What is God doing during the beheading of John the Baptist?
The gospel lectionary reading for Trinity 6 in Year B is Mark half dozen.14–29—and information technology feels distinctly odd by whatsoever measure out. If you are a practiced Anglican, and ensure you lot read not simply from the NT and the Psalms but also from the Old Testament every calendar week, it will take been less of a surprise. By contrast, if you are into pop culture and have become a fan of the TV serial Game of Thrones, or perhaps play the latest generation of video games, and so it will not seem strange at all. But what is the passage doing here, every bit function of the 'skillful news' that Marking offers the states of Jesus, and why does he requite so much fourth dimension to information technology in his shortest of gospels—much more time than he gives to his description of the resurrection, even despite the efforts of afterward editors of the cease of the gospel?
You might well accept heard a well-structured, engaging exposition of the man actors here, as I did a few years agone in the church we were visiting. It is non so much Game of Thrones as a game of consequences, which each stage of the drama unfolding tragically just with some inevitability into the next. What happens if you lot are built-in into a family whose patriarch is a ruthless but insecure tyrant (Herod the Great) who forged a regime from nothing and was a monumental builder, but accomplished this by having his own wife and ii sons executed? What happens when you live with biting rivalry, having inherited both your father's ambitious and his insecurity, which leads you into war and ultimate defeat? What happens when your sexual interests lead you to fall in love with your own relation (Herodias was Herod the Great's thousand-daughter past Mariamne)? What happens when you are at the same fourth dimension disturbed and fascinated by a prophetic voice of criticism and cannot resolve this disharmonize in yourself? What happens when you blurt out impulsive promises which brand you vulnerable to the scheming of others close to you? None of this ended well for Herod Antipas, who finally lost his power and his throne—but it ended worse for those around, including John the Baptist, who lost his caput.
We are left with a poignant moral tale, full of dynamism and pathos, told in a such a manner equally to inspire many a Hollywood moving picture script. The moment of hubris comes equally Herod declares, repeatedly and with growing emphasis, his delight in his daughter:
The king said to the girl, "Ask me for anything y'all desire, and I'll give it to you." And he promised her with an oath, "Whatever you lot ask I will requite you, upwards to half my kingdom." (Mark six.22–23)
And this is almost immediately followed by his nemesis, his downfall, fabricated the more than stinging by his daughter request not simply for the head of John the Baptist, as her mother had directed her, simply asking for it 'correct at present' and 'on a platter'. The dishes on which Herod had served his guests the choicest foods as a demonstration of his lavish generosity and wealth would now serve up to him his folly and his pride in forepart of those very same guests—in the about gruesome manner possible.
No wonder, and then, that Caravaggio, the impulsive and conflicted genius of Renaissance art, chose to indulge his obsession with gruesome beheadings past painting this scene (now hanging in the St John'due south Co-Cathedral in Valletta, Republic of malta, where we saw information technology on holiday). His picture is startling in all sorts of ways, and not but considering of his characteristic utilize of tenebrism by which the light and nighttime elements of the painting are in such hit contrast, with the human figures often illuminated from the side so that their features stand out in sharp relief. Caravaggio has chosen to depict the very moment of execution, with the jailer holding the knife behind his dorsum having drawn it across John's throat, and the blood is pouring from his neck as the jailor grasps his pilus.
Perhaps we are unsettled by the contrasting reactions of the other figures—the horror of the old woman contrasting with the bored disinterest of the male effigy next to her, the other prisoners straining to see the gore from their cell window on the correct, and the girl with the platter eager but to become the job done. We might be disturbed by the off-eye limerick of the picture, which breaks the rules of painting organisation fifty-fifty equally the whole incident breaks the rules of moral respectability.
Merely the about shocking element of the painting is i nosotros might not have noticed unless we look shut up: that Caravaggio uses the blood flowing from John the Baptist's cervix to form his own signature. He might not see himself as a wicked tyrant like Herod, merely does he in his moral dilemmas at least see himself as likewise playing a deadly game of consequences, only every bit those past-standers and minor characters practise?
