Prophets without Honor (Mark 6:1-29)

How do you respond to rejection? The more personal it is, and the

more you cared about that thing you're rejected from or the

person who rejected you, the harder it is to get over.

You might develop a few different coping strategies in

response to being rejected. You can blame the person.

They don't know what they're missing out on.

They don't know what a great employee I would have been.

They don't know what a great husband or wife I would have

been. You can blame yourself.

If only I'd worked harder. If only I'd said something

different. If only I'd done something

different. You could sort of spiral into

fruitless introspection. Can't change it now.

You can also develop what is often called sour grapes, right?

Oh, I I didn't get that thing. It's not that good anyways.

That job probably would have stunk.

That boss would have been no fun to work for.

Who'd really want to go out with that girl anyways?

You can try to assuage the pain in your own heart by making

light of that thing you lost. Christians can develop their own

strategies for attempting to not get rejected by the world or

respond when we are. Often those strategies can look

like a kind of soft effort to assimilate, blend in, round off

sharp edges, sound just like the things those people out there in

the world are looking for, asking for.

Don't use any terms that might offend or provoke, kind of lead

with what we have in common and eventually trickle out slowly

some of the things that might be a little less appealing about

the Christian faith and way of life.

One problem with that kind of strategy for out flanking

rejection, we're trying to minimize rejection as Christians

is that Jesus himself was rejected.

He warned his apostles to expect rejection and prepared them for

it. And as we'll see in our passage

this morning and the second-half of it, the prophet who prepared

the way for Jesus and pointing people to Jesus and made a kind

of hand off to Jesus was himself rejected in a spectacular

fashion. The Gospel of Mark teaches us

that rejection is not something to be sort of strategically

averted or avoided. The Gospel of Mark teaches us

that it's something to be expected, prepared for, and

endured. Our passage for this morning is

Mark chapter 6, verses 1 to 29. If you don't have a Bible, you

Mark 6:1–29

can put up a hand and someone will bring you one.

You can feel free to take that home with you if you don't have

a Bible to read at home, or you can put it back at the table

afterward. Looks like nobody needs a Bible.

All right. Mark 6/1 to 29.

Our passage has three sections and verses one to six.

We see Jesus rejected in his hometown.

In verses 7 to 13 He sends out the 12 apostles on their first

preaching mission. And then in verses 14 to 29 we

hear the sad story of the martyrdom of John the Baptist.

Please listen as I read the whole passage.

He went away from there and came to his home town, and his

disciples followed him. And on the Sabbath he began to

teach in the synagogue. And many who heard him were

astonished, saying, Where did this man get these things?

What is the wisdom given to him? How are such mighty works done

by his hands? Is not this the Carpenter, the

son of Mary, and brother of James and Joseph and Judas and

Simon? And I'm not his sisters here

with us. And it took offense at him.

And Jesus said to them, A prophet is not without honor,

except in his home town and among his relatives, and in his

own household. And he could do no mighty work

there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and

healed them. And he marvelled because of

their unbelief. And he went about among the

villages teaching, and he called the 12 and began to send them

out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean

spirits. He charged them to take nothing

for their journey except a staff, no bread, no bag, no

money in their belts but to wear sandals and not put on two

tunics. And he said to them, Whenever

you enter a house, stay there until you depart from there, and

if any place will not receive you, and they will not listen to

you when you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as

a testimony against them. So they went out and proclaimed

that people should repent. And they cast out many demons,

and anointed with oil many who were sick, and healed them.

King Herod heard of it, for Jesus's name had become known.

Some said John the Baptist has been raised from the dead, that

is why these miraculous powers are at work in him.

But others said he is Elijah, and others said he is a prophet,

like one of the prophets of old. But when Herod heard of it, he

said John, whom I beheaded, has been raised.

For it was Herod who had sent and seized John and bound him in

prison for the sake of Herodias his brother Philip's wife,

because he had married her. For John had been saying to

Herod, It is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife.

And Herodias had a grudge against him and wanted to put

him to death. But she could not.

For Herod feared John, knowing that he was a righteous and holy

man, and he kept him safe. When he heard him, he was

greatly perplexed, and yet he heard him gladly.

But an opportunity came when Herod on his birthday gave a

banquet for his nobles and military commanders and the

leading men of Galilee. For when Herodias daughter came

in and danced, she pleased Herod and his guests.

And the king said to the girl, Ask me for whatever you wish,

and I will give it to you. And he vowed to her, Whatever

you ask me, I will give you up to half of my Kingdom.

And she went out and said to her mother, for what should I ask?

And she said, the head of John the Baptist.

And she came in immediately with haste to the king, and asked,

saying, I want you to give me at once the head of John the

Baptist on a platter. And the king was exceedingly

sorry, but because of his oaths and his guests, he did not want

to break his word to her. And immediately the king sent an

executioner with orders to bring John's head.

He went and beheaded him in the prison, and brought his head on

a platter and gave it to the girl, and the girl gave it to

her mother. When his disciples heard of it,

they came and took his body and laid it in a tomb.

The key question our passage answers is what should faithful

messengers of Christ expect? The passages 3 sections.

The sermon will have three points.

What should faithful messengers of Christ expect .1 Rejection.

Rejection. This is what Jesus himself

experienced in his hometown in verses 1:00 to 6:00.

Look again with me at verses one to three.

He went away from there and came to his home town, and his

disciples followed him. And on the Sabbath he began to

teach in the synagogue. And many who heard him were

astonished, saying, where did this man get these things?

What is the wisdom given to him? How are such mighty works done

by his hands? It's not this.

The Carpenter, the son of Mary, and brother of James and Joseph

and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us.

And they took offense at Him. Jesus hometown is Nazareth in

Galilee. As he usually did on the Sabbath

when he attended synagogue, He was teaching the Scriptures

publicly, and his hairs were astonished.

They marveled at both his teaching and His miracles.

Now presumably they learned of His miracles primarily through

eyewitness reports, because verse 5 will tell us that He did

hardly any miracles there. Note the common pattern in the

first three questions. Where did this man get these

things? What is the wisdom given to him?

How are such mighty works done by his hands?

They aren't denying that there's something special about Jesus.

It's just the opposite. He's so remarkable that it's

hard to explain. He's so different that it's hard

to account for in normal human terms.

We know He's from here. We know He grew up with us.

But where on earth did he get all this?

Where did it come from? This is one of a series of seven

sets of questions in Mark's Gospel that I mentioned a few

sermons ago. You can only answer each

question by recognizing that Jesus is God Incarnate.

There's a sense in which all the questions his neighbors are

asking are good questions, but they're being asked in a bad

way. Jesus's neighbors are not asking

these questions to find out the truth about who Jesus is.

They're asking these questions because they've already rejected

the only right answer. Not all questions are created

equal, and sometimes you can even ask the right question in

the wrong way from the wrong attitude.

Sometimes questions are a smokescreen or a stalling tactic

or a political maneuver to sort of deflect attention.

Hear Jesus neighbors questions do not express a quest for

truth, but hearts that are already hardened against the

truth. And then look at the remaining

questions. Is not this the Carpenter, the

son of Mary and brother of James and Joseph and Judas and Simon

and are not his sisters here with us?

In other words, it's kind of like saying, we know this guy,

we know his family, we know where he comes from, we know

he's been working with wood and stone all these years.

He was apprenticed into this trade by his father.

Don't don't we know all there really is to know about him?

Sure, there's all this crazy stuff he's saying and doing, but

I mean, come on, we know this guy.

Jesus neighbors are using his humanity to rule out his

divinity. They're letting Jesus humanity

block his divinity rather than seeing it as a window onto his

divinity. They are claiming they already

know all there is to know about him.

He's the Carpenter, Mary's boy. Calling him the Carpenter is not

necessarily derogatory. That the trade Jesus practice

was a skilled one. It would have been respected,

but it is. Ordinary carpenters don't walk

around doing the kind of stuff that Jesus does.

So what's happened here? Jesus's neighbors privileged one

set of evidence and used it to completely reject a whole other

set of evidence. What were his miracles?

Evidence. What was his teaching evidence?

It's not that his neighbors lacked evidence, it's that they

refused to accept the evidence that should have compelled them

to conclude that he is the Messiah and that he is God

Incarnate. For Jesus neighbors, their

barrier to belief was not lack of evidence.

If you're not a believer in Jesus, what about you?

Would you say that your barrier to belief is lack of evidence?

If not, what is it? How did Jesus respond to this

rejection? Look at verses 4:00 to 6:00.

And Jesus said to them, a prophet is not without honor

except in his hometown and among his relatives and in his own

households. And he could do no mighty work

there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and

healed them, and he marvelled because of their unbelief.

And he went out among the villages teaching.

Jesus responds with a proverb. This proverb has parallels in

ancient Greek and Jewish literature.

