When Power Goes to Your Head (Mark 6:14-29)

Uh well, like I said, uh at the front end, uh fall is here.

We've just finished our first week of fall classes, at least Greenville County has, and that means that our summer series have come to a conclusion.

Uh if you are just joining us for the first time, uh what we spent this summer on, we we spent some time in the Psalms, and then we just wrapped up the book of Jonah last week, and now we're returning to Mark.

And so we haven't been in Mark since the spring, and we're we're picking right back off where we left off.

And fittingly enough, we see we come back to John the Baptist, who is who kicks off the book of Mark.

And John the Baptist, you may know, he proclaims, he says, I am declaring as a voice in the wilderness, one who is coming.

He's mightier than I am.

And so when John the Baptist comes on the scene, he proclaims a baptism for repentance.

He speaks of one who is coming.

In Matthew, he's recorded as saying, the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

And so when you see John the Baptist, what you know is he's speaking of a kingdom that's not of this world, that he speaks of a king, and if you would receive this kingdom, you must receive this king.

And if you receive this king, it means following him with all of your life.

And so it should be no surprise that we see, as we see him again, there's going to be another king.

And the kingdom of God again looms large.

And yet the witness that John the Baptist that he proclaims about this kingdom, it's going to cost him his life.

He's going to lose his head.

Many of you have been in my office.

You may have noticed.

If you haven't, you can look at it as you head to coffee break after the service.

But I have a throw pillow on my love seat in there.

Some chuckling, and it has Kim Jong-un with just the biggest smile you can possibly imagine in front of one of his nuclear subs.

And then there's a quote and it says, Live, laugh, love, Kim Jong-un.

And I will say, recent scholarship now suggests that Kim Jong un is not the coiner of this phrase, live, laugh, love.

But that you the juxtaposition of these two ideas, this tyrant, this dictator, and live, laugh, love, it shows us that we understand all too clearly that those who have been put in authority over us in order to pursue justice can sometimes be the very ones who are the perpetrators of injustice.

Sometimes maintaining justice, those call to maintain justice in society, are the very reason for injustice.

And John the Baptist reminds us that no matter how much authority any of us have, at work or in our families, or on a national level, that all, even kings, must answer to the King of kings as our supreme authority.

So let me read this passage, and then let's pray and ask for God to help us.

Mark chapter 6, verses 14 through 29.

Mark 6:14–29

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.

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 Herod had a grudge against him, and wanted to put him to death.

Herodias had a grudge against him, but she couldn't put him to death, for Herod feared John, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man, and he kept him safe.

And when he heard him, he was greatly perplexed, yet he heard him gladly.

But an opportunity came when Herod, 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 to you, up to half my kingdom.

And she went out and said to her mother, For what shall 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 the orders to bring John's head, and 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.

And when his disciples heard of it, they came and took his body and laid it in a tomb.

The word of the Lord.

Let's pray and ask for God's help.

Father, what a strange passage we have before us, and we ask that you would dig out for us ears to hear, that you would give us eyes to see your Son Jesus, the risen one.

And we ask that you would do this by your Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Alright, so what I want to do, I want to look at this passage under three headings.

I want to look at Herod, who is he?

And then I'm going to look at John the Baptist and his relationship to Herod.

And then we're going to see John the Baptist's death.

So Herod, John the Baptist, who was JB in my notes, so if I say JB, it's John the Baptist.

And then John the Baptist's notes.

Alright, so who is Herod?

This is not Herod the Great that the wise men visited upon Jesus' birth.

Herod the Great was the sort of the head of this dynasty.

This is a very powerful political family.

And Herod in this passage is his seventh son.

And so what we ought to know just from the get-go is that even sources outside of the Bible, they speak of this Herodian dynasty that had been given a fair amount of power.

And I say a fair amount of power because they're still rulers of a puppet state, that they rule insofar as they are under the authority of Caesar himself.

And so this is Herod's son, and he doesn't have any real authority on his own, which is interesting because he's called king five times in this passage.

He was not technically a king, and yet it seems that he allowed the people in his region to call him king.

Again, sources outside the Bible record that he officially requested the king, the title king from Caesar, from Caligula, and he and Herodias were banished for it.

They saw that as an uprising, and they were sent to Gaul, modern-day France.

And so you have Herod, who's part of this royal family, who longs to be king, allows people to call him king, and yet he is no real king at all.

And his wife's name is Herodias.

So you've got Herod and Herodias.

What a coincidence.

It's no coincidence at all.

We know that this family tree doesn't have a lot of branches on it.

That Herodias is Herod the Great's granddaughter, and that this Herod is her uncle.

