No other Word: the 1st Command [St. Matthew]

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READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Ezekiel 1:10-14

• Ephesians 4:7-16

• St. Matthew 9:9-13

 

Grace to you all and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. (Phile 1:3)

 

Who, once again speaks to you today, saying: 

“Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.”

 

In the first place, you shall have no other gods (Ex 20:3). 

What does this mean? You should fear, love, and trust in God above all things. 

In the second place, in this house, St. Matthew is a hero and not just because he followed Jesus. He is a hero, because the true Hero, Jesus, called out to him and made him one. And at the Word the heavens were made and all the host of them and St. Matthew was called out from the receipt of custom.

 

In the third place, those who are well have no need for a physician, but those who are sick, and St. Matthew is sick. Although he presents himself as being pretty healthy, wealthy, and wise, we know he is sick, because the Word of God has come for him and calls to him. Jesus would not, otherwise.

 

Tax Collectors. Do you know why we have ridges on the rims of our coins? Tax collectors would shave off the edges of the gold and silver coins to make new ones, all the while making the old ones worth less. The official name for that practice is inflation. 

 

Tax Collectors. 

When we ask chatGPT about the ancient practices of tax collectors during St. Matthew’s time, it tells us that Publicans actually bid against each other for the right to collect taxes and paid a fee to Rome to do so. They were not paid by the Empire, so their paycheck came from whatever amount above the regular tax they could get from the people.

 

The collectors had the backing of the military and so were able to threaten, coerce, and assess the value of private property, income, and traded goods on the spot. If one could not afford the taxes, you could take out a high-interest loan to cover it, trapping families in debt, which is why usury is a sin against God. Yes, we’re still talking about ancient practices…

 

Thus, one reason they were seen as traitors is because their wealth went back to Rome, not to their own community. They were considered most unclean for Temple, because they ate and drank with the goyim, and were usually shunned in society, grouped with sinners, as the Pharisees comment in today’s Gospel reading. 

Truly, there is nothing new under the sun and we have not changed our ways.

 

And this was St. Matthew’s whole world and he thought it was wonderful. He probably grew up in Jerusalem and it became small and po-dunk, to him, as he learned of the Empire and the wider world. He began to see his future as he strived for higher education and a chance at tax collecting. Bigger and bigger his dreams got.

 

Worldly friends, worldly work, and worldly play. Hey Levi, let’s go party! Yeah! Hey Levi, let’s go drinking! Yeah! Hey Levi, let’s go count de money! Yeah! Week after week. Month after month. Year after year. Party again? Drink again? Money again? Didn’t we do that last week, guys?

 

Suddenly his world wasn’t so big anymore. Suddenly, he took a look at his life and found that, instead of being a man of culture, he had become a man of ill-repute and there was only so much he could say to make himself believe that it was everyone else’s fault, instead of his own.

 

Then one day, someone mentioned a saying going around recently. It went, “he who sins is a slave to sin”. And Levi paused and thought, that couldn’t mean me, could it? And as he continued his life, spinning faster and faster down the proverbial drain, another saying was thrown in his face as he was trying to focus on business:

“Follow me”.

 

This time, his whole world stopped spinning. He stopped spinning a thousand miles per hour. He stopped dreading the next extrovert, social interaction. He stopped counting other people’s money. This happened, not because he heard a still small voice, but because he heard a Word with authority. Unlike the scribes, unlike the Pharisees, and unlike his rabbi. 

 

Follow me.

Levi had no reason to obey. He had it made. He was well off. Maybe had a kid or two on the side. And because his grandmother nagged him, he went to sabbath every once in a while, and gave a tithe…sometimes. There was no benefit, no advantage, no promise of return on Levi “following”.

 

Yet in those words there was a fire he could not deny. There was a declaration that “what you have is not your own”. There was a condemnation there that “You shall not charge interest on loans to your brother, interest on money, interest on food, interest on anything that is lent for interest.” (Deut 23:19). And there was a promise there: “I have not forgotten you”.

 

At that Word, the heavens and the earth come into being, and at that same Word, Faith comes into the being of Levi, now known in the Lamb’s Book of Life as St. Matthew. Sure, at first, St. Matthew is not forgotten. All of his sins now are confronting him and bearing their demonic fangs. But St. Matthew is also not forgotten within the Lord’s Atonement for all his sins.

