29 August 2018
Text: Mark 6:14-29 (Rev 6:9, Rom 6:1-5)
In the name of +
Jesus. Amen.
In
our fallen world, evil wins. If you hold
fast to your Christian faith and confession, you will be hated, abused, mocked,
sued, fired, your life ruined, your reputation trashed, and in some places, you
will be arrested, tortured, and put to death.
But
if you celebrate evil, you will be loved. You might become a celebrity. You may well become wealthy. You will have opportunities for pleasure
beyond your wildest dreams. You will be
able to take from others, and not even have a twinge of conscience about it. You can put children to death for
convenience, use people for sexual pleasure, and destroy anyone that gets in
your way – while claiming to be virtuous as you lead a life equivalent to an
open sewer.
Is
it any wonder that our churches are becoming increasingly empty, and our
movies, magazines, and music, our television and internet programming on
demand, our sports and their heroes, our politicians and barons of business are
ever more course, vulgar, hateful, sexually deviant, self-serving, pro-death, antichristian,
and dedicated to pleasure without boundaries, without consequences, and without
criticism? Is it any wonder that those
who disapprove are silenced by force?
While
we have seen things in our culture degrade ferociously, this isn’t anything
new.
John
the Baptist was called to usher in the Messiah in a day and age when those who
believed in God were a tiny, persecuted minority, when the nation’s rulers
worshiped pagan gods, and when even within the people of God, their rulers were
sexual deviants, political collaborators with their enemies, and ambitious hustlers
who rode the backs of their own people. Sexual
deviancy and preying upon minors was a badge of honor. Children were aborted and killed after their
births for frivolous reason. Public
entertainment included death-sports, live torture, and open and perverse sexuality
on stage.
And
of course it was all justified, because, after all, might makes right. Those who didn’t approve were the “barbarians.” If you were a believer in the true God, you
better just keep your religion to yourself and play along.
This
is the world Jesus came into, dear friends. And St. John the Baptist announced His arrival
to a world obsessed with debauchery, violence, deviancy, and death.
John
was called directly by God to preach the Word of God: to proclaim the Gospel,
but to also proclaim the Law. He
preached and implored the people to repent.
And he did not spare the rich and powerful, not even the king.
The
king was a half-breed pretender to the throne, a vile collaborator with the
Romans, and a sexual pervert to boot. And
John’s message – which was actually God’s message – was “repent, for the
Kingdom of God is at hand!” And as
Luther said, when one throws a stick into a pack of dogs, the one that howls is
the one that got hit. The Law hit the
amoral Herod. Not in the sense of guilt,
but in the sense of his perceived entitlement to be beyond criticism, to be above
reproach. Who did this bizarre,
miserable preacher think he was, anyway? How dare he call the king out for sin! Of course, John the Baptist’s and Jesus’s
ancestor was Israel’s greatest king, David, who when called to repent, confessed
his guilt and became repentant. We sing King
David’s very words again and again: “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and
renew a right spirit within me…. Restore
unto me the joy of Thy salvation, and uphold me with Thy free Spirit.” Instead, the unrepentant King Herod “seized
John and bound him in prison for the sake of Herodias, his brother
Philip's wife, because he had married her.”
And
it was the amoral self-serving Herodias and her daughter who manipulated Herod into
ordering John’s execution. For they
wanted to carry out their perversions with the approval of everyone. The fact that John had no power other than the
words he preached (he had no standing in government, no army to prohibit evil
behavior) didn’t matter. Then, as now, is
it any wonder that those who disapprove are silenced by force?
For
everyone knows right from wrong. The Law
is written on our hearts. The preaching
of John pricked the consciences of Herod and his clan of perverts. The testimony of the saints in our reading
from the Book of Revelation caused the Roman government to behead them, feed
them to lions, and use them as props in their vile death-sports. They knew it was wrong to kill babies and use
people – including minors of both sexes – for sexual gratification. They knew it was wrong to torture people and
to be titillated and entertained by their fear and their pain.
Today,
our brothers and sisters from the ages of ages continue to await the Lord’s
return and their vindication, having prayed: “O Sovereign Lord, holy and
true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood
on those who dwell on the earth?” “Then they were each given a white
robe and told to rest a little longer, until the number of their
fellow servants and their brothers should be complete," who were to be
killed as they themselves had been. They
continue to rest as Christians in countries ruled by Muslims are imprisoned and
tortured and beheaded. They continue to rest
as Christians in Communist countries are imprisoned and executed. They continue to rest, as Christians in even
supposedly free countries are silenced on social media, are marginalized in the
popular culture, are sued and crushed by the state for refusing to play along
with the current lie that marriage is anything other than what God made it to
be.
And
of course it is all justified, because, after all, might makes right. Those who don’t approve are the “barbarians.” If you are a believer in the true God, you better just
keep your religion to yourself and play along.
The more things change…
But
ultimately, dear friends, what is the message of John, then and now? What did he really preach to Herod and his
family? He told the truth. He confessed God’s Word. He preached the Gospel in its beauty. For this is John’s proclamation, the Church’s
proclamation, our proclamation – to a world that has lost its way: “repent and
believe the Gospel!”
The
kingdom of God is at hand, not to condemn you, but to forgive you. Jesus has come not to imprison you and behead
you, but to change you and glorify you. Jesus paid the price of your iniquity. He took all the violence and hatred and
deviancy and lust for domination upon Himself, dying in your place, exchanging
your guilt for His righteousness! Jesus
has come not to condemn but to save, not to put to death but to give life!
Jesus
invites all of us to repent and believe the Gospel, and John invites all of us
to follow Jesus.
For
in the long term, evil does not win. If
you hold fast to your Christian faith and confession, you will be saved,
vindicated, given the gift of eternal life, and dwell with God and man and all
creation forever in glory, happiness, joy, and riches beyond the wildest
imaginations of any king or celebrity.
For
as St. Paul, another murderer who repented upon hearing the Law, preached and
wrote: “How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do
you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus
were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by
baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead
by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if
we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be
united with him in a resurrection like his.”
John
does not call us to repent to shame us, but to glorify us. For that is what Jesus does. The martyrs of the Church staked their souls
upon it. And we all rest with them,
hearing the unsilenced Word preached by John, even as that Word shapes us and
saves us, transforming us from the ugliness of sin to the beauty of the
eternal.
And
the very thing that Herod feared will come true, as John the Baptist will be
raised from the dead, those who gave their lives for the sake of the Word will
be avenged, and our confession of Jesus Christ will continue to bring those who
repent to everlasting life and glory. Amen.
In the name of the Father
and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
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