It's a kind of ancient equivalent of familiarity breeds

contempt. Jesus Point is that it's easy

for those he grew up with to think they know him better than

they do. It's easy for those who

overestimate how well they know Him to cut him down to their

size rather than letting him challenge everything they think

they know both about him and about themselves.

When verse 5 says he could do no mighty work there, the point is

not that their unbelief made it physically impossible for him to

do miracles, as if they like pulled the plug out of his power

and no, no, now he's he can't do anything.

No, the point and that that's disproven by the fact that the

very rest of the verse says he laid his hands on a few sick

people and healed them. But the point about him not

being able to do any mighty works there is that His miracles

were signs of the coming of God's Kingdom.

His miracles pointed to His role as the king bringing this

Kingdom where people have already rejected the king and

this Kingdom. The miracles would be to no

point. They would be to no purpose.

They would be futile. If He did a whole bunch of

miracles before everybody in Nazareth, it would have been

casting pearls before swine. More miracles would not have led

to more faith. In verse 6 Jesus marvels at

their unbelief and yet he fulfills his ministry of

traveling through all the local villages and teaching there.

In all the gospels, Jesus is only said to marvel 2 times.

Once he marvels at the faith of the Gentile centurion who said

just say the word and my servant will be healed.

And here he marvels at the unbelief of his own neighbors

and family. Why does Jesus marvel at their

unbelief? I think it's because this degree

of opposition in a Jewish region is new in his career in the

gospel so far, this is the first time that in a Jewish region

there's been a whole town that sort of turns out against him

and says no thanks. And on top of that, it's his

hometown. This region is the base of his

ministry. If you would expect anybody to

show up and support Jesus the Messiah, it would be the

hometown crowd. Jesus ministry experienced no

homecourt advantage, None whatsoever.

This is a paradox and a stumbling block.

How could those closest to Jesus reject him?

How could those who should know the most about him actually know

the least about him? Kids and teens in the

congregation, I'm confident that many of you genuinely trust in

Jesus. You have a real faith, even from

a very young age. You're trusting in Him and

obeying Him from the heart. I also know that not all of you

believe in him. So my question for you this

morning is, if Jesus were to show up in church today, or if

Jesus were to show up at lunch with your family today, would he

marvel at your unbelief? How many faithful Bible sermons

have you heard? How many times have your parents

read through a story Bible with you or portions of scripture?

How many verses have they made you memorize?

How many times have you seen answers to prayer show up in

your family's life because it's something that your parents

prayed for and then God did? If you don't believe you're

growing up in a Christian home, are you saying it's lack of

evidence? It might be.

You have all the evidence you need, and the problem is that

your eyes are shut and your heart is hard.

If Jesus was rejected by his own neighbors, then faithful

messengers of Christ should expect to be rejected too.

We should be ready for it, prepared for it, not surprised

by it or taken aback by it. Jesus did not do anything wrong

to his hometown neighbors. You cannot blame their rejection

on him. There's nothing he should have

changed, no strategy he should have tweaked, no messaging.

He should have softened and padded and made it more

palatable for their sensibilities.

The problem was not him, it was them.

Brothers and sisters, I know that some of you have suffered

various kinds and degrees of tension, opposition, or

rejection from your family for following Christ.

Take comfort. You're drinking the same cup

Jesus drank. He's been there.

Sometimes family members are personally affronted.

It's like, how did Jesus sneak in and take you away from us?

We're not those kind of people. This isn't what we've taught

you. How did all this Jesus stuff get

in there and make you into some kind of weirdo?

They can be jealous of your new loyalty.

They can be jealous for the God who in some sense has taken you

away from them. If that's anything like your

experience, keep trusting Christ.

Remain steadfast in your loyalty to Christ.

When you're rejected by family or friends, remember you follow

a rejected Christ. Don't let rejection deter you or

silence you. Don't let rejection weaken your

commitment to Christ or your proclamation of Christ.

Keep trusting Him and keep telling others about Him.

We're not all missionaries, but we are all called to tell others

about Jesus. And telling others about Him is

what Jesus sent his apostles out to do in verses 7 to 13.

So point #2 risk point #2. Risk.

What should faithful messengers of Christ expect?

Risk. Risk is an essential ingredient

in making Christ known to all nations, and Jesus required his

apostles to face many different kinds of risks in fulfilling

their first preaching mission, as we see in verses 7 to 13.

Start with verse 7. In verse 7 we see Jesus

Commission and send out his 12 apostles, and he called the 12

and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority

over the unclean spirits. So we noticed that in this first

preaching circuit, Jesus sends his apostles out not only to

speak in his name, but to act in his authority.

