God’s Word of hope is persistent, dogged; it can’t be stopped, silenced, or driven out.  That doesn’t mean the powerful of the earth will not try to eradicate this holy Word: of course they will; to rule, rulers must.  They see a threat to their power.  They would not have acquired the power they have if they did not know how to handle threats to their power.  The powerful study well the ways of their idol.  Let us study well the way of our God.

Herod thought he had John contained, out of the way, locked away, out of sight, in prison (6:17).  How do you imagine Herod’s prison?  Bright?  Clean?  Roomy?  Years ago, during my first semester teaching in Connecticut, a student spoke of his relative in prison.  He felt badly, because, as he told me, there was no cable TV in prison.  Horror!  Cruel and unusual punishment!  Well, yes, watching network TV is.  John the Baptist wasn’t put in a penitentiary; he wasn’t sent to the reformatory.  He was thrown into a deep, dark hole, and Herod threw away the key, laughing with glee as he went up to the banquet of every sort of delightful delicacies that he was now going to enjoy with tremendous gusto.

That doesn’t mean Herod loathed John.  Far from it.  To the extent that his fallen heart would let him, Herod honored John, even in Herod’s prison.  Herod feared John (6:20): he didn’t know what to make of him!  John was invulnerable, impervious to every offer, every bribe, every threat.  Herod was hard; John was adamant.  Herod was wily; John was wise.  Herod was wicked, perverse; John was holy, claimed by God.  John wouldn’t kneel to Herod’s power!  John had strength and power that Herod envied, strength and power Herod knew he himself lacked: another kind of power, not earthly power such as Herod’s power of threat, punishment, confiscation, pain, death: the negative power of law.  The powerful make the laws, then use them.  What can check such power?  John’s was a brighter power, the power of blessing, glory-power.  John fascinated Herod, so Herod, as we are told, protected John (6:20).  Perhaps John might yet put in a good word for him with, you know, The Boss.  Secretly, or not so secretly, Herod was in awe of John, “knowing him to be a righteous and holy man” (6:20).

Never doubt, beloved, that power is indeed at work in holiness and righteousness.  It is a worthwhile way of life.  Your pursuit of holiness, your desire for righteousness—which is your desire for Jesus Christ—will have its effect, and in this life.  Consider all the people we are supposed to admire—you know, successful people, popular people, beautiful people.  I want our young disciples especially to listen and think about this.  Consider how all the pretty people we’re supposed to admire come and go: success is temporary, popularity is the wind, blowing this way and that.  As for beauty, why, people disfigure themselves in the desperate pursuit of what’s always only in the eye of the other, the eye of the beholder.  And what remains?  What is constant?  God.  And who is God?  Holiness.  Righteousness.  Permanent, unchanging, constant and constantly blessing, doing more in one minute for millions than millions have done over lifetimes of pursuing power, popularity, and beauty.  With John the Baptist, pursue the One who abides, sisters and brothers; seek and desire God, young disciples, and you will know blessing.

Herod just doesn’t know what to make of John: “When Herod heard John, he was greatly puzzled; yet he liked to listen to him” (6:20).  Some decades later, the apostle Paul went to a place in Athens, Mars Hill, where a large group of people listened to what he had to say.  Mars Hill was a place for people who liked to listen.  Jesus would often say let those with ears to hear listen.  In Scripture, listening isn’t passive but active.  Listening isn’t an idle pastime, like being talked at by a screen—and we know, when the screen talks, people listen!  From the perspective of Scripture, which is the perspective of the church that clings to Scripture, the evidence of listening is behavior in line with what was heard, what was said.  To hear is to do, and not to do is not to have heard.  But Herod liked to listen.  Lots of people like to listen.

Herod liked to listen even better now that John is in Herod’s prison.  In having John arrested and imprisoned, Herod has demonstrated to everybody, including himself, who is in charge.  Herod is displaying his power.  The world delights to show its power—Germany, Russia, North Korea, and China all in turn have loved their military parades—war jets, tanks, rocket launchers, and rank upon rank of crisp, goose-stepping soldiers.  Just see our power.

But even for Herod, there’s a power behind the power, and you men know who it is.  Herod did what he did, Mark tells us, “because of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife, whom he had married” (6:17).  That marriage would have been no crime, no sin, except that Philip was still alive.  For Jews, that marriage was flat against God’s Law (Lev 18:16, 20:21).  I won’t get into Herod’s totally messed up family history, except to say that it was totally messed up.  Even today, to leave your wife to marry your brother’s ex would raise a few eyebrows, even more if she was also your niece.

John told Herod No, and who tells Herod No?  Scripture says no about many things, beloved, and people even in the church, seminary professors, theologians, and pastors, say Scripture doesn’t really say no, or we just ignore the question entirely and say, on principle, God would never say No: if it’s not loving according to our current, culturally prevailing notions of loving, then God never said it and doesn’t say it to us, so something is wrong with Scripture.  There’s a problem with God’s Word, you see.  It’s not that something’s very wrong with our society or our culture (or our hearts); no, it’s so clear: there’s something wrong with God’s Word.  So we right-think Scripture; we like to listen, only, what do we like to hear?

But the power behind the power.  “Herodias nursed a grudge against John and wanted to kill him” (6:19).  Scripture tells us of many women of great holiness and righteousness: God-fearing, God-loving, God-serving women; Scripture invites us to celebrate them.  Scripture also tells us of women like Jezebel, Athaliah, and Herodias: powerful wicked women who will not be crossed.  Like Jezebel long before, Herodias is a powerful partner in her husband’s wickedness, disobedience, and self-glorification.  In the case of Herodias, as with Jezebel, and with Eve ages before, the woman gets the better of the man.  This also is according to God’s purposes.  Herod is tricked.  God is never tricked.

John had the sad and holy habit of insulting powerful people.  It’s a sad habit because it will get him killed, but John isn’t insulting them for the sake of insulting the powerful.  That, too, can be a power game, self-aggrandizing, envious, and angry.  John doesn’t secretly envy worldly power and earthly prestige.  Offending the powerful is a holy habit because John is saying and doing nothing more than what God tells him to do.  It doesn’t take much for God’s Word to become offensive to the rulers of this world.  Herodias is not to be defied, not to be shamed, not to be criticized, condemned, or corrected.  And she wasn’t about to let Herod’s protection of John get in the way of having John killed for daring to criticize her.  How dare he?  Only who, beloved, was criticizing Herodias, and Herod, and all those who put the indulgence of self above and before all else?  Who told that voice in the wilderness to speak?  Who can silence that one?

And to Jesus Christ, who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priests of his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever.