The king was greatly distressed, but because of his oaths and his dinner guests, he did not want to refuse her. 27 So he immediately sent an executioner with orders to bring John’s head. The man went, beheaded John in the prison, 28 and brought back his head on a platter. He presented it to the girl, and she gave it to her mother. 29 On hearing of this, John’s disciples came and took his body and laid it in a tomb.

The fact that Jesus’ name had become well known (v14) is not surprising, bearing in mind the miracles he was performing and the great crowds who gathered around him. The miracles were causing people to wonder exactly who Jesus was. He reminded them of what they had heard about Elijah and the miracles he performed. Some even thought Jesus was Elijah, possibly basing their assumption on Malachi’s prophecy that God would one day send Elijah back before the day of the Lord came (Malachi 4:5). (Although Jesus said in Mark 9:13 that it was actually John who was the promised ‘Elijah’). Others thought that Jesus was John the Baptist risen from the dead. This included King Herod who said, John, the man I beheaded, has been raised from the dead! (v16).

Mark then goes on to explain how and why Herod came to order John’s execution, but before we go any further it’s important to identify which Herod we are talking about, as the New Testament makes reference to no less than four different Herods, all of whom were unpleasant characters, to say the least. Perhaps it will be easiest to say which Herod this is NOT. This Herod is not Herod the Great (so-called) who wanted to kill the baby Jesus and massacred the baby boys in Matthew 2. He is not Herod Agrippa I, who was smitten by the angel of the Lord and died because of his pride in Acts 12, neither is he Herod Agrippa II before whom Paul conducted his defence in Acts 25-26. The Herod who executed John the Baptist was Herod Antipas whose final attitude to Jesus is found in Luke 23:7-12.

There we’re told that Pilate sent Jesus to Herod, who happened to be in Jerusalem at the time of Jesus’ trial, because Jesus came from the region of Galilee where Herod was the ruler and was therefore under his jurisdiction. Herod was pleased to see Jesus because, from what he’d already heard about him, he hoped to see him perform some miracle. He asked him many questions, but when Jesus refused to reply, he ridiculed and mocked him, dressed him in an elegant robe, and sent him back to Pilate, who then became his friend although up to that point they had been enemies. Herod was thus complicit in the crucifixion of Jesus as Acts 4:26-27 makes clear:

The kings of the earth rise up and the rulers band together against the Lord and against his anointed one. Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel to conspire against your holy servant Jesus whom you anointed.

So Herod and Pilate banded together against the Lord and conspired against Jesus. And now, as we return to our passage in Mark 6, we see that it was by hardening his heart to God’s word through John the Baptist that Herod took the first steps that led ultimately to his role in the crucifixion of Jesus. His attitude to God’s servant, John, was finally to determine his attitude to God’s Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus once said:

Very truly I tell you, whoever accepts anyone I send accepts me; and whoever accepts me accepts the one who sent me (John 13:20).

To accept Christ’s message through the messengers he sends is to accept Christ himself, and to reject his message through the messengers he sends is to reject Christ himself. In rejecting God’s message through John, Herod finally came to ridicule and reject Christ.

But this need not have happened. Herod had every opportunity to accept John’s message of repentance. Verse 18 tells us that John had been saying to Herod, It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife. And the tense of the Greek verb indicates that he had done so repeatedly. But instead of repenting, Herod had John put in prison where John continued to preach the same message.

So Herod had plenty of opportunity to repent. He knew that John was a righteous and holy man. He feared him and he liked to listen to him but was greatly puzzled by what he heard. This verb (aporeomai) is sometimes  translated in the New Testament as perplexed and can also convey the idea of doubt. The mental confusion that caused Herod to doubt sprang from the fact that he knew what was right but was unwilling to do it.  There were so many voices clamouring for his attention – the voice of conscience telling him that his relationship with Herodias was sinful, the voice of John the Baptist constantly confirming that he must repent, the voice of Herodias demanding John’s death, and the voice of the flesh telling him that he must protect his own reputation at all costs. No wonder we’re told that he was perplexed.

And so, although for a time he protected John from Herodias’s thirst for his blood, the time came when, trapped by his own foolish vow, he murdered, without a fair trial, the man who Jesus said was the greatest person who had ever lived (Matthew 11:11), and in so doing involved a young girl [1] in the bloody process, undoubtedly psychologically damaging her for the rest of her life. But we know the story. It remains now for us to summarise where Herod went wrong.