Their work of casting out demons is a sign that the Kingdom of

God has come. It's it's borrowed authority,

it's delegated authority. When they cast out those demons,

they're saying the Kingdom is here because the King is here

and his name is Jesus. Notice that he sends them out

two by two. This is probably for a number of

reasons, mutual support, encouragement, help.

Also probably to fulfill the legal requirement in the Torah

of establishing testimony by the mouth of two or three witnesses.

How can we apply this principle of two by two and how we as a

church carry out the mission of Christ?

One simple way is to involve other Christian friends in your

evangelism. Ask a friend to help you share

the gospel with a non Christian friend that can provide support,

accountability, encouragement. It might also mean that this

friend you enlist might be able to answer some of your non

Christian friends questions better than you can.

Or they might be able to relate to a different aspect of that

friend's experience and kind of unlock a new way of connecting

with them. We should also pray that over

time we as a church can raise up and send out missionary teams

and missionary speak. They call them units, whether an

individual or a couple. It is so helpful to send out

missionary teams of multiple units, whether from the same

church or from a network of like minded churches.

Finally, I'm deeply thankful that implanting this church,

Michael Abraham and I have been able to serve side by side full

time together as pastors. I wanted to say this to

Michael's face, but he's homesick.

Michael, if you listen to this on the audio, I hope you're

encouraged. I'll say it to you all, Being

pastored by Michael for these past few months has been an

enormous encouragement and help to me.

Michael has done a wonderful job pastoring me, and as far as I

can see, he has done a wonderful job pastoring you all.

It's been one of the great joys of planting this church to serve

side by side with him. After commissioning His

apostles, Jesus gives them two sets of instructions.

Verses 8 and 9 are instructions for the road.

Verses 10 and 11 are instructions for their stay in

each place that they visit. So start with verses 8 to 9.

He charged them to take nothing for their journey except the

staff. No bread, no bag, no money in

their belts but to wear sandals and not put on two tunics.

The staff was for protection, whether from robbers or from

wild animals. But now why did Jesus prohibit

his apostles from bringing bread or money?

It's because he wanted them to rely exclusively on the

hospitality of those they were going to be ministering to.

Jesus wanted them to depend directly on God, which in this

instance meant depending on the provision of the people they'd

be speaking to. That's also why he prohibited

them from bringing a bag, because this sort of accessory

of a bag was something that other teachers and traveling

philosophers would carry as they begged for gifts.

So no begging, just receiving. Now, the second tunic that Jesus

prohibited them to carry was for warmth.

People would wear a kind of inner garment, and then their

outer garment could serve as a sheet or a blanket.

Like if you didn't have a bed to sleep in, you just wrap your

cloak around you. And Jesus is saying you don't

even get to bring that. You don't get to use your second

cloak as a bed. Someone's going to give you a

bed. Jesus's list of what his

apostles are and aren't to bring with them exactly matches what

the Israelites did and didn't have with them as they left

Egypt during the Exodus, as we learn in Exodus chapter 12.

Exodus 12 · chapter mention

Same Spartan packing list. What's the point of the

connection? The apostles are participating

in the new Exodus inaugurated by Jesus, and so they can trust the

God of the Exodus to provide for them, just as he provided for

the Israelites in the wilderness.

That's important to recognize all the ways in which this first

temporary mission of the apostles differs both from the

kind of normal Christian life in general and from modern

missions. Think about some differences

between the apostles first mission and kind of ongoing

Great Commission work. The apostles were going out for

a short preaching tour, whereas modern missionaries often go out

long term, indefinitely, as long as they can stay.

The apostles were travelling along their own people in their

own homeland, whereas missionaries go out cross

culturally. The apostles were travelling

among people whose religion they shared.

They were simply announcing the fulfilment of that religion,

whereas modern missionaries often go minister to people of

radically different beliefs. So in all those ways, this

passage is different from Great Commission sending today.

But the common principle is risk.

You have to be willing to risk in order to advance the gospel.

You have to be willing to risk how you'll be provided for and

what degree of comfort you'll live in in order to put

proclaiming the gospel first. There is no way to push the

Great Commission forward without incurring risk in these

instructions for the road in verses 8:00 and 9:00, it's as if

Jesus goes through the normal long list of everything you

would bring on a trip and then he says, OK, don't bring any of

that, only a toothbrush. Are you the kind of person who

over packs for every trip? Let's say you're going on A7 day

vacation and somehow half of your wardrobe makes its way into

your suitcase. You want to be prepared for all

weather. A bathing suit in case it's hot,

a parka in case it snows. Now for me, when I go on a trip,

what I over pack is books. I don't ever want to be in the

position where I actually have time to read and I run out of

stuff to read. That would be the worst.