And she had already been married to her other uncle.

That makes some of the probably other uncomfortable parts of this passage more believable.

This is a jacked-up family.

And they continue to marry within their family tree because they want to keep and contain power and Roman prestige to themselves.

And so there's a lot of infighting, there's a lot of distrust.

It's just a toxic family.

Alright.

So Herod throws himself a birthday party for the who's who of Galilee.

And it seems to be a somewhat elegant affair, one in which platters are fitting, so that even when Herodias makes this great request, or her daughter does, there's a dark irony in that she's using the elegance of a party to request for John the Baptist's head.

So there's this party, elegant affair, and then his stepdaughter comes in and dances for this who's who of men of Galilee.

Now, every scholar, every commentator I read said that this would not, no matter what kind of dance this was, had this been a waltz, it wouldn't have been appropriate for a young woman to dance in front of a room like this in Jewish culture, that they're leaning more on their Roman influences.

And we're not told what kind of dance that it is.

And yet we read that every man in the room was pleased, and then Herod makes this outlandish promise twice.

Maybe he's got a little liquid lubrication going, I will give you whatever you want.

I vow up to half my kingdom.

And so she goes to her mother for counsel, and immediately they know what we want is the head of John the Baptist.

They don't just say, kill him, bring his head out on a platter.

We just finished this first week back to school, and part of the things that happen when you go back to school is you're reminded of all the rules, right?

This is what a tardy is, and how many of these get detention, and your homework is done this way, and the online platform looks like this.

And oh, by the way, we have a dress code.

Now, this is a point of contention in our house, especially with our young high schooler.

My sources tell me that the dress code is not enforced equally.

That the young men in school can wear their pants as low as they want, almost down to their knees, and nobody says boo, but with the young women there is a wooden strictness that this dress code is exacted, and we cry unfair.

Unfair.

My sources cry, unfair.

What we find in the gospels is almost the exact opposite.

That what we find in the gospels that when Jesus walks around, that those who seem to get him, the women always seem to get him.

The women always seem to hear him.

They follow him, they serve him, they support him.

And what we find on the flip side is that men of all stripes and backgrounds are the ones that are defined as hard-hearted, the ones who are slow to believe, the ones who stray.

This is one of the things you see over and over and over again, except in this passage.

This passage is the only exception where the women don't seem to get it.

I mean, truly.

I mean, think of it.

If I'm wrong, let me know.

But there's no other exception where people don't get it.

And I'm not talking about Martha, who's doing her best, right?

She's the closest you get to not getting it, and she's still giving it the old college try.

We don't have selective moral code enforcement in our passage.

That we don't we don't see, we have a str what we find is a strong and calculating woman who has set her gifts against the kingdom and she outwits her husband to boot.

And I think that Mark is showing us, do you remember the other time we saw a woman like this in Scripture?

We're getting Jezebel vibes back in the day of Elijah.

After all, John the Baptist is the new Elijah.

Which leads to our second point.

Let's look at John the Baptist and his relationship with Herod and by extension Herodias.

It's important to note how John the Baptist comes back up in this gospel.

That right before chapter 6 starts, or right before this passage starts, the two verses immediately preceding speak of Jesus sending his apostles out to do great works and to cry out for repentance.

Here are the two verses right before our passage.

So the apostles went out and they proclaimed that people should repent.

And they cast out many demons and anointed with oil many who were sick and healed them.

And Herod heard of it.

Herod hears, he catches wind that the apostles are doing something that he's already heard of.

They're going around and they're proclaiming repentance to whoever will listen to it.

And he's reminded immediately of John the Baptist.

Oh, he's doing it again.

He hears, and there's a conversation in town about who is Jesus?

Who is this guy sending these apostles everywhere?

And some think he's Elijah, some say he's John the Baptist.

This is a theme that we'll pick back up in chapter 8.

And when people say it's John the Baptist, Herod says, that's what I think.

The one who told me to repent, the one whose head I cut off, he's back from the dead.

He's haunted in a sense.

Because we'll see also, he was convinced that John the Baptist was a holy and righteous man.

And still he used his power to cut off his head.

Remember when we first meet John the Baptist in chapter 1, we read of a wild man.

Now John was clothed with camel's hair and wore a leather belt around his waist.

He ate locust and wild honey, and he went around.

That's what I want us to hear.

He went around proclaiming repentance.

So as we read this passage, don't think that John only had a voice for King Herod.

King Herod.

Don't think that he's only sort of outside the palace saying, repent, repent.

No, John is he's equal opportunity.

He goes around, including to the ruler of the region.

