John has fulfilled His calling as a prophet and witness to the Lord Jesus. His life in this world is complete and hidden with Christ. The last of his duties are not unlike that of any pastor at the end of his ministry. He has sent his disciples to ask if Jesus is the One so that they might know in whom is their hope. Now Christ increase and John decreases. It seems like an ignoble end for a mighty man of God. Where we expect earthly glory, there is a shameful death at the behest of a corrupt girl and her conniving mother. Anyone of us would be right to ask if this is all there is. But there is more.
All around the account of John’s death is life. Herod is confused. Who is Jesus? Is John not dead? Could Jesus be John risen from the dead and come to torment him still? The disciples of John are not confused. They act in quiet and silence to place the body of the prophet in a tomb because they believe John in the resurrection. But between these is a tawdry scene.
Herod did not know what to do with John. Believing him to be a prophet sent from God, Herod knew the truth of his words. He was cut to the quick by the warning John made that if Herod remained in sin without repentance, Herod’s soul was under God’s judgment. He had arrested John not so much to punish him as to silence him. We all prefer silence to verbal warnings about our sins. That is why we want our pastors to be silent with the accusing voice of the Law and stick to the Gospel. The best we can hope for, however, is not silence but a man of God with the courage of John to call us to repentance from our pet sins and our unsubdued desires. Herod should have listened and heeded the prophet who spoke God’s Word to him. We should too.
The issue was sex and lust and immorality. It has been since Eden and it remains our weakness. We all know this. Our oversexed world of pornography and perversion of God’s gift is all around us. I wish it were only in the initials of those who practice the unrestrained pursuit of their desires but it lives here in me and in you, the good people of God who show up in Church on a Thursday or a Sunday. People are not marrying, children are not being born, and those who marry are divorcing, and children are being sexualized both as the victims of and those who seek out what is violent, unnatural to us as God’s creation, and degrading. This inhabits the pews and not just the internet. We think we are safe because we are here but each of us wears a target and the devil works against us all.
I rather like to watch Father Brown and although not every thing religious is kosher on that series, I am struck by how the good Father is concerned less about justice than the soul of the one who perpetuates the crimes. While cops are rushing to find suspects and prosecute, Father Brown has the concern for the eternal soul of the one who is not repentant. There is something there.
Herod did not listen but God did not write off Herod. He sent John. John was the voice to call Herod to repentance just as our pastors call each of us to repentance. We are thankful for them because they tell us what none of us wants to hear but what we must hear if we are to be saved. John warned Herod at great cost to himself. He did not speak as one who hated Herod but as one who loved the Lord and therefore loved those whom God loved and for whom Christ would die. That included Herod and all kinds of obvious sinners as well as you and me in our quiet and hidden sins we have so successfully kept from others. But not from God. God does not desire the death of any but that all come to the knowledge of His Son, are saved by His grace, and bear in their lives the fruits of repentance by the Spirit.
Will you listen? John is preaching to you from his prison, preaching to you from his darkened cell, preaching to you from his martyrdom and death. His voice is spoken by those who you call pastor. But you must also preach. You are the one who preach to your spouses and children, to your family and friends, to your neighbors and leaders. It will cost you something. Maybe not the bars of a jail but the prison of unpopularity and rejection. We preach not as the perfect who need no repentance but as those who have found a merciful God who welcomes our repentance so that He might lavish upon us forgiveness, life, and salvation.
While we are at it, we attend to those who suffer for the sake of the kingdom, for the sake of Jesus. We salve their wounds, comfort their tears, bind up their broken hearts, and encourage them. Do not fear those who can kill body but not the soul. God is with us. He is not the pat on the back of the righteous but the key to open the doors of all our prisons and set us free – free from doubt, from fear, from anger, from bitterness, from shame, from guilt, and from disappointment. Death isi the final enemy but its sting is already removed and can hurt us no more. We confess the crucified and risen Lord Jesus. We honor the body not as a dirty old trash can that has no value but as God’s creation. We bury the dead but expect to see them again. We know not when we die but we know that we shall live and death shall not claim us.
John knew this. John’s disciples knew this. Herod could have known this. You know this. Repent. Believe in Jesus Christ. Confess your sins and confess your faith in Him who died for sin and rose for sinners that they might be set free from death to live forever more. Washed water, the table awaits you. Here is the taste of eternity. The repentant come to eat and live now and with John forever. Amen.
1 comment:
That was a fine sermon indeed.
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