 

We are not St. Matthew and we do not sit at the receipt of custom and we do not have Jesus walking past and saying, “Follow me”. However, we do have that same Word. And it is found in the catechetical question: Who is your god?

 

Though we underestimate the Word; though we doubt it; though we question its relevance in our day to day lives, He has been given to us. And He does the same work on us as He does to St. Matthew. In our sin, we believe that throwing a bible verse into normal conversation is awkward, embarrassing, and irrelevant. Though that’s the trick: it should be.

 

But that is coming from you who are saturated in it. You have been already brought into the widened world of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For those not there yet, the Word is a shock to the system. Again, as it should be.

 

For example, imagine this awkwardness with me as you sit down with an acquaintance and ask him, “So, which god do you serve?” He has more than likely thought of this before, on his own. And this will link to many topics, among which are “how do you make hard decisions” and “why do you have the values you do” and what gives your life purpose”. 

 

Asking, “what is God’s first commandment and what does it mean”, stops the world from spinning. And either the person will know it or should know it or will reject it completely. Either way, you find their true god. You find what they truly fear, love, and trust above all things and it is usually the self.

 

That is our lesson from St. Matthew today. In our sin we believe we can create the life we want and God will be pleased no matter what. And He’s not. We know He’s not, because He has come to give His own life, which is not ours to begin with. He has come to remake us into what pleases Him and that is only found in His Word, His Son Jesus Christ.

 

So, so what? So what if the world thinks Scripture is awkward? So what if you challenge others to really confess their values? So what if you both leave a little more purposeful and contemplative? Is it best to leave the blind men in the pit or pull them out?

 

This is St. Matthew’s position at the time of the Gospel reading. He hears Jesus’s words and he could care less what the soldiers think. He hears Jesus and he could care less what his friends and colleagues think. He hears Jesus and he could care less what the Pharisees think, because the Word has come to take away sins and St. Matthew has plenty of those.

 

And the strength of that Word moves the Holy Spirit, Who was given to St. Matthew, to forsake all and follow Jesus. The Root that gives the fruit for free. St. Matthew followed Jesus to rebelling against the world. He followed Jesus through His suffering and death, to the empty tomb and His Church. 

 

It’s not enough that Mathew change his ways. He must now live within the Body he has been baptized into. But he cannot get there on his own. He must be brought there, through the Word. Then he must be brought back, through Baptism. Then he must be brought back, through the Sacrament of the Altar. 

 

Because that is where Jesus is leading him to. To follow Jesus is to find His Word and sacrament and pitch your tent there, until He returns. To follow means the fulfillment of “You shall have no other gods”. And that fulfillment means to live and have your being where that God has chosen to dwell. “You shall have no other gods”, and the One, True, Triune God is preaching the forgiveness of sins and communing with His people.

 

 

 Amen.

 

 

Copy and Original [Triumph of the Holy Cross]

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READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Numbers 21:4-9

• Philippians 2:5-11

• St. John 12:32-36

 

Grace to you all and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. (Phile 1:3)
 
Who, once again speaks to you today, saying: 
“the crowd answered him, ‘We have heard from the Law that the Christ remains forever. How can you say that the Son of Man must be lifted up? Who is this Son of Man?’”
 
Thus far from God’s Word written down that we may read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest it. How this is accomplished is through Word and Sacrament and Catechesis. We must be taught the Truth of God. In fact, the rules must be memorized in the light so they can be trusted in the dark. For in life we are faced with many copies and impersonators, thus we memorize the Original in the Light so He can be trusted in the darkness.
 
Today we are commemorating the recovery of the True Cross as discovered by St. Helena, Emperor Constantine's mother, in the 4th century AD. Maybe unfortunately, what she found and brought back to Rome was a piece of wood that was tested on sick persons. It healed one and so was declared a piece of the true cross of Jesus.
 
Now, before you get all prejudiced against icons and relics, St. Ambrose preached that when St. Helena found the true cross, “she worshiped not the wood, but the King, Him who hung on the wood. She burned with an earnest desire of touching the guarantee of immortality.”
 
So we give her the benefit of the doubt, not having been there ourselves, but St. Ambrose makes an important shift in distinguishing between the Original and the copy. For St. Ambrose, the wood of the cross was the copy, in other words, the thing that points to the real thing, the Original. 
 
This is also what the crowd was after, in today’s Gospel, when they ask about the Christ. Jesus is talking about dying, when the Scriptures clearly speak of the Christ never-dying. And if the Christ is ever-living, not dying, or maybe unable to die, then that would make Jesus the copy and the true Messiah yet to come.
 
Let us help the crowd and St. Helena today, and think about what rule would let us distinguish between a copy and the Original. For what is at stake is the truth of the world and the rescue of sinners from this wicked world. It is not worth simply winning a philosophical argument. 
 
The first thing we can examine is the weight of reality that the thing carries. The Original will go all the way and is robust and complex. The copy will only satisfy for a moment and becomes useless after it reaches that point. 
 
Take the wood of the cross. While we can allow that a healing miracle took place because someone touched wood, its usefulness ends there. It helps with nothing else. It does not comfort in times of sadness. It does not forgive sins. Though it can heal, it is limited. 
 
The next rule we examine is where the thing demands that we look. Back to the cross: where are we to look for results in the wood of the cross? It wants us to look at it and it wants us to look inside ourselves for devotion to it. This is the demand of a copy. 
 
Instead, the Original demands we look through it to something outside of itself. The true cross will not point us to itself, the wood, but the weight that hung on it. When we have crosses up in church, they point us to Jesus, not to itself. Extra nos, is the fancy Lutheran Latin phrase. Salvation is found outside ourselves.
 
And finally, what sort of satisfaction do we get from the copy as opposed to the Original? Are we happy for a moment and then needing more later, like a drug? The copy is fleeting, the Original is rooted in fact and satisfies real hunger.
 
And yet, in icons and relics we find God’s Truth. He is not willing that any of His creation NOT participate in salvation’s history. St. Cyril says it this way: “He was truly crucified for our sins. For if you would deny it, the place refutes you visibly, this blessed Golgotha, in which we are now assembled for the sake of Him Who was here crucified; and the whole world has since been filled with pieces of the wood of the Cross.”
 
Here now is the true witness of the true cross: it held Jesus. That it was set up outside Jerusalem. That it existed in time and space. We have word of it. We have physical proof of it. You can deny it all you want, but it doesn’t make reality less true. 
 
It is not the cross that draws all nations, but the God-man on it, Jesus. Jesus is lifted up. Jesus will draw all men to Himself. However, it was on the cross that all this was accomplished. It was the True Cross that held Jesus, but when Jesus was taken down, it was no longer the True cross. Thus, if the cross is not causing the suffering and death of God, it is not the original, but a copy.
 
This is taught by God in two ways. First, when He tells us that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath, He is saying that the Sabbath Day was a gift to be enjoyed, not an immutable law over us or even over God Himself, for men to attempt to find God guilty of breaking the Sabbath Day laws.
 
And second, is understanding baptism and the sacraments. God does not give us the inner-working details of Baptism for a reason. So that we cannot take it into a laboratory and make it into a superstitious thing, like being able to bottle it and call it holy water. Or worse, being able to make it without needing Jesus. Baptism and holy water are only valid when they are used as God said. No more no less.
 
It is Jesus Who is Lord of the sabbath. It is Jesus Who is Lord of Baptism. It is Jesus Who is Lord of the cross. Just as the Sabbath was made for man, so the cross was made for Jesus, not the other way around. The copy of the cross only serves to let Jesus pay for the salvation of all. The true cross brings that salvation to all.
 
It is Jesus’s job to use the cross, it is our job to preach Christ Crucified and to continue to proclaim His death, through His Supper, until He returns. This we must be taught. We must be catechized and this must be memorized or else we will be mesmerized by the world and its false crosses. 
 
What we memorize is “with what has Christ redeemed you? Answer: Christ has redeemed me not with gold, or silver [, or wood], but with His holy, precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death”. 
 
