2 Samuel 6:1-5, 12b-19  Psalm 24 Ephesians 1:3-14 Mark 6:14-29

The writer of the Gospel of Mark tells us very little about John the Baptizer though he does not stop short of painting a clear concise picture of this righteous and holy man.  It is in Luke’s Gospel that we read the miraculous account of John’s parentage by Zechariah and Elizabeth and the prophesy that he would be filled with the Holy Spirit and that he would “go before (the Messiah) to turn the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous.” Later in Luke, we learn that the unborn John leaps in his mother Elizabeth’s womb when Elizabeth is greeted by her cousin Mary, the expectant mother of Jesus.  Thus, John, who would become known as John the Baptizer, recognized Jesus as the Messiah months before either of them was born.  As Mark tells us, truly, John was filled with the Holy Spirit.

It is this John of which we read in Canticle 16 of the BCP, The Song of Zechariah, also from Luke’s Gospel, “You, my child, shall be called the prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the Lord to prepare his way.  To give his people knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins.” [BCP p. 93]

Our next encounter is with the adult John at the Jordan River where all, Mark says (everything for Mark is immediate and extreme) – where all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him to be baptized with water.  John, we are told, is clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey.  John, for us, is the epitome of humility and the essence of raw uncorrupted creation.   John is a righteous and holy man.

John’s was the voice crying in the wilderness, “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.” [NRSV Mark 1:3]  Then, we read, that it is John – this humble and unspoiled child of God – towhom Jesus comes to be baptized.  As Mark describes the baptism in Chapter 1, verses 10-11, it is John who “saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on (Jesus) and heard the voice that came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved, with you I am well pleased.’” [NRSV]  John was the one to see and recognize the tearing apart of the heavens, which would reoccur at Jesus’ crucifixion.  It is John who promises that the one who is to come will baptize not with water only but with the Holy Spirit.

Typical of Mark to be brief and succinct, only 3 verses after his description of this ecstatic experience, we read simply, “Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the good news of God.” [NRSV 1:14]  Thus, Jesus’ ministry has begun as John exits the scene with little explanation, not to be heard from again in Mark’s Gospel until the record of his execution by Herod Antipas, the details of which we read in our lesson from Chapter 6 today.

Herod Antipas, the son of Herod the Great, represents an absolute contrast to John the Baptizer.  In 40 B.C., the controlling Roman Senate had appointed his father, Herod the Great, king of the Jews.  Technically, then, the Herods were Jewish only because these ancestors had been forced to convert to Judaism, Herod the Great was a mixed bag.  To garner the praise of the Jewish people, he had orchestrated the grandiose restoration of the Jerusalem temple originally built by Solomon.  Upon hearing rumors of the birth of the Messiah, the ruthless Herod the Great slaughtered the children of Bethlehem to eliminate their threat to his kingship.  And, it was this Herod before whom Jesus stood in silence in the hours before his crucifixion.

At the death of Herod the Great, his kingdom was divided among three of his sons as settlement of the heated dispute over their inheritance.  Herod Antipas was granted one-fourth of his father’s kingdom, the tetrarchy of Galilee and Perea. Thus, Jesus and John the Baptist were two of this Herod’s geographical subjects – two subjects who would present him with great discomfort.  

And, though declared tetrarch at the death of his father, the royal title of king was withheld from Herod Antipas, leaving him resentful, greedy for power, and suspicious of anyone who might threaten his rule.  Mark’s reference to him as “king” could truly be construed as satirical.  In fact, it is interesting to note that the forty-three-year reign of Herod Antipas would be ended in A.D. 39 as the result of his travelling to Rome to insist that he be granted royal status – the title of king that he craved.  But, rather than having his request granted, Herod Antipas was accused of crimes against Rome and was deported and exiled to Gaul for the duration of his life.

From early on, however, from his capital in Tiberias, Herod Antipas led a shallow existence of greed and self-satisfaction.  Growing weary of his current wife, he became smitten with his niece Herodias who was also the wife of his half-brother Philip. His marriage to her had drawn the distaste of John the Baptizer who had publicly chastised Herod Antipas for the marriage, which John declared unlawful and immoral within Jewish tradition.

For this very public act of sedition by John, Herod had imprisoned him.  And, Herod’s wife Herodias nurtured a bitter grudge against John for his outspoken condemnation of her marriage to Herod.  Herodias, however, was unsuccessful in having John eliminated because, as Mark tells us, Herod feared John knowing him to be a righteous and holy man.

But, as we have read just now, Herod sets a trap for himself, presenting an opportunity for the elimination of John – an opportunity on which Herodias would pounce.  Her daughter, whom Bible commentators agree is misnamed Herodias in verse 22 – more correctly named Salome, entrances Herod and his large audience with her sensual dance during what some historians define as a drunken orgy.  Herod, blinded by his lust for his stepdaughter and his compulsion to please and impress his crowd of onlookers, very publicly offers her anything she wishes as a gift for her seductive dance.  And, upon conferring with her mother, the gift the girl requests is the head of John the Baptist on a platter.  Mark tells us that Herod Antipas was deeply grieved; doubtless he was consumed with fear, yet, under the eyes of his subjects, he is compelled to send his soldier of the guard to fulfill the request to deliver the platter bearing the head of John the Baptist.

Herod did not fear John the Baptist because he was a wilderness man dressed in animal hair who ate bugs, or even because John raved against him publicly for his unlawful acts.  Herod Antipas feared John the Baptist because the evil misguided ruler recognized John as a righteous and holy man.

Spending his life as the forerunner of Jesus, much of John’s life can be paralleled with that of Jesus.   Their births were similarly proclaimed.  Like the unclean spirits that encountered Jesus, the evil Herod recognized holiness in John and knew that he was powerless over this holiness.  And, John, like Jesus would go quietly to his death under the authority of a weak and paranoid ruler who succumbed to the politically-corrupted and immorally-motivated cry of the crowd.

Jesus doesn’t ask us to walk about in the wilderness dressed in animal hair and eating bugs proclaiming the coming of one greater than each of us.  Most of us do not expect to go silently to our deaths for his sake.  But, Jesus does ask us to walk humbly in the presence of God and to proclaim his message regardless of the opposition we face, not being intimidated by the cry of the crowd.  And, Jesus asks us to remember that the devil dances in the presence of our arrogance, but quakes in the presence of righteousness.

John’s righteousness is epitomized in his humility; his holiness is embodied in his deep awareness that his power comes from God alone.   Conversely, Herod’s immorality is epitomized in his arrogance; his wickedness is embodied in his jealous pursuit of his own superficial royal status over the true kingship of God.

And, it is John the Baptist to whom we look as our model for righteousness and an eternal voice against evil.  Our fourth century church father St. John Chrysostum remarked, “Even to the very ends of the earth, you will hear this voice and see that righteous man even now crying out, resounding loudly, and reproving the evil of the tyrant.  He will never be silenced nor the reproof at all weakened by the passing of time.”

In utter humility, this voice of this righteous and holy man speaks the essence of the presence of God – that power comes from God alone.  Let us not allow our own voices against evil to be silenced nor our reproof of injustice to be weakened by the cry of the crowd.   Listen to John’s voice crying in the wilderness, “Prepare the way of the Lord. Make his paths straight.”