And so he's going around proclaiming to whoever will listen.

And when we meet him, what does he say in the front end of his ministry?

There's lots of ways that he applies repentance.

He calls people to share their resources.

That's the first thing he says.

That those who have two tunics, if you have two and you see someone who doesn't have one, give him another tunic.

He talks to people, he says, if you have authority, don't misuse it for yourself.

Tax collectors, what you're doing is you're collecting way more than you're authorized to do.

Do not abuse your authority.

And soldiers, check your ambition and learn contentment.

Don't bully your way and depress others into getting what you want.

This is a message that kings have heard from God's prophets throughout the centuries.

And we just read about in our Old Testament reading from Daniel chapter 4.

Daniel 4 · chapter mention

Daniel speaks to the Gentile king Nebuchadnezzar, and he says, Therefore, O king, let my counsel be acceptable to you.

Break off your sins by practicing righteousness, and break off your iniquities by showing mercy to the oppressed, that there may perhaps be a lengthening of your prosperity.

And I don't know how these hit you.

Take care of the oppressed, share your money with the poor, don't abuse your authority.

If you paint with a broad brush, it's easy to hear this and say, this is the kind of language you hear, at least in our country, from those on the left, politically, not spiritually, politically.

But notice what John says to Herod.

In verse 18, for John had been saying to Herod, It's not lawful for you to have your brother's wife.

For it was Herod who had sent and seized John and bound him in prison for the sake of Herodias.

Listen how he describes her, who was his brother's Philip's wife, because he had married her.

John apparently to Herod, amongst the other things that he clearly said, wouldn't stop beating the drum.

Herod, you're sleeping with your brother's wife.

He's calling them both to repentance.

And you see what he's saying.

What you do in your bedroom, it matters to God.

He's calling out this kind of sin, and that's easy for us to associate that with the right politically, at least traditionally speaking.

And so what we find, what we're confronted with, is that we find echoes of truth in any number of philosophies and political ideologies today.

There's echoes of truth in it all.

We need ears to hear it.

And yet there's also ways when in every echo of truth is going to come with some corruption of that truth as well.

John doesn't have eyes and ears for the prevailing ideas of the day.

He has eyes and ears for what God has told him to proclaim, the eternal and fixed word of God.

God is a source of truth.

And so he's not beholden to any philosophy, and he's not beholden to any ruler in his day.

And he knows because repentance is for everyone, for him, for whoever will listen, even for kings, that nobody gets a blank check.

That's a hard word.

Larry Hurtato points out that there were at least four outworkings of the gospel of grace and the New Testament church and then the church for the first couple of hundred years, and he argues that that should continue to be rippled out in the church today.

That what you find in the church that was really unique in the first century Middle East and then throughout the Roman Empire, there was a championing of the equality of all races that was really novel.

This was born out of the gospel, a championing of the equality of all races.

There was a strong, strong concern for the poor.

There was a prohibition of abortion and infanticide.

You can read about this all over first century and second century Christian authors.

And there was a sex ethic that prohibited sex outside of marriage, outside of a man and a woman.

And all of these were alien to the culture in which they lived.

It's easy for us to sort of take this for granted, but when somebody said you have to care for the poor, in this world they were like, What?

Who?

Are you kidding me?

You can't abuse your spouse.

What?

All of this was brand new.

And the thing is, two of these sound in our culture like they come from the left, and two sound like they come from the right.

And you might be wondering, are we still in Mark, Joe?

That's a good question.

Let me show you what I'm trying to do.

I want to apply verse 20 in two ways.

And the context is Herodias wants John the Baptist dead, and Herod won't allow it.

For Herod feared John, knowing he was a righteous and holy man, and he kept him safe.

And when he heard him, he was greatly perplexed, and yet he heard him gladly.

What a strange description.

Oh, I love listening to John the Baptist.

He's so quirky.

Application one.

Herod knew that John was holy, was fascinated by him, and yet his fascination did not lead him to repentance.

Which means you can hear the truth and you can listen to good sermons and not be moved to repentance yourself.

In other words, you and I can wonder how did Herod never repent if he liked to listen to him?

How is he not moved?

We can wonder that and not be moved to repentance ourselves.

And so there's a reminder in this passage that hearing a call to repentance.

Does not guarantee that your will gets engaged in it.

Application 2.

John the Baptist bore witness to Herod of another kingdom.

And so too the church is called to bear witness to another kingdom.

How do we do that?

I'm not suggesting we go down to the Columbia or to Pennsylvania Avenue and sort of pick it.

That's not, but I'm not interested in that.

