Listen to the sermon with the player below, or, download the audio.
+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Nobody likes to be told that what they are doing is wrong, or do they? In today’s Gospel Reading, St. Mark by Divine inspiration tells us that King Herod had heard John the Baptizer “gladly”, even though at least part of what John had told Herod was that it was not lawful for Herod to have his brother’s wife. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther, when preaching on this text in 15‑34, called those who welcome the truth, even if it is against them, “rare birds” (cited by Plass, #4510, p.1399). Are you and I such “rare birds”? Do we welcome the truth, even when it is against us? Do we gladly hear God’s Word as Herod apparently did? This morning we reflect on the Gospel Reading under the theme “Herod’s Hearing and Ours”.
St. Mark’s report of Herod’s gladly hearing John the Baptizer comes in a “flashback” of a sort, for as St. Mark tells it, John the Baptizer had been arrested before Jesus’s ministry really got underway (Mark 1:14; compare John 3:23-36). The activity of the apostles sent out two by two—their words preaching repentance, and their deeds casting out demons and anointing with oil many who were sick and healing them (Mark 6:12-13)—apparently made Jesus’s Name more widely known, all the way to King Herod’s household, and, even though John the Baptizer had never done what might be called a “miracle” (John 10:41), King Herod thought about John the Baptizer and what he had done to him, despite his previously having gladly heard him.
Bible commentators differ on the precise identity of some of the figures and history behind today’s Gospel Reading, but none of their debates really impact the general immorality of what Herod did. Herod had sinned against the Tenth Commandment by coveting his brother’s wife, and then he sinned against the Sixth Commandment by committing adultery with her. Perhaps in part because God condemned Herod’s actions through John the Baptizer, as God condemned Jeroboam’s actions through Amos in today’s Old Testament Reading (Amos 7:7-15), Herod feared John the Baptizer, knowing John was a righteous and holy man; Herod kept John safe, and Herod heard John gladly, but Herod was also greatly perplexed, even before Herod began to think John was risen from the dead (Luke 9:7). Herod may have kept the Third Commandment to some extent by gladly hearing John the Baptizer, and Herod may have kept the Fifth Commandment to some extent by protecting John from Herodias’s grudge, but ultimately Herod sinned against the Fifth Commandment by ordering John’s murder. (Herod also may have sinned against the Second Commandment by making vows and taking oaths to give Herodias’s daughter whatever she wished.)
We do not know what all John the Baptizer had said to Herod—although we might assume safely that John proclaimed law and Gospel (Mark 1:1-8)—nor do we know what was in Herod’s heart. Herod may well have been torn between the godly life to which John pointed and Herod’s own evil passions. Herod gladly heard John speak God’s Word, and Herod kept John safe, but Herod clearly did not always keep the Word of God so as to do it (Luke 11:28). How like Herod are you and I? Do we not covet, live sexually impure and indecent lives, sometimes gladly hear God’s Word, and yet ultimately fail always to do what it commands? Like St. Paul, we do not do what our redeemed natures want to do, but instead we do the very things our redeemed natures hate; we have the desires to do what is right but not the ability to carry it out (Romans 7:15, 18). Our consciences should be as pricked as Herod’s apparently was!
St. Mark reports that, when Herodias’s daughter asked for the head of John the Baptizer on a platter, King Herod was exceedingly sorry. The king knew what he was going to do was wrong, but knowing that did not stop him from doing it, nor did he seem later genuinely to repent of having done it, and apparently he still was not at peace with God about it when hearing of the apostles’ words and deeds in Jesus’s Name. Although, as St. Luke reports, when Herod heard about Jesus he sought to see Him (Luke 9:9), long desired to see Him, because Herod was hoping to see some sign done by Jesus, and later, when Pilate sent Jesus to Herod, Herod did see and question Jesus, Who made him no answer (Luke 23:7-8). Then, Herod with his soldiers treated Jesus with contempt and mocked Him, arrayed Him in splendid clothing and sent Him back to Pilate (Luke 23:11). As Herod had treated John, so essentially Pilate treated Jesus: bowing to pressure to kill Him, in a gruesome and grisly way. Yet, Jesus’s death on the cross was to take away the sins of the world—including Herod’s and Pilate’s sins, and your and my sins. More than John the Baptizer raised from the dead or a prophet like one of the prophets of old, Jesus was the Christ, the Anointed One (Mark 8:28-29). Jesus was true God in human flesh. God the Father loved us so much that He sent His Son to die on the cross in order to save us from our sins. Like John before Him, Jesus was placed in a tomb, but Jesus did not stay there. Jesus’s resurrection shows that God the Father accepted His sacrifice on our behalf. When we repent of our sin and trust God to forgive our sin, then God does just that: He forgives all our sin for Jesus’s sake, making us, like John the Baptizer, righteous and holy.
As we heard in today’s Epistle Reading (Ephesians 1:3-14), God the Father before the foundation of the world chose us in Christ, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. In love, God the Father predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace, with which He has blessed us in His Beloved Son. Our adoption takes place there, at the Baptismal Font, where we are sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, Who is the guarantee of our inheritance, until we acquire full possession of it, to the praise of His glory. We who are so baptized and individually absolved, come here, to this Altar and its rail, where we receive with bread Christ’s body and with wine His blood that redeems us, forgives our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace, which He has lavished upon us. As God worked through Jesus and His apostles’ words and deeds, so God forgives the sins of those who repent and believe through His Word and Sacraments.
Through those same means of grace, God renews our lives and leads us at least to want to keep the commandments. We welcome the truth, even if it is against us, for it also changes us. Like Herod, we wrestle with our own evil passions and fail to keep the commandments perfectly. Yet, “Herod’s Hearing” is also different from “Ours”. Unlike Herod, with repentance and faith, we daily live in God’s forgiveness of sins, and in turn we forgive one another. In our daily lives, we bear witness to God’s truth—including His truth about marriage—even if we are delivered over to councils, have to stand before governors, are beaten (Mark 13:9), and even killed on account of it. Death is not the end! Herod was right about John the Baptizer’s being resurrected, even if Herod was wrong about the timing. On the last day, all the dead will be raised, and those who have trusted in Jesus Christ for their salvation with glorified bodies will enter everlasting life with Him in heaven, to the praise of His glory!
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +