The Martyrdom of the Baptist

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READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Revelation 6:9-11
• Jeremiah 1:17-19
• St. Mark 6:17-29

To you all who are beloved of God called as saints:

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

 

Christ speaks to us by His Gospel, saying,

“When Herod heard John, he was greatly perplexed, and yet he heard him gladly.”

 

A really good question to ask yourself, on this holy day of the Martyrdom of St. John the Baptist, is what would you do with him if he showed up today? If you encountered St. John, Christ’s holy front-runner, the man to prepare the way of the Lord, he who pointed out the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world, would you sit and listen? Would you follow and write his words down, in order that other should hear?

 

This is a good question because it puts the strength of our faith into perspective. If St. John were to show up today, he would be laughed at, ridiculed, and cast aside. He would be called crazy, only a few people would go to him, and eventually he would end up dead. Sound familiar? 

 

Yes in each and every case of people in the Bible, even Jesus Himself, if they were to show up today, the same things would happen to them that already happened: rejection, suffering and dying. The real scary part is that you may end up doing those things to them! However, that won’t happen. From Adam to St. John, to Jesus. Their purpose is fulfilled and they won’t be coming back to do any more, except end the world.

 

What does this mean for us? It means we need to look to confessing our sins. We need to make sure that we have God’s forgiveness, because the end is near and it isn’t pretty. We take St. John’s example. It wasn’t the government that came down on him with a boot to his face. Though Herod did imprison him, it was the citizenry that called for his execution.

 

The Herod’s in the Bible have strange roles. Yes they are merciless. Yes they are rotten rulers and horrible fathers. But strangely they verge on edge of conversion. The Herod of Christmas calls all his priests together for a Bible class to find where God said He would be born. The Herod of John the Baptist does not kill John, but keeps him in prison and listens to him.

 

The Herod of the book of Acts searches for the Apostles, yes to kill them, but he searches for them anyways, just as you should be seeking out the Apostles and Prophets to hear them and learn from them. 

 

This brings to mind the word of the blind man who received his from Jesus in John chapter 9. The man shows himself to the Jews and they do not believe his story. They question him so extensively that at one point the man asks the Jews: “Why do want to hear my story over and over again? do you want to become His disciples?” (v.27)

 

In this case, becoming the disciples of John the Baptist means letting him speak publicly, letting him be imprisoned, and letting him be beheaded. It seems that the prophets and Apostles are destined to die. The words that they preach leave no room for doubt in the world’s heart that they must perish.

 

This is the force of Gods Word. Simply by saying that you need to repent of divorce and adultery causes Herodias to lose her head and consequently, St. John as well. The Herods and Herodias are minding their own business, living life to its fullest, and playing the game like pros. If only they weren't going against the rules.

 

In a sinful world, Jesus, the prophets, and the Apostles are like Samson’s foxes in Judges 15:

“Samson went and caught 300 foxes and took torches. And he turned them tail to tail and put a torch between each pair of tails. And when he had set fire to the torches, he let the foxes go into the standing grain of the Philistines and set fire to the stacked grain and the standing grain, as well as the olive orchards.” (v.4-5)

 

The Philistines were minding their own business, living life to the fullest, and playing the game like pros. Samson butted in and ruined it all. In fact, if the Law would just go away, no one would have any knowledge of sin and there would be peace in the world.

 

Jesus says the Law will not pass away (Mt. 5:18), that He has come to bring a sword (Mt. 10:34) and that all must repent of their sins (Mt. 4:17). His preaching is like a fire (Jer. 23:29). Like a hammer that breaks the rock of sinful peace and does not give peace to the sinner. 

 

When Ahab saw Elijah, he asked, “Is it you, you troubler of Israel?” When the Jews encounter Jesus they are insistent: “He stirs up the people” (Lk. 23:5). And finally. Pilate, when he saw that Jesus really did stir up a crowd and that he was about to have a riot on his hands, gave Jesus the same fate as the prophets and the Apostles.

 

If the Word of God preached lands men in hot water, then the Word made flesh will not find a different ending. It is in the suffering and death of the martyrs of the faith that we are reminded of Jesus, the God-man, Who takes away the sin of the world.

 

It is in the firm resolve of the martyrs that we witness God’s firm promises to us, to rescue us from this place. Even though, without the knowledge of the Law there’d be no sin, that doesn’t mean a good thing. It simply means that without knowledge of sin, everyone would think that what they are doing is good.

 

This is part of the revelation of Jesus. That as both God and man He not only shows us the excellence of God and His Law, but lives it and dies for it. This shows us how fallen and corrupt the world has become. That it will not even accept its Creator and what’s more, will not even allow Him to live.

 

And yet, the prophets and the Apostles were waiting. Waiting for the time when not even death could stop them. And that time was fulfilled in Christ. For in the resurrection, death lost all of its power. So much so, that the murders of prophets and Apostles become a waste of time and that just gets the devil’s goat.

 

Ahab, the Herods, the Jews, and all sinners waste so much time on death thinking that it is the end of all their problems. They believe that this life is all people have and so they think that if they kill someone that it is the worst thing possible to do to someone else. But because of the resurrection, it is just a waste of time.

 

Ahab chasing after Elijah to kill him is such a waste of time, that if he were to succeed, he would simply speed Elijah to his ultimate goal: God's side forever. That corner that God’s Word backs the world into is that of futility. So much so that even if the world thinks it is getting its way, it is actually doing God’s will.

 

So we see in the Holy Innocents at Christmas and in John the Baptist today a fierce and stalwart spirit, even in the face of death. “Whether we live or whether we die,” they say, “we are the Lord's” (Rom. 14:8). Death has no more dominion over us.

 

As we are also the Lord’s through baptism, we preach His word of forgiveness. But that will back the world into a corner. And like a cornered beast, it will lash out to kill us. In that moment of perceived triumph, the world’s joy will turn into anguish as it realizes it has just lost. As satan thought he had God on the cross and in the grave, we will rise in Jesus’ Resurrection.

 

For that, we give thanks. Thanks that God shows mercy even to the dead, that He saves men, and that He gives us teachers to remind us in His Church. For that, we find strength from Faith, not just to stand tall in front of our enemies, but to stand tall in front of God Who forgives our lack of strength.

 

Finally, we imitate. Now imitate does not mean finding Herod and calling him an adulterer, in order that we have our heads chopped off. I mean, if it came to that then, yes, imitate. But imitate in the sense that, through sickness and in health, you believe God’s Word to gather you around His Word and Sacrament. 

 

For the same faith that Elijah wielded in front of hundreds of false prophets; the same faith that held the Holy Innocents firm to their mothers at the point of a sword; and the same faith that made St. John able to face the Executioners blade, flows in you. And it is this faith that allows you to hear your Lord cry out in forgiveness in His Gospel and it is this faith that dulls, weakens, and brings to nothing any and all things that would separate you from the love of Christ.

 

As Jeremiah says in our second reading heard today, “And I, behold, I make you this day a fortified city, an iron pillar, and bronze walls, against the whole land…They will fight against you, but they shall not prevail against you, for I am with you, declares the Lord, to deliver you.” And in the resurrection that Jesus gives you in baptism, you are an iron pillar, even to death.