Text: Mark 6:14-29
Beloved
in Christ, last week I urged you to be a strong disciple amid a skeptical
world. Don’t wait for the world to come to faith in Christ. Don’t wait for the
world to approve of your morality or your trust in God. Be a Christian anyway, “in
season and out of season.” Understand that there have always been those
who rejected Christ and His followers. Don’t let it bother you. Instead, be
faithful and follow our Lord Jesus Christ.
We
can take this approach because we understand both the law and the gospel—and we
delight in them. We understand that God’s law is so much deeper than a few
platitudes about “keeping your hands off other people’s stuff.” We know that
what it commands it does for our good. Nobody is helped by making themselves or
their desires or their pleasures into something they worship. Nobody is better
off for having misused God’s name or neglected His Word. Nobody can prosper
when rebellious against authority, angry at the world, lecherous, greedy, or
untruthful. Now it stings when we hear God forbid these things—not just the
outward action but also the attitudes and thoughts that lead to actions. We are
deeply flawed human beings who cannot live up to the standard that God has set.
God’s law is absolute holiness and goodness, just as God is holy and good. We,
though, are not. But we don’t set aside God’s law for that reason. As
Christians, we always strive to do better and we confess our failings and we
repent of our sins. In all of that, we do not set aside God’s law, but rather
embrace it.
But
even more important than God’s law is the gospel, the good news that God has
saved us by sending Christ into the world to live the holy life in our place
that we never could have lived and to die the death we could not have endured in
order to pay for our sins. Think about it. We have a God who loves us so much
that He is willing to suffer and die to get us out of the mess we created for
ourselves. We have a God who not only made us, but also got into the
nitty-gritty of His creation rather than just cluck at us from afar. Therefore,
Christianity is radically different from every other philosophy and religion.
They teach people to improve themselves morally and make them more acceptable
to God and perhaps society too. But Christianity is all about God giving us
life and salvation in Christ Jesus. It is all about God pronouncing us
righteous through the forgiveness of sins before we have done even the smallest
thing. Now, of course, such a teaching does lead to our moral transformation,
but it is all because God is at work.
That
in a nutshell is what we Christians teach and believe and what gives a
foundation for our hope and our lives. But, as I noted last week, not everyone
accepts that idea. We are called, therefore, to be “strong disciples amid a skeptical
world,” as the banner in our bulletin reads. But this week our text talks about
what it is like being “a skeptical world amid strong disciples.” For, just as
being surrounded by an unbelieving and hostile world can cause consternation
for faithful Christians, so the mere existence of Christians is enough to send
an unbelieving world into fits. And that is exactly what happened with the
people in today’s Gospel. Now you might ask, “Why should we even pay attention
to what opponents of Christianity are saying or thinking?” Well, we certainly
will not turn to them to figure out what is right and what is wrong. We’re not
going to buy into the world’s ideologies. And yet it is useful to know what
other people are thinking. How can we explain the Christian faith to others if
we don’t know their preconceptions and misconceptions? For that matter, how can
we be strong disciples who can navigate our way in an unbelieving world, if we
don’t know what that unbelieving world is trying to get us to think?
Today’s
text introduces us to three individuals—Herodias, Salome, and Herod—who each had
a different take on John the Baptist. Often we make the mistake of assuming
that all people outside our household of faith all believe the same things or
take the same attitude toward God or Christians. That is not the case. Herodias
was extremely hostile to John. She couldn’t stand him and wanted him dead. Her
daughter was Salome, as the historian Josephus tells us. It was Salome who was
the one who actually asked for John’s head, but it wasn’t because she was
rabidly opposed to him. Instead, she was manipulated by her mother to make that
request. And then there was Herod. Herod actually admired John, listened to
him, and wanted to protect him. Yes, he arrested John partly because he didn’t
want him to preach boldly about Herod’s sins. But he also arrested John in part
to protect him. If he was confined to a prison, he couldn’t be doing the sort
of rabble-rousing that would make Herodias angry. It was his way of keeping
John alive, and it worked until Herodias outsmarted him.
I
think it is useful for us to remember that these three types of opponents to
Christianity are still to be found today. There are those who spit nails as
soon as they hear the word “Jesus” or “Christian.” They find God’s law
offensive and they detest the idea of God forgiving our sins for Christ’s sake.
It’s hard to have a conversation with such people. But we can “let [our]
reasonableness be known to everyone,” as the Scriptures tell us to do.
We are people of joy and hope. We are not anxious about anything, but we bring
everything to God in prayer. I think that this is extremely important to
remember as our society shows itself less and less willing to countenance even
a smidgeon of Christian morality in its midst. We could panic and, indeed, some
Christians are. But I propose that instead we show who we truly are: reasonable
people who have supreme confidence in Christ as the Lord who governs all
history, even when things seem to be going against Him and us. Yes, the world
is going to hell in a handbasket, but it’s being doing that for millennia. We
will speak the truth in love because we don’t want the world to perish, but we
know that it is not up to us to save the world. That’s Christ’s task. And so we
try to persuade people like Herodias, but we don’t despair if we can’t get
through to them.
Then
there are the people like Salome. She wasn’t a follower of John, but then she
wasn’t a hard-core opponent of him, either. She was a teenage girl who had teenage
preoccupations. She was manipulated by her mother Herodias into asking for
John’s head, but that is something that she wouldn’t have ever asked for on her
own initiative. And so it is with many unbelievers today. They are often
manipulated by vocal atheists and opponents of Christianity, but they don’t
understand the issues. That’s why the Scripture tells us, “In your hearts
regard Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to
anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you.” As we
live a godly life, we will have occasion to explain to the unbelieving world
why we do what we do. Of course we have to “do it with gentleness and
respect, having a good conscience.” We don’t approach evangelism with a
“take no prisoners” mentality. Again, we show that we are reasonable. The
Scriptures tell us that if you act this way, “when you are slandered,
those who revile your good behavior in Christ [will] be put to shame.”
The people like Salome may actually be persuaded if our good behavior can
overcome the slander that they have heard about us and thus earn us a fair
hearing.
And
then there are the people like Herod. They respect us. They are willing to
dialogue with us. They are willing to call us “righteous and holy”
people. They admire us for our charitable acts. They know that we are right in
our criticism of ungodly behavior, even if they can’t bring themselves actually
to do something about the problem. Like Herod, they are “greatly
perplexed” when they hear us, “and yet” they hear us “gladly.”
When they see us suffer persecution, they feel guilty about it, much as Herod
felt guilty about being the cause of John’s death. So what do we do with people
like Herod? We continue to talk with them, even as John did. Herod had many a
conversation with John when the latter was in prison. If Herod was open to
talking with John, John was more than happy to comply. Indeed, if we are
willing to try to talk with a Herodias or a Salome, we should be very eager to
talk with a Herod too.
But
what happens if we don’t win over these people? What if they never become
Christians? What if, in fact, we lose our heads as John did? Well, our Gospel
reminds us that that won’t be the end of God’s kingdom. We know that we will go
to be with God when we die and that we will be raised on the Last Day. If our
life is shortened by the tyrant’s sword, it won’t matter in the end. Furthermore,
our opponents will still have to face the message of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Herod thought that he had ended John’s influence on his life. But if anything,
he was more haunted by John and his words after John’s death than when he was
still alive. God’s Word remains, even if those who bear it die.
And
so, beloved in Christ, let us continue to be strong disciples of Christ amid a
skeptical world, even if that skeptical world doesn’t know how to handle strong
disciples of our Lord. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment