He can harm us none. . .

Sermon for the Martyrdom of St. John the Baptist, preached on Sunday, August 29, 2021.

    If you give the devil an inch, he will take a mile.  Herod the Tetrarch was a weak and vain man who thought much too highly of himself.  But he was also a man with a conscience.  He knew his sins and he had some fear of God and this fear of God kept him from silencing his chief accuser, John the Baptist.  His tolerance of God’s man was not an act of faith but of fear.  For a long time Herod’s fear of God kept John from death.  That is, until he gave the devil an opening and the devil used it to unravel the soul of Herod.

    His marriage to Herodius was incestuous, a marriage built not upon love or the fear of God but upon perversion, lust, and a common quest for power.  In a vain moment in which he sought to impress others with his wife, his step-daughter, and his virility, he promised anything, up to half of his kingdom, for the erotic and vulgar dance of a child playing upon the disgusting lewdness of this evil man.  He backed himself into a corner and willingly exchanged the wrath of God for the false image of power before birthday guests who knew it was all a sham.  Then, as if he had ever been known as a man of his word, he keeps this awful promise and kills the prophet of God to please the prostitute parading as his own wife.

    The world did not welcome the voice of John anymore than the world welcomed the voices of Zechariah, Jeremiah, Isaiah, or any of the prophets who went before him.  You do not welcome the truth either.  None of us does.  We prefer to live in our illusions rather than look ourselves square in the mirror of God’s Law.  We love to pretend to be respectable:  It lasts until a loose thought or a thoughtless word or a word become deed backs us into the same corner as Herod.  We presume we are better than the worst even if we might admit we are not as good as the best.  We console ourselves with being mediocre sinners, unwilling or unwitting sinners.  But we refuse to admit that our hearts are dark or evil.

    So when the voice of the prophet calls us to repent, we are offended.  Who is that pastor to call us to account?  What about his own sins?  We are the ones in church, for Pete’s sake.  The worst of the sins are not those we boldly do but the lukewarm sins we commit without conviction because we are cowards.  The sad truth is that we would all exchange a moment sharing the limelight with the famous over the anonymity of a back pew in the house of God.  We would all sacrifice truth for feelings and choose to be inspired by lies rather than convicted by truth.  Herod is us and we are Herod.

    I suppose we should not feel to bad for John.  He had completed his mission and done the Lord’s bidding.  His voice had leveled the heights and valleys and made straight the path to Jesus – right up to the Jordan and the Baptism of our Lord.  From then on, Jesus was center stage.  Not John.  So perhaps it was a merciful end for John to exchange this world and its vain glories for the true glory of God’s presence.  He who jumped in his mother’s womb now dances before the Lamb of God on high.  But maybe we can learn something from this.

    The devil does not have to chew you up and spit you out to win.  He does not have to destroy your life or steal away everything that you value to bring you and your faith to your knees.  All he needs is a small entrance, a sinful thought, a word too quickly across the lips, and an action taken because you were sure you had no choice.  And there he is.  He takes us down not as public show but in the privacy of our guilt and shame and where faith once lived, despair now reigns.  If you give the devil an inch, he will take a mile.  Worse, he will take all of you.

    That is why we are so close to the Lord’s house.  That is why we are here when the Word is preached.  That is why we confess our sins.  That is why we eat and drink the body and blood of our Lord.  We have given the devil too many inches and, although we can do nothing on our own to stall his advance, the Lord can.  One little word can fell him.  Or so we sing in “A Mighty Fortress.”  We are here because only God can close the gaps our sinful thoughts, words, and deeds have created.  Only God can steal us into the refuge of His grace where the devil can harm us none.  Only God can still the whisper of the devil’s lies or turn away his pointy finger of guilt.  Only God can deliver us from this body of sin and its death, from this world set against God and His kingdom, and our own rebellious wills and flesh.  And this God does through the means of grace in which the Spirit does the bidding of Jesus and makes our weak faith strong.

    So the world hates us.  It hated Jesus.  What do you expect?  So the world would mock our meager righteousness.  It mocked Jesus.  What do you expect?  So the world threatens to take our lives, goods, fame, child, and wife?  Let these all be gone and they still have nothing won.  The kingdom ours remaineth.  Our trust does not lie in earthly rulers or institutions or powers but in the cross, in the grace of God that rescues guilty sinners and in the mercy of God that clears our guilty consciences and in the hope of God planted in death to give us everlasting life.  Forgiven people know they have nothing to lose.  They do not fear because they are fearless but because they fear God most of all.
Do not fear him who can take your body.  Fear Him who destroy both soul and body.  Jesus said that.  John believed it.  And when faced with a long imprisonment and an ignominious death at the plot and plan of a weak pseudo king and a woman without virtue, John was ready for death.  Herod, Herodias, and Salome had given an inch and the devil had taken a mile.  Their sin has gone down in the annals of history and they cannot escape their shame.  But you, my friends, can.  You can with John through repentance and faith.

    Repent.  Believe in the Lord Jesus.  Trust in the mercy of the cross.  Live in the promise of life stronger than death.  Stay close to the place where this grace is made accessible to you in the absolution of your sins, the preaching of this Gospel, the remembrance of your baptism, and the feast of Christ’s flesh for the life of the world and His blood that cleanses you from all your sin.    May our eyes be fixed on Jesus, where true joys are to be found.  May the Lord provide faithful voices who recall us to this Gospel when our eyes, hearts, and minds wander.  And when the injustice and unrighteousness of the world threatens us, may we have the strength of John’s conviction, the courage of his steadfast faith, and  the comfort of his message to deliver us into the arms of God’s mercy once, for all, clear and clean, forevermore.  Amen.