It began with his decision to break God’s law and live in adultery with his brother’s wife. Instead of listening to the voice of conscience and repenting at the preaching of John the Baptist, he chose to continue to disobey God. Embarrassed by John’s public denunciation of his lifestyle, he attempted to silence him by putting him in prison. Infatuated with a young dancing girl he made a foolish oath, and when, at her mother’s instigation, she made the most outrageous demand, he lacked the moral courage to refuse it for fear of what others might think. This series of wrongly motivated decisions led finally to the ultimate decision – the rejection of Christ.

But before we conclude this message, let’s turn our attention away from the evil Herod to the man he beheaded, God’s faithful servant, John the Baptist. As we saw in Mark 1, the heart of the message God had called John to preach was that everyone needed to repent in preparation for the coming of the Messiah, and vast crowds came to be baptised in the Jordan confessing their sins. It’s clear from Luke 3 that the message was for all – soldiers, tax-collectors, religious leaders, and even for political leaders like King Herod. As we have seen, John told him in no uncertain terms that his relationship with his brother’s wife was wrong, and rebuked him for all the other evil things he had done (Luke 3:19) which led to his arrest, imprisonment and eventually his execution.

John was imprisoned before Jesus started his public ministry in Galilee (Mark 1:14) but his execution took place some time later. We know little of the time John spent in prison except that Matthew tells us that:

When John heard in prison what Christ was doing, he sent his disciples to ask him, “Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?” Jesus replied, “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor. Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me” (Matthew 11:2-6).

John’s question shows that he was beginning to doubt if Jesus really was the promised Messiah despite the evidence of the miracles Jesus was doing. He was doubting the testimony of Scriptures like Isaiah 61:1-2 which Jesus said was being fulfilled in his miraculous ministry, and he was even doubting his own testimony that Jesus was the lamb of God who would take away the sins of the world. More serious still, he was doubting the testimony of God himself, who at Jesus’ baptism had declared that Jesus was his beloved Son.

These serious doubts would have been caused by the circumstances in which he found himself, unjustly imprisoned, and cut off from fellowship with like-minded people, but also perhaps by the expectation that the Messiah would proclaim freedom for the captives and release for the prisoners (Isaiah 61:1, Luke 4:18). If Jesus really was the Messiah, why was John still in prison? It’s all too easy to doubt when circumstances tell us that God has not kept the promises we believe he has made us, and John was no exception.

But fortunately, there is a remedy for doubt. John sent a message to Jesus and Jesus gave him the answer. Note that even though John was doubting who Jesus was, he still made contact with him. If you’re doubting God, it might seem illogical, but contact him anyway. When my philosophy tutor at Oxford confidently asserted that he could disprove the existence of God, as soon as the tutorial was over I said, God, if there is a God, HELP. And he did! My AV Bible fell open at Psalm 119:99 where I read:

I have more understanding than all my teachers, for thy testimonies are my meditation.

And my doubts were gone. So if your circumstances are causing you to doubt, do what John did. Keep in touch with Jesus, and if it seems that he’s not keeping his promises to you, let him remind you of the things he has done for you and of how he has worked in the lives of others. Faith is not the absence of doubt. It’s trusting the Lord despite our doubts and leaving the outcome with him. In the KJV Jesus’ final word to John was:

Blessed is he who is not offended in me (v6).

John’s doubts were leading him towards the danger of taking offense at Jesus like the people of Nazareth in Mark 6:3. The Greek word is the same, and as we saw last time it’s frequently used in the New Testament to mean a stumbling block or something that trips you up. What tripped up the people of Nazareth was their refusal to see beyond the humanity of Jesus.  For John the potential stumbling block was that if Jesus really was the Messiah, why was he not setting him free from Herod’s prison?

One lesson we can learn from this is that we must not be offended by God’s will for our lives. Some promises – especially with regard to the body – will not reach final fulfilment until the redemption of the body at the resurrection. When circumstances are against us, and when we’re not yet experiencing the fulfilment of one of God’s promises, it’s all too easy to give way to doubt. The remedy is to concentrate on the many wonderful promises we have seen fulfilled in our lives and to rejoice in what we hear God is doing for others, even if we are not yet experiencing the same blessings that they are. If the great John the Baptist could come to the point of doubting the very truth of what God had called him to preach, we should not be surprised or feel condemned if we are tempted to doubt.

Eventually, of course, John was liberated from the prison, but perhaps not in the way he was expecting or hoping. Death, for those who believe in Jesus, is the ultimate release, whether it be from imprisonment, or sickness, or any other form of suffering. Death is the gateway to Heaven where there is no mourning, or crying, or pain (Revelation 21:4). John’s headless body was laid in a tomb, but he himself was already enjoying the rewards of Heaven, far beyond the reach of evil people like Herod and Herodias.