We memorize Daniel 7:13-14, that though “I saw One like the Son of Man coming with the clouds of heaven…He was given dominion…that will not pass away, and His kingdom is one that will never be destroyed”, it is by His wounds we are healed (Isa 53:5).
 
We memorize Isaiah 9:7, that even though “Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end”, it is the Blood of Jesus, His Son, which purifies from all sin (1 John 1:7).
 
The cross of Christ is the answer. It is where the holy Blood of Jesus is spent and the empty tomb is the response, for that is where the promise of God is confirmed. Our Forever-Seed, our Forever-Priest, our Original is the man Who suffers, dies, and rises again. That not even death could hold Jesus, and no one or nothing else, proves Him true.
 
The cross of Jesus is the Original. By it, the world is widened and made more robust. With the resurrection of the dead now possible, life takes on new meaning. Eternal consequences for our actions, sure, but also the truth of everything Jesus said. In His resurrection all things are made new and Jesus satisfies for all eternity, not just a moment.
 
We are pointed outside of ourselves to Him. Jesus does the work. Not us, not wood. We were not there when they crucified our Lord, but we were here to sin against Him and fasten Him to the cross. That we find inside ourselves. Outside ourselves we find Jesus perfecting His work of salvation for us.
 
The cross is a moment in time. No part of history denies it. Jesus was a real person. Jesus was crucified when the Bible says He was. Even His enemies attest to the fact that His followers believed He was raised from the dead and were willing to suffer and die themselves for it. Without even being religious, as the world says, we have a real Jesus, really crucified, and really risen. 
 
All this and more, do our little crosses on our altars point us to. Jesus no longer promises to be on the cross for you and we do not crucify Him again, each Sunday. Instead, the Jesus of the cross, Christ Crucified, Who is raised from the dead, now says to find the fruits of His cross in Word and Sacrament. The cross is brought to us and we are drawn to Him.
 
Amen.

 

Apostasy: He loves, not me [Trinity 14]

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READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Proverbs 3:1-8

• 2 Corinthians 4:7-10

• St. Luke 22:24-30

In the Name…

Grace to you all and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. (Phile 1:3)

 

Who, once again speaks to you today, saying: 

“Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine?”

 

Thus far from God’s Word, His Holy Scripture, included for us that we may contemplate Apostasy, or falling away from the faith, moving from belief to unbelief. What we are pointed to is the medicine of Faith, given to us in Word and Sacrament, which builds immunity to such apostasy. That we may not be found with the Nine, but the One Who turned Back and worshipped Jesus as God. 

 

Why do we think of apostasy? Because Scripture talks about it. Jesus says things like, “Therefore I say to you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven men. Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come” (Mt 12:31-32).

 

And, “I have decided to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus” (1 Cor. 5:5). Elsewhere, St. Paul writes, “Among these are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan, so that they will be taught not to blaspheme” (1 Tim. 1:20).

 

Here now we have presented to us apostasy, the possibility of losing our faith and being condemned for all eternity. We worry about this because the nine didn’t just not return to give thanks, at first they cried out in the same prayer we say every Sunday: Have mercy upon us!

 

Now, falling away from the faith is much closer to us than we first thought and much more possible. that is not the end of the story, because something else is closer. Romans 13:11, “now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed.”

 

Thus, the Nine are Apostates. Those who have begun in the religion and quit it. “It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened”, says Hebrews, “who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age— and then have fallen away—to be restored to repentance, because they themselves are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting Him to open shame” (Heb 6:4-6)

 

They are those who have been given the forgiveness of sins, but reject it. They are those who seek another gospel, another message that they can then fear, love, and trust more than God’s. God has made their life better because of His Son, so they can now continue on their own. Like an immature child, they believe they have learned to swing on the swings by their own power.

 

However, who is in charge of our faith? We can certainly reject it, but that does not mean we can accept it, grow it, or take charge of it. The Father is in charge of it, the Son purchases it, and the Holy Spirit dishes it out. In other words, we have no say.

 

Salvation is God’s choosing. His work, His words, His rules. Not just, “He chooses to save some and not others”, but “in this way” He is choosing to accomplish this. Being chosen is not a matter of God’s whim, but of God’s Way. If you are on the Way, then you are a part of the plan. If you are not on the Way, then you are not part of the plan.

 

Easy. But if its so easy, why are there these Nine? Well, the further you get from Jesus, the more you get in the weeds, so to speak. From the parable of the Sower, these are they that sprout up, but are choked by the thorns and thistles, the cares and concerns of this world. Jesus has made their life better, now you can do it for yourself, too!

 

Listen again to what St. Paul said earlier:

“I have decided to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus” (1 Cor. 5:5). 

And, 

“Among these are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan, so that they will be taught not to blaspheme” (1 Tim. 1:20).

 

Notice these apostates are delivered in order to be saved. Notice these apostates are handed over so they will be taught. If we take God simply as a lawyer, then not only are there unsavable people, but He made them that way as an example for us. However, His Word reveals the opposite. He created all to be saved and sent His Son as the example.

 

In our sin, we miss the work of God. We miss salvation because we are too busy trying to imitate God in the wrong ways. We think that, because we’ve been shown a little bit of favor, that we are now the favorite and can do no wrong. We think that because life has gotten better, we can simply go back to the way we were living.

 

In the first place, the Nine would have nothing to go back to, if it weren’t for Jesus. In fact, were they to return to the way they were living, they would be lepers again, but this time without Jesus, for He won’t pass by a second time in mercy. In the second place, Jesus comes to change things, not leave them the same.

 

The Ten lepers come forward as lepers, but leave healed. Not only healed, but saved. For Jesus has not come to do magic tricks with skin and bones, but to seek and save. To give faith. To forgive sins. 

 

“Have mercy upon us, O Lord” and He does. He makes the Way and it is only through His Son, Jesus Christ. Apostasy is horrid. Sins are eternally dangerous. However, the Way is forgiveness and the rules are Confession and Absolution.

 

Every patriarch has found forgiveness and that, I would say, is the only point to all their stories in the Old Testament. Adam, the cosmos destroyer, found forgiveness. Noah the drunk, found forgiveness. Abraham the adulterer, found forgiveness. And on down the line. Apostates all, but finding a Savior, because He found them first.

 

He found them first as humans. He found them first, in their sins. He found them first dead in their trespasses. And while they were yet sinners…

 

What’s the point? The point is, if the Nine were to turn back and confess, they would be forgiven. That is the lesson. Are you a backslider? Do you not love Jesus as much as your neighbor does? Have you sinned too much for God waste any more time on you?

 

Here’s the secret: no one loves Jesus. Not you. Not me. Not your super-star preacher down the street. 

I hear Christians say all the time, "Oh, I just I love Jesus. Oh, I love the Lord." Well, I don't.

I don't love Jesus because Jesus said, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments."

Do I keep His commandments? No. I fail. Consistently.

So, I cannot sit there and say, "Oh, I just love the Lord”, while failing Him all the time.

 

All some people can talk about is me, me, me, me, me. I love the Lord. I have

cool songs. It goes, "All I want is you." All I want is Jesus. You call that worship.

 

You sit there and lie before the Lord about how much you want Him when in all reality He's not all you want. You want a pay raise. You want an ice cream. There's a lot of things that you want. And here you sit, just singing, “I surrender all”

 

Do you? You've surrendered all? Wow. What an immense pride.

I don't love Jesus. I fail Him all the time.

 

But one thing that is certain and that is despite the fact that I fail Him miserably again and again and am unfaithful, Jesus Christ has remained faithful and His love has remained steadfast and His mercy has never wavered. His mercy endures forever.

 

So because of what He's done for me, because He first loved me, I am able to love Him back. But no, I don't put any emphasis or focus on my love for Jesus. No, the apostle John actually said, “this is love. Not that we loved God, but that he loved us and gave himself for us.” (1 Jn 4:10)

 

So if you want to know what love is, it's not about, oh, what a great love I have for God. No, the opposite. It's about God's great love for the world. So stop talking about yourself and your love and your faithfulness and begin talking about Christ, His love, His faithfulness towards you.

 

That is what Faith told this foreigner who returned, alone, to give thanks. It revealed to him Christ, the Son of the Living God. Did faith also not reveal this to the Nine? Yes, but they rejected. They treated the medicine as if it were dung. How can a man do the things of God?

