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Mark 6:14-29
John the Baptist Beheaded
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.
I’ve gone back and forth on this story. At first, I suppose I just carried my perception of it from kids’ Sunday School — that it was sad, but that it’s sort of an example of what happens when the people of God come in contact with the powers of this world. But then at some point I started to think of it as particularly tragic, because John was executed, not for some grand theological reason, but simply because he had rubbed a powerful woman the wrong way. He had threatened her place on the gravy train, so to speak.
But now I’ve kind of come back around again. It seems to me that the real reason John found himself in prison, and the reason he wound up being executed, is that he stood up for God’s ways in the face of the rich and powerful. And like many prophets throughout history, John the Baptist came to a bad end as a result. The details of his execution — the specific manner of his death — are probably incidental.
As the story goes, John the Baptist had offended Herodias, the wife of Herod Antipas, who was the Romans’ appointed ruler of the area. It seems that she had divorced her husband and married Herod, who was her brother-in-law. (And by the way, Herod wasn’t really a king, just a thug appointed to his position by the Roman Empire.) John the Baptist had publicly criticized Herod and Herodias for their marriage, and as a result she was looking for a chance to get revenge. And as it turns out in today’s reading, her resentment was so great that she sacrificed a ‘golden ticket’ handed to her daughter just to see John dead.
Herod wasn’t really a Jew – he was an Idumean, a member of a neighboring semitic ethnic group. So he probably didn’t worry too much about obeying the laws of Moses when it came to the matter of who could marry whom. But the irregularity of Herod’s marriage had drawn the public condemnation of John the Baptist, which made Herod look bad in the eyes of the Jewish population. So Herod had John thrown in prison.
As we said, Herodias wanted Herod to have John executed. But the text says that Herod “feared John,” because he understood him to be “a holy and righteous man.” And what’s more, although Herod found himself “greatly puzzled” by what John the Baptist had to say, he apparently found him fascinating and he “liked to listen to him.”
That’s an aspect of the story that’s really interesting to me. The Herods could be ruthless – even bloodthirsty. But Herod Antipas was so intrigued by this strange Jewish preacher who had denounced him in public that instead of having John executed as his wife wanted, Herod was keeping him alive and actually listening to him. Doesn’t that seem strange? I tend to take it as a sign of the spiritual charisma that John the Baptist had — the authority with which he spoke.
Eventually, of course, Herodias got her way. Herod threw a big party and invited his friends and underlings. In the course of the evening, Herodias’ daughter came in and danced for the assembled party guests, and her dance impressed the men so much Herod offered her any reward she could name, even up to half his kingdom.
My assumption is that Herod and his friends must have been pretty drunk by this point. This is a ridiculous gesture, no matter how good the dance was — offering a young girl any reward she wanted, even half his kingdom. Apparently Herod was feeling especially generous on his birthday.
The girl consults her mother, and at her behest, demands the head of John the Baptist. There’s a sense in the story that Herod finds himself trapped. He’s faced with the choice of either murdering someone he regards as a holy man or being embarrassed in front of his friends and enraging his wife. So, to save face and keep his wife happy, Herod orders the murder of John the Baptist.
I guess from a certain perspective, we could see the death of John the Baptist as consistent with the rest of his ministry. John went before the Messiah when he came into the world, and he went before Jesus to his death at the hands of the powers of the world. Like Jesus himself, John stood in the face of the powerful and called them to account for their sins. Both were killed in part because those in power are usually perfectly willing to respond to the challenging word of God by killing the messenger.
It’s every bit as true today as it was in first-century Palestine: It takes a lot of courage to speak for God in the halls of power. But I suppose there’s some justice in the fact that people of faith still name their children after John the Baptist, and Herod Antipas is a nobody on the trash-heap of history.
Let’s pray. Lord, we thank you for the bold witness of John the Baptist as he called the world to repentance and prepared the way for Jesus. We pray for your strength for those followers of your Son who stand in the face of power as John did, calling it to account for its sins and often suffering for their faithfulness. Amen.
Blessings,
Henry
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