But if the gospel calls everybody to repentance, and therefore every human philosophy and ideology to repentance, we cannot give ourselves wholly over to any of them.

Left or right.

We cannot give ourselves wholly over.

Because when you give yourself carte blanche to any philosophy, it no longer has to repent.

You no longer can see what's faulty in it.

If you give yourself carte blanche to any philosophy, it no longer will call you to change because you just conform to it.

So what do we actually do?

We're to bear witness in the kingdom that God has called us to live in, to a kingdom that is coming, that we cannot bring.

We bear witness to and we live for the kingdom that Jesus will usher in when he returns.

And what this means is we cannot let the winds of political discourse completely blow us one way or the other.

That doesn't mean you don't vote for one.

I don't think that all candidates are equal and you have, and there are different reasons for that, like vote.

But we shouldn't be surprised in a room like this that we might come to different conclusions because everybody has some slice of the truth.

The question is, can you see the candidate that you like?

Can you see how wrong they are in some other areas as well?

It's both.

So I wouldn't encourage you to work too hard on spotting the flaws in the other side.

Where are the flaws on your side?

How do you find those?

That's how you lean into not being captivated by this philosophy.

How can you still lean into the issues that they neglect?

Which brings me to my last point and shortest, John the Baptist's death.

John's message has reached the palace.

Herodias wasn't going to rest until he was dead.

And some commentators even say that maybe she is orchestrating this whole thing behind the scenes.

So Lomi, get out there.

Go and dance.

Here's my chance.

I don't know.

There's a lot of ink on that, though.

John's a weird guy.

Camel's hair and honey and locust, but he's also kind of a stud.

He was granted the clarity to see Jesus for who he really was.

And still, even with a backbone of steel, he doubted.

He famously asked Jesus and his disciples in Matthew 11, Are you the one who is to come?

Or should we look for another?

Because I went all in on you, Jesus, and now here I am in prison, and I don't see this kingdom that you've promised yet.

Are you the one?

And Jesus says, Go and tell John what you see and hear.

The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them.

And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.

If the dead are raised, John, then you can face anything that comes your way in prison.

Blessed is the one who is not offended by me.

What does that mean?

It means that though your head come out on a platter, there is four far more in play than meets the eye.

For it will look like you have been cursed, and it will look like you are the weakest, and it will look like you have been destroyed.

But there is a king above all kings who will call any king who misuses his authority to account.

And if you, John, are not offended by me, then you are actually blessed, though your head be on a platter.

And those who seem to have everything, even your head on a platter, Jesus says, Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep.

In verse 26, we read The king was exceedingly sorry with this request, exceedingly sorry for the request of John the Baptist's head on a platter.

But because of his oaths and his guests, he did not want to break his word.

He knew it was wrong.

And what he valued more than anything wasn't justice, and it wasn't the right thing to do, and it wasn't thou shalt not murder, it was he wanted to save face in this room of who's who.

What was more precious to Herod than anything wasn't doing what he knew what was right, he would do what he knew what was wrong in order to save face.

He digs in his heels.

He knows that his power is not to be used to cut off an innocent man's head, but he uses his power to do so to God's profit.

And if you and I would hear God's voice and be changed by God's voice and be shaped and sent out by God's voice, you and I have to hear first how much Jesus treasures us.

How does that happen?

Like John, we have to hear, you are blessed.

What does it mean to be blessed, but to be given everything holy and right for happiness that you have been cherished and treasured by God, that blessed, you are blessed if you're not offended by me.

Well, why would we be offended?

Because there's an aspect of all of our lives and of the life of every single person who's ever lived that we cherish that he says it's time to walk away from that.

There's something more precious than what you cherish, and you find it as you find that I cherish you.

Even what we do in our bedrooms and what we do with our money.

Why would we be offended?

Because he calls us to repentance, but then he says there's nothing you can do to pay for your sin.

Not even the best repentance can pay for your sin.

Not even the strongest repentance that you're capable of.

That's how deep your spiritual debt is to me.

And if you're still not offended, you will receive the blessing that I promise.

I will pay for your sins on the cross, and then I will do a work in you that changes how you think about what you treasure.

I'll close by reading what Paul says, the Apostle Paul, who teaches us how to think about true repentance from Galatians 2.

I have been crucified with Christ.

It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.

And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God.

Let's pray.

Father, we thank you for your word.

We thank you for John the Baptist and for his faithfulness and his courage and his trust in you.

And we ask that you would grant us the same kind of courage in our own relationships, and that you would make us a people who live, who are principled, who live by the gospel, and out of its freedom.

And we pray that as you call us to this table, you would meet us as you've promised.

Amen.