What are you aiming for when you over pack?

You're aiming for security. You want to be prepared in

advance. You want to have all your bases

covered. You're thinking I can supply

whatever I'm going to need for this trip.

Here's what Jesus is saying in this passage about advancing his

gospel and fulfilling his missionary Commission.

You may not pack for security. You may not over pack.

He's saying your only security will come through God's

provision. In what ways might a love of

comfort or ease be limiting your effectiveness as a messenger of

Christ? In what ways might a love of

comfort or ease be hindering you from contributing to the advance

of the gospel in ways that you could?

What might be a good and godly risk for you to run for the sake

of the gospel? In verses 10 and 11, Jesus gives

the apostles instructions for their stay in each place that

they go. And he said to them, whenever

you enter a house, stay there until you depart from there, and

if any place will not receive you and they will not listen to

you when you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as

a testimony against them. The point of verse 10 is that

the apostles are to stay with whoever first offers, offers

them hospitality when they show up in a place.

Jesus is prohibiting them from changing homes and thereby

moving up the social ladder. Oh, this person offered us a

home at first, but this one's nicer.

This one has better food. These people are more

influential and have more resources at their disposal.

He's prohibiting them from advancement and insisting on

mere provision. And then in verse 11, he

highlights another risk they run.

They run the risk of being rejected just as he was.

It's possible that whole towns and cities will turn against

them, just like Jesus own hometown of Nazareth turned

against him. When that happens, the apostles

are to perform this sign of judgment, of shaking off the

dust that is on their feet when they leave.

That's a sign of breaking off communion, of having nothing to

do with them. As if you know, not even the

dust that you live on can stick to me or cling to me.

It's a warning of separation. And how is it a sign?

It's a sign because those towns aren't just rejecting the

apostles, they're rejecting Jesus.

By rejecting Jesus, they're rejecting God their Creator.

It's a warning of judgment. To reject the only message of

salvation is to seal your own judgment.

Now after these instructions we get a brief report of the

apostles activity in verses 12 and 13.

So they went out and proclaimed that people should repent.

And they cast out many demons and anointed with oil many who

were sick and healed them. Here the apostles message echoes

that of Jesus and Mark 115. Jesus proclaimed that people

should repent and so do the apostles.

Hear repentance is an essential component of gospel preaching.

In order to receive Christ as Savior, people must repent of

sin. In order to trust in Christ,

people have to turn from sin. Repentance and faith are two

sides of the same coin. The world around us preaches a

gospel of unconditional affirmation.

The world around us treats a call to repentance as if it's

some kind of traumatizing threat to someone's safety.

But we have a message that demands that we call people to

repent. 1 aspect of faithful evangelism is exhorting people

to turn from sin. This includes both sin in

general and, where relevant, specific sins.

If someone opens up to you about a sin that they're ensnared in,

they know you're a Christian. They know you're trying to get

them to become a Christian. And they say, well, here's

what's going on in my life. If they give you that degree of

transparency, it is entirely appropriate to take aim at that

sin. It is entirely appropriate to

plead with them to turn from that sin.

If someone lets you know that there is a sin in their life

standing in the way of them embracing Jesus, then train your

sights on that sin and pray and plead and do whatever you can to

induce them to give up that sin and lay hold of Christ.

It is loving to try to persuade that person to let go of their

grip on that sin so that they can lay hold of Christ.

It is loving to tell that person that sin is spiritually

poisoning them so that they can appeal to God for surgery, get

the poison out and be healed by Christ.

Now, even with all the differences between the Apostles

first mission and our ongoing efforts to fulfill Christ's

Great Commission, the common factor is risk.

So I want to think a little bit more about the role of risk in

our fulfilling the Great Commission.

The apostles risked rejection, and so do we.

The apostles risked humanly uncertain provision, and so must

we in different ways. It's important to see how this

passage implicitly dignifies both those who run the risks and

those who provide for them. The kind of people receiving

them in these towns aren't precisely parallel to Christians

supporting missions, but the logic is evidence Those who go

need those who will support and supply.

Those who go need those who will provide.

Missions always involves partnership, and those who

support those who supply are called partners because the

mission doesn't happen without them.

There are countless ways to contribute to the advance of the

gospel. Hospitality is a major 1.

You might open up your home for visiting missionary to stay in.

I'm encouraged by how many of you opened up your homes to me

and Michael and others as you're traveling back and forth in the

kind of early stages of this church land.

It wasn't just for me and Michael.

It was for people considering joining.

It was so they could come to interest meetings.

Multiple of you opened up your homes for that kind of purpose.

How can you use your home as a base for ministry?

How can your home and household in some small way become a

missions sending station? Other ways to advance the gospel

in supporting and partnering and going include building

businesses that can travel overseas and help provide

financial support and visas for gospel workers or other locals.

And of course, there must be some who will take the risks of

becoming full time cross cultural gospel workers.

What risks do full time missionaries incur abandoning a

career or choosing not to start one in the 1st place?

Financial sacrifice. Distance from family.

Often not just physical distance, but emotional

distance. Making a decision, perhaps, to

bring grandkids farther than grandparents want them.

Sometimes harsh living conditions, often rejection and

persecution. Often the threat of violence

against them and their families. What makes those risks worth it?

One factor is confidence in God's provision.

Another is a deep rooted desire for God to be glorified among

the nations. And finally, the kind of anchor

for them all is confidence in our eternal reward.

The clearer that reward is in your mind, the heavier it weighs

on your heart, the more risks you'll be willing to run for the

sake of other people. Come and know Jesus.

Comfort and security are good things, and they are even better

things to let go of for the sake of the progress of the gospel.

Someone who let go of all comfort and security for the

progress of the Gospel was John the Baptist .3 Martyrdom.

What should faithful messengers of Christ expect?

Martyrdom. Not every Christian will be a

martyr, of course, but every Christian should be prepared to

be a martyr. And every Christian should

understand something of how the martyr's calling is essential is

a picture of what it means to be a Christian.

We see this in the tragic story of John the Baptist execution in

verses 14 to 29. Look first at verses 14 to 16.

King Herod heard of it, for Jesus name had become known.

Some said John the Baptist has been raised from the dead, that

is why these miraculous powers are at work in him.

But others said he is Elijah, and others said he is a prophet

like one of the prophets of old. But when Herod heard of it, he

said John whom I beheaded has been raised.

Jesus reputation reached far and wide fast.

That was partly through his own ministry, partly through word of

mouth. It was also partly through the

ministry The disciples have just had right.

Word of this coming to Herod follows upon the apostles

preaching ministry. Now the report about Jesus comes

to Herod the local ruler. The Herod mentioned here is

Herod Antipus. His title was technically

tetrarch of Galilee, but he craved the title King.

And so Mark May be mocking him here by calling him king.

Herod Antipas was half Jewish, but his lifestyle was anything

but exemplary Torah keeping. So here Mark provides a survey

of what people were saying about Jesus.

Some people thought he was a prophet, and he was, but he was

more than that. Some people thought he was

Elijah. That's not as random as you

might think because as we'll see tonight, Elijah was prophesied

to come back before the day of the Lord.

But Jesus wasn't Elijah. He was the Lord whose way Elijah

prepared. We saw the beginning of Mark's

gospel that John the Baptist fulfills this role of being

Elijah, who prepares the way for the day of the Lord.

But now Harriet, along with some others, apparently has a strange

view of who Jesus is. John the Baptist raised from the

dead. OK, now Jesus and John the

Baptist public ministries overlapped.

They were virtually the same age, so it's hard to know how

John could have been resurrected and reincarnated as someone who

is already 30 years old. It doesn't really make sense,

but the point is, we're not meant to puzzle this out and see

how this weird theology makes sense.

The point is that Herod's conscience was haunting him.

Herod was responsible for John's beheading.

And the murderer feared the man he murdered.

Now the text is going to flashback and tell us what

happened. Verses 17 to 20.

For it was Herod who had sent and seized John and bound him in

prison for the sake of Herodias his brother Philip's wife,

because he had married her. For John had been saying to

Herod, It is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife.

And Herodias had a grudge against him and wanted to put

him to death, but she could not. For Herod feared John, knowing

that he was a righteous and holy man, and he kept him safe.

When he heard him, he was greatly perplexed, and yet he

heard him gladly. So here's the back story.

Herod was already married to another woman.

His brother Philip was married to Herodias, but Herod wanted

Herodias, so he groundlessly divorced his wife and he stole

his brother Philip's wife to be his own wife.

This is wrong on so many levels, and we know we learned from the

passage that John somehow had access to Herod.

Perhaps Herod invited him to preach at his court.