 

Man can’t. Jesus can. Both God and man, He offends us to our very souls and warns, “Blessed is the man who is not offended by me” (Mt 11:6). The man who does not fall away because of me. The man who can withstand the Day of Judgment, having his judgement handed out to him by a man, Jesus.

 

Apostasy is not your feelings, but your belief. Excommunication is not a condemnation, but a chance to be taught to change. So do not be afraid of this change, that now you must believe in God’s Way. That He can become a man, that man can forgive sins, and that a man is now and ever shall rule the universe, return for His Own, and bring them with Him by faith alone.

 

Instead, be healed, turn back, pray, praise and give thanks.

 

Amen.

 

 

The Martyrdom of John the Baptist

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READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Jeremiah 1:17-19

• Hebrews 11:36-39

• St. Mark 6:17-29

Grace to you all and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. (Phile 1:3)

 

Who speaks to you today, from His Epistle this morning saying: 

“They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated— of whom the world was not worthy”

  

The celebration of the Martyrdom of John the Baptist was actually yesterday, August 29th. It is considered a Double Major feast day. This means that there are extra things accompanying the day in church. There are nine lessons read at Matins, instead of the usual three. Two Vespers services are dedicated to it, both the evening before and after. 

 

The Mass, or Divine Service, is a full one including the Gloria in Excelsis, proper collects, readings to the day, and the Nicene Creed. A Double Major feast day outranks simple and semi-double feasts, meaning it takes priority in the calendar unless a higher-ranking feast (like a 1st or 2nd class or a Sunday) occurs on the same day.

 

In our Church tradition, there is a hierarchy of feasts. 

In order: a 1st Class feast is the highest rank. Days like Easter, Christmass, and Pentecost take priority over everything else that could be celebrated that day. 

2nd Class includes most feasts of the Apostles, the Holy Name of Jesus, and major events in the life of the Virgin Mary.

 

Now pay attention here, Sundays. The regular Sundays that we celebrate year after year, such as today which would have been the 13th Sunday after Trinity are next in line. This is because Sundays are weekly celebrations of the Resurrection and naturally possess a high rank. In the traditional calendar, a standard Sunday will override most feast days.

 

Which brings us to today’s celebration of the 4th place, or Double Major. 

 

So yes today we break those Church rules, if you noticed, but who’s going to stop us? In fact, we can do whatever we want, in church, and all protestants do, though its not good for them. The reason we can say this is because celebrating the beheading of John the Baptist is not in the Bible. As in, no prophet or Apostle ever says, “On this day we celebrated John”.

 

Now tell me today, which path you choose: John or Herod. And before you make the ultra-self-righteous choice of John, let me clue you in on what is happening. John is following the 10 Commandments, specifically number 6, where you are to fear and love God so that you lead a chaste and decent life in word and deed and each love and honor his spouse.

 

What if I told you that Herod is also following the Law of God, would you believe me? 

First, Herod is king, anointed by God. From the Old Testament, “David told Saul, "I will not raise my hand against my lord, for he is the Lord’s anointed" (1 Sam 24:10), and we know what a great king Saul was. At this point in history, he was not even the real king, yet David still spoke these words.

 

Jesus reteaches this point in front of Pilate saying, “You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above” (Jn 19:12). Herod’s authority comes from God.

Even Samuel said of kings, “He will take your daughters” (1 Sam 8:13), as Herod seems to want to do in today’s Gospel.

 

Second, Herod is also keeping his word. In Deuteronomy 23:21 we hear God say, "If you make a vow to the Lord your God, you shall not delay fulfilling it, for the Lord your God will surely require it of you, and you would be guilty of sin." By executing John, Herod was choosing the lesser of two sins in his own eyes by avoiding the profound sin of lying and breaking a vow made before witnesses.

 

Finally, Herod is doing it all for love. John is breaking the law. God says, “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord” in Leviticus 19:18. Then there is Ecclesiastes 8:15: "And I commend joy, for man has no good thing under the sun but to eat and drink and be joyful”, teaching that love should keep peace and joy for the community. And Proverbs 5:18 that says to protect the honor of your family: "Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth."

