Gruesomeness of John’s beheading

Ambrose wrote very descriptively,

Look, most savage king, at the spectacle of your feast. Stretch out your right hand and see the streams of holy blood pouring down between your fingers. Nothing is lacking in your cruelty. The hunger for such unheard-of cruelty could not be satisfied by banquets, or the thirst by goblets. So as you drink the blood pouring from the still flowing veins of the cut-off head, behold those eyes. Even in death those eyes are the witnesses of your crime. Turning away from the sight of the delicacies. The eyes are closing, not so much owing to death as to the horror of excess. That bloodless golden mouth, whose sentence you could not endure, is silent and yet is still dreaded. Meanwhile the tongue, which even after death is apt to observe its duty as when living, continues to condemn the incest with trembling motion.

Ministerial thoughts

We had so many good thoughts this morning on the texts that I have a hard time picking which to preach.

Glenn said that this week he would begin a 6-week series from Ephesians accompanied by a Bible study. Nice to know the lectionary will be going continua through Ephesians for a while, but I’ll be away a couple of those weeks, and so perhaps a series isn’t for me. He is prompted to do this partly because of the messiness of John’s beheading.

Fred said he wants to preach: Herod a Study in Cowardice. He picked up on a passage by C.S. Lewis about having a toothache as a child and not wanting to tell his mother. While she would give him the pain relief for the night that he desperately wanted, he also knew that in the morning she would take him to the dentist, and that was more than he wanted. Herod perhaps demonstrates the same when he listened to John.

Cliff told a story of an inmate he knew when he was working in prison. During a robbery he told the attendant to lie on the floor or he would shoot him. He only meant it as a threat to get the man to do as he was told. Latter in the robbery, however, the man sneezed, so the robber, wanting to keep his word in front of his two friends, popped him. Cliff asked him if he had to do that… he answered, “of course.”

Fred said, “Herod lost his head, so did John, but Herod also lost his soul.”

Cliff wondered if John didn’t confront Herod specifically to take himself off of the stage. “He must increase…” There was so much confusion between Jesus and John, (i.e. Some say he is John the Baptist raised from the dead. 6:14) the confusion lasted even after Jesus left earth. Perhaps his death was the only way to get his followers to focus on Jesus.

I wondered too, was John wrong about Jesus? His ministry was to prepare the way for the messiah. He baptized for repentance. He obviously saw Jesus’ ministry as that of judgment. Cliff suggested that his act of judgment was too force people to choose. (I have come to divide families, to bring a sword, not peace.)

John challenges my traditions view of Jesus’ ministry. If we only call people to salvation, to repentance, we only do what John did. If he only prepared the way for Jesus’ ministry, then His ministry must be more: reconciliation and real life. Discipleship!

Cliff said that our job is to help people become a part of the redemptive and redeemed people of God. Which brings us back to Ephesians. My people need to know who they are in Christ pretty desperately. For that alone, I will preach Paul’s wonderful statement of what God has done through Christ.

1. He chose us
2. He destined us for adoption
3. He lavished on us
4. He has made known to us

Speaking the prophetic voice

Amos stands in the line of prophets who hear the voice of God and deliver it to kings, nations and peoples. In today’s readings, Amos stands up to king Jeroboam. The Message continues,

“But here’s what God is telling you:

Your wife will become a whore in town.

Your children will get killed.

Your land will be auctioned off.

You will die homeless and friendless.

And Israel will be hauled off to exile, farm from home.”

John the Baptizer’s words to Herod were not far off. Herod had made Herodias a whore of adultery, both in putting away his own wife to take her, and by taking her from his brother Philip.

Let me hear what God the LORD will speak, for he will speak peace to his people, to his faithful, to those who turn to him in their hearts.

The psalmist says that to hear the voice of the God is a thing of peace. It is for those who would heed them. For Jeroboam, and Herod and Herodias, it meant death and desertion.

The church fathers have much to say about the sin of Herod’s oath. A thing as simple as the hasty slip of the tongue can lead to so much ruin. Sin upon sin compounds to John’s murder.

Peter Chrysologus said of his death, “For then did the old greedy dragon taste in the head of the servant what he so thirsted after – the passion of the master.”