We don't know exactly how, but somehow John had that

opportunity to speak directly to Herod, and he used it

courageously to rebuke him. Specifically, John would have

appealed to the Law in Leviticus 18 and 20 that forbade a man

from having intercourse with his brother's wife.

After all, Herod was half Jewish.

He would have claimed to obey the Law of Moses, even if that

claim to align himself with the Law of Moses was more of a

convenient political veneer than anything that spoke to the state

of his heart. Faithful evangelism involves

preaching the Law. Faithful evangelism will, at

times, involve calling out specific sins.

It's not fun, it's risky, and you should not take any kind of

perverse Glee in it. But sometimes calling out a

specific sin is the most loving thing you can do, even if the

person you're talking to will receive it as the opposite of

love. Naturally, Herodias had a grudge

against John like Jezebel did against Elijah, as we read in

First Kings 19, but Herod's respect for John kept her hatred

at Bay. Though John was in prison, at

least he's safe there. No assassin can get to him

there. And we see how much power this

powerless imprisoned prophet had.

Herod knew John was righteous and holy.

He could not deny the testimony of John's character.

And Herod heard him. He apparently invited John out

of his prison cell to come and preach to him repeatedly.

He heard him gladly. He didn't know what to make of

John's preaching. He was puzzled.

He was confused, but there was something he liked in it, as JC

Rile observed. We see here the amazing power of

truth over the conscience. Herod fears John the Baptist

while he lives and is troubled about him after he dies.

A friendless, solitary preacher with no other weapon than God's

truth disturbs and terrifies the king.

But John's situation is not exactly stable.

Verses 21 to 23 But an opportunity came when Herod on

his birthday gave a banquet for his nobles and military

commanders and the leading men of Galilee.

For when Herodias daughter came in and danced, she pleased Herod

and his guests. And the king said to the girl,

Ask me for whatever you wish, and I will give it to you.

And he vowed to her, Whatever you ask me, I will give you up

to half of my Kingdom. Here Herod is entertaining his

powerful and influential supporters, his inner circle.

Now, the young woman who dances is Herodias, his daughter by

Philip. The account is reserved, but it

doesn't take much imagination to infer what kind of dancing would

have so pleased the ruler and his guests that he makes this

big, boastful offer to give her whatever she wants.

When Herod offers her up to half his Kingdom, that's

stereotypical language, a kind of big, boastful, generous

offer. It's also kind of an empty

promise. Herod's a client king.

He doesn't own any of this land. He doesn't have the authority to

give her a single acre. But nonetheless, the point is

that she's got him in the palm of her hand.

She just doesn't know what to do with him.

So verses 24 to 29. And she went out and said to her

mother, for which did I ask? And she said the head of John

the Baptist. And she came in immediately with

haste to the king, and asked, saying, I want you to give me at

once the head of John the Baptist on a platter.

And the king was exceedingly sorry, but because of his oaths

and his guests, he did not want to break his word to her.

And immediately the king sent an executioner with orders to bring

John's head. He went and beheaded him in the

prison and brought his head on a platter and gave it to the girl,

and the girl gave it to her mother.

When his disciples heard of it, they came and took his body and

laid it in a tomb. Everything comes to a head in

verse 26. The king was exceedingly sorry,

but because of his odes and his guests, he did not want to break

his word to her. Here both John's fate and

Herod's hang in the balance. Herod was a man blown and driven

by his passions, lust, pride, fear of man, love of power.

His conscience weighed down on him and pulled him toward John,

but his sin pulled harder in the opposite direction.

In that moment of giving that order, there's a sense in which

Herod sealed not only John's fate, but his own.

He chose to keep the world at the cost of his soul.

He chose to please his wife and his stepdaughter and his inner

circle rather than submitting to God in his word.

Sins that had planted seeds in Herod's heart years before came

to a bitter fruition. Now.

All the promising spiritual signs in Herod's life fell short

of true repentance. You look at Herod's character.

You should not make the mistake of thinking that because he

likes to hear John the Baptist preach, he must be with Jesus.

There were good signs. He protected him.

He kept him safe. He respected his character.

He liked what he heard, and yet none of those spiritual signs

added up to true repentance. It's not enough to respect a

righteous man. It's not enough to enjoy hearing

a faithful preacher. Only repentance from the heart

will deliver your soul from sins Tyranny.

So John dies. It's a tragic death.

It's a seemingly futile death. We have to ask a couple of

questions. Why does Mark narrate this story

at such length? It's the longest single

narrative in all Mark's gospel that's not about Jesus.