 

All Scripture. All God’s Law

What do you do, dear Christian??

 

Maybe you can feel a little bit what John felt, in front of his executioner.

Maybe you feel a little bit of what the Last Day will be like, when Jesus sits in Judgement of you.

 

Dear Christians, even if the devil uses the Bible, it is still God’s own Word. So, you have the advantage. You know the author. You even know how to contact Him to ask Him to send His Holy Spirit to you, that you may gain understanding. As you open your Bible, pray that you may so read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest what is being fed to you.

 

Dear Jesus, son of God and Son of man, reveal to us Your Will. Who is John the Baptist?

He is Elijah to come. He is more than a prophet. He is the greatest born among women. He is a reed not shaken by the wind. And he is rejected by men.

 

St. John the Baptist: forerunner of Christ, minister of the baptism of Jesus, a burning and shining lamp to the world, an angel of purity before his birth, a special friend and favorite of Christ, intrepid preacher of truth, a voice crying in the wilderness, an example of profound humility, a glorious martyr of zeal for God's holy law, and gloriously fulfilling his mission.

 

Jesus chose John. Jesus also chose Herod, but Herod chose himself. Therefore, it is John who is to be trusted and not Herod, because of Faith. It is John who shows true love, not self-serving love, for love rejoices in the Truth (1 Cor 13:6). Love does no wrong to a neighbor and perfect love casts out fear. Herod was not afraid of God, but men.

 

It is John who truly keeps his word, his vows. His whole life was one dedicated to his vow of poverty and to not drink wine or any strong drink, in order that he be filled with the Holy Spirit (Lk 1:15). Much more than that, he keeps God’s Word. A sinful vow is not a vow. A vow to do evil must be repented of, not kept. John was revealing Herod’s sin that he would repent and live.

 

Which brings us to the topic of king. Can a king remain a chosen king while choosing to sin against the God Who gave him that authority? Do we get a free pass to rule how we want, love how we want, and act how we want simply because we can find justification somewhere?

 

The title of king is not the Title of God. Herod was a king, he was not God. He was a sinner in need of repentance. He was not sinless and certainly not to be worshipped as “can do no wrong”. 

 

The True King keeps His Promises. The True King Loves as His Father in Heaven loves. The True King lays down His life for His friends and does not allow another to take away that glory of the cross.

 

Jesus is the fulfillment of both John the Baptist and Herod, for both men fail. Herod most spectacularly, living in abject hatred of all things Jesus-related. And John because He could not bring about the true kingdom with his preaching of repentance. Where Herod stubbornly continued to rebel, John bowed to the dust, “He must increase, and I must decrease”.

 

It is not man that has revealed to you the Truth, but your heavenly Father. It is He Who chose to spread His Gospel throughout the earth and have it preached that those hearing it, may believe. Though John received the greatest honor in being able to say, “Behold the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world” and Herod got to keep “his kingdom”, the Spirit alone shines light on the Truth through the Word alone.

 

Herod had not only committed adultery in his marriage, he had committed adultery in God’s Word. He had changed the deal, changed what God had said about husband and wife. He made a new “word of god”, a false word and a false god. Same as the serpent in the beginning: “Did God really say one man and one woman?” 

 

It is Jesus Who agrees with the beginning, with the Head of all things, because He was there, creating all of it with the Father and the Holy Spirit. And it is Jesus Who said: you shall not commit adultery. And it is Jesus Who said, I have come to suffer and die that they may have life, and have it more abundantly.

 

Where Herod’s god brings death, Jesus, true God and true man, brings life. Herod wants John out of the way. Jesus wants John living forever in everlasting righteousness, innocence and blessedness. There can be no comparison in words-on-paper here. When God speaks, He speaks words of life in Christ. When the devil or sinners speak, it is always words of death.

 

So when it comes to celebrating John and placing his feast day among the myriad number of reasons to celebrate every word the comes from the mouth of God, we do not do so according to the Law, but according to the Gospel.

 

Meaning, we get to. We get to hear of John. We get to see his life. We get to hear his prayers and his preaching and we get to gather in the Church he attends to do it, rallying around the same Lamb, Who takes away the sin of the world.

 

 

Amen.