Chrystosom notes that John’s murderers fail in their effort to silence his tongue. “For each person repeatedly reading this Gospel says: ‘It is not lawful for you to have the wife of Philip your brother.’” To this day the prophet continues to speak.

• What is our responsibility to speak to the sins of others? When do we become judgmental or assume the role of the Holy Spirit?
• What do we learn from the actions of Herod about our own weaknesses?

The Ark Returns to Zion

David danced before the returning Ark of the Covenant. He exulted. In the Psalm 24 he sings his exultation, commanding even the gates of the city to join him.

Lift up your heads, O gates! and be lifted up, O ancient doors! that the King of glory may come in.

Who is the King of glory? The LORD, strong and mighty, the LORD, mighty in battle.

Lift up your heads, O gates! and be lifted up, O ancient doors! that the King of glory may come in.

Who is this King of glory? The LORD of hosts, he is the King of glory. Selah

Paul joins the celebration. The Spirit of God no longer rests on the Ark of the Covenant, but in the hearts of his saints. Even before David danced before the ark, God had predestined us to open our hearts to His son, strong and mighty.

God's Power and our Faith

Origen:

And perhaps, as in the case of metallic substances there exists in some a natural attraction toward some other thing, as in the magnet for iron, and in naphtha for fire, so there is an attraction in such faith toward the divine power according to what Jesus said: “If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain, ‘Move to another place,’ and it shall be moved.” Matthew and Mark wished to present the all-surpassing value of that divine power as a power that works even in those who do not believe. But they did not deny that grace works even more powerfully among those who have faith. So it seems to me that they accurately said not that the Lord did not do any mighty works because of their unbelief, but that he did not do many there. Mark does not flatly say that he could do no mighty work there at all, and stop at that point, but added, “except that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk and healed them.” Thus the power in him overcame their unbelief.

Markan Distinctives

• Position
• Mark alone places this pericope right after a collection of miracle stories – directly connecting the power in those situations with the lack of power in his home town. Matthew has it after a collection of parables.
• His disciples followed him
• Luke places this pericope before the calling of the disciples, as an introduction to his power.
• The placing of the commissioning of the disciples immediately after Jesus is rejected in his hometown in Mark puts the emphasis on the disciples reaction to those who reject them in their ministry. It has been suggested that a preacher preach one or the other parts of this lection, but only in Mark do we get the force of them together.
• On the Sabbath
• Mark, in comparison with Matthew, includes the timing of the Sabbath, making this the congregations regular time of teaching (as in Luke)
• What mighty works are wrought by his hands!
• This sentence is difficult in placement in Mark. The other Matthew makes it part of the questioning and Luke simply implies their unbelief. Perhaps Hooker is right when stating that the force of the statement is a question. Where does he get this power?
• Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary?
• Matthew and Luke make reference to Jesus being the son of the carpenter Joseph. In this reading of Mark, Jesus is a carpenter, perhaps the other evangelists thought it too base that Jesus worked with his hands (so Origen).
• Also if the villagers did not mention Joseph as his father, it may be a derogatory reference to rumors surrounding his conception. – Hooker
• And he could do no mighty works there
• Matthew frames it that he would not. Here the lack of faith actually limits Jesus’ ability. If they rejected his teaching at the synagogue, and had no faith, his ability was hampered. Here, as with the woman with the issue of blood, the Markan theme of Jesus’ authority is contrasted with the efficacy of faith.
• Except that he laid his hands upon a few sick people and healed them.
• Presumably those who received his teaching were able to receive healing.
• Not the great works of power demonstrated in Capernaum.
• Disciples allowed a staff and sandals
• Hooker: “Mark’s less stringent rules perhaps reflect the conditions of a later missionary journey: it was possible to travel around Palestine with out stick or shoes, but these became necessary when more arduous journeys were undertaken.”
• Perhaps Mark is making application to the real conditions of his community.
• They cast out many demons, and anointed with oil
• That they used oil is peculiar to Mark. Oils were sometimes used medicinally, and are part of the process of healing the sick in the epistles.
• They were authorized to do all these things back in 3:14, 15.

Show and Tell

Cliff said he wants to write a book called show and tell about the Gospel of Mark. He sees the action of Mark as Jesus showing the disciples how to live and minister. The storm was a test for them to see how they do with out him. This week he sends them out to do what he has been doing. Last week he healed and raised to life. This week he tells them to.