Why does he give it so much space, and why does he put it

here in this section on mission and ministry and rejection?

I think the answer to why he puts the story here is that he's

sending the message that gospel advance will come through cross

shaped sacrifice. John's defeat wasn't ultimately

a defeat, it was part of the plan God had ordained for his

ministry. Those who go out and preach on

Jesus behalf will run these risks and God will work through

them. But I think the reason John

narrates this story at such length is because John's story

foreshadows Jesus's story. John's fate foreshadows Jesus's

fate. What happened to John will

happen to Jesus. John was eagerly heard, and so

is Jesus. John became the object of the

curiosity of a leader who tried unsuccessfully to save him.

So would Jesus. John was arrested and bound,

executed and buried. So was Jesus.

John died alone, so did Jesus. John was buried by faithful

disciples. So was Jesus.

In John's death, a partial Jew, ruling at Rome's behest, accedes

to the demand that he be killed so that he won't be embarrassed

in front of the crowd. In Jesus's death, Pilate the

Roman accedes to the desires of the chief priests and the crowd

that Jesus be crucified. As one scholar put it, in both

executions Jews conspire with Gentiles, thus representing all

humanity to kill those sent to redeem humanity.

John foreshadows Jesus, and in Jesus case we see why His

rejection leads to the acceptance of all who believe.

His unjust execution was not just a human miscarriage of

justice, though it was. It was also God's ordained means

of punishing all the sins of all those who had turned from sin

and trust in Him. Jesus's rejection means even

those who rejected him can be accepted.

And Jesus's rejection is not the end of the story because God

rose him from the dead. God reversed the world's guilty

verdict. God reversed the world's verdict

of pretender, false prophet, nothing, nobody.

God lifted him up out of the grave, rose him up to his right

hand, and now calls upon everyone everywhere to repent

and believe in Him. Jesus's rejection can become

your salvation if you only turn from sin and trust in Christ.

John's story finds resolution only in Jesus resurrection.

The story of every martyr finds its resolution only in Jesus

resurrection. Because Jesus was raised from

death, so will every faithful martyr be, and every faithful

Christian. Because Jesus was raised from

the dead, every tragedy suffered by one of God's people will one

day turn into victory. The end of John's story is not

the end of John's story. Because Jesus was raised from

the dead, John will be too, and so will all who trust in him.

What should faithful messengers of Christ expect?

Rejection, risk, and sometimes even martyrdom.

What makes all that risk and rejection and even martyrdom

worth it? The promise of resurrection to

eternal life with our Lord. John Bradford was born near

Manchester, England in 1510. He began his adult life as the

servant of a high-ranking nobleman, and so he had

considerable wealth and status. When he was 37 years old he was

born again, and one of the fruits of his conversion was

that he sold off all kinds of jewelry and gold articles and

used all the proceeds to care for poor Christians.

After studying at Cambridge, he entered the Christian ministry

and was sent out by King Edward the 6th as the kind of

travelling preacher of Reformation doctrine.

Kind of like the apostles made their circuit of Israel, he made

a circuit of England. Bradford became renowned for his

deeply godly character, gentle demeanor, and fearless preaching

of holiness and repentance, just like John the Baptist.

When King Edward died and his intensely Roman Catholic sister

Mary took the throne, Bradford was imprisoned within a month.

Bradford's refusal to embrace Roman Catholic teaching on the

Church, the sacraments, and salvation would cost him his

life. He never left prison again until

he was led out to be burned at the stake.

Bradford's sentence of condemnation was passed on

January 31st, 1555, and then a few months later, on the morning

of July 1st, 1555 in London, Bradford was led out to be

executed. When word of it got out, a huge

multitude assembled on the spot. On his way to be executed,

Bradford distributed his remaining money as gifts, He

gave away articles of his clothing, and he prayed with

friends and acquaintances. When he was bound to the stake

and about to be burned, he prayed for the forgiveness of

those who decreed and carried out his execution.

Then he turned to the young man who's being executed with him

and said, Be of good comfort, brother, for we shall have a

merry supper with our Lord this night.

What should faithful messengers of Christ expect?

Rejection, risk, martyrdom, and then feasting with our Lord

forever. Let's pray.

Father, we praise you for your power in raising the dead.

We praise you for your generosity and promising all who

trust in Christ an eternal reward beyond what we can

conceive. And so, Father, we pray that you

would grant us to live for you, and live so that others may come

to know You, whatever it costs us, in Jesus name, Amen.