Where does that leave us equally we read the passage? Are nosotros being offered a stern warning of the consequences of unchecked impulses? Not many of us volition have the chance to be tyrants, but the same impulses of insecurity, pride, shame and failure are present in united states all. Or are we being offered a sober warning, in the example of John the Baptist, of the cost of integrity and faithfulness? Where does that all go out the states, and does it offering u.s.a. whatever 'good news'?
We can now see that there is a basic problem with this kind of approach to the passage. All these readings are focussed on the human characters—they are taking ananthropocentric view—when the question I have asked in the title of this piece suggests something else. All these observations about what the homo agents are doing are interesting, insightful, maybe even entertaining in a foreign way—simply surely Mark is more concerned about what God is doing—and inviting usa to take atheocentricview. This is the most important thing to do in our reading and especially in our preaching. The real question nosotros need to ask is: What is God doing in this story?
To help us in this theological shift, we need to brand two observations—one about the text itself in its canonical shape, and the other virtually the historical context of the gospel.
If you take just read the passage in isolation, either past its project on a screen, or by reading it on your phone, instead of having an actual impress Bible open up, and so you will take missed the virtually important thing Mark tells us well-nigh this passage—what comes before and what comes after it. (This shows how important it is that we all have printed Bibles and read from them in church.) Nosotros should exist alert to this, as we have seen it before.
Mark advisedly interweaves (in chapter 5) the story of a named and of import homo, Jairus, whose 12-twelvemonth-one-time daughter is at decease'south door, with the story of an unnamed and nearly unnoticed woman, a figure fading into the crowd, who for 12 years has suffered from bleeding which has moved her to the margins of society. And we volition see Mark's technique over again, in chapter 8, where he has to remind the disciplesonce more of his provision in a feeding miracle doneonce more just equally he must touch the eyes of a blind managain before he can see more than people 'as trees walking'.
So what do nosotros learn when we await at the outer layers of Marking's narrative sandwich? Immediately before the Herod/John the Baptist narrative, we read a slightly abbreviated version (compared with Luke 9.1–6) of Jesus' commissioning the Twelve to get, in pairs, and take the good news to the villages.
Calling the Twelve to him, he began to send them out ii by two and gave them potency over evild spirits. These were his instructions: "Accept null for the journeying except a staff—no bread, no purse, no coin in your belts. Vesture sandals only not an extra shirt. Whenever yous enter a house, stay there until you go out that town. And if any place volition not welcome you or listen to y'all, milkshake the dust off your feet when you leave, as a testimony confronting them." They went out and preached that people should repent. They drove out many demons and anointed many sick people with oil and healed them. (Marking half dozen.7–13)
And immediately post-obit the Herod narrative, we read of the return of the Twelve.
The apostles gathered around Jesus and reported to him all they had done and taught. And then, because then many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to consume, he said to them, "Come up with me by yourselves to a quiet identify and become some residuum." (Marker half dozen.30–31)
Then how does Mark answer the question: 'What was God doing?' In this: God was continuing to exist at work, past his Spirit, through his people called by Jesus to proclaim and enact the kingdom of God, and then that others might be fatigued to know him.
Decapitation is a dreadful thing, and has a powerful propaganda effect—every bit was credible in the kidnapping and filmed beheading of the xx Christian Copts by ISIL in 2015. But decapitation (in a literal or figurative sense) of organisations and even whole countries is also terrifying. The Western powers' strategy in combating terror organisations is primarily one of 'decapitation', of targeting and removing (by seizure or more commonly killing) the leaders of such movements. In the Second Globe War, iii 1000000 Jews in Poland were executed in the German death camps—but a further two million not-Jewish Poles were besides killed in an try at national decapitation. The occupying Germans arrested and executed anyone on positions of leadership—in government, business and pedagogy—with the aim of eliminating any resistance to the occupation and turning Poland into a 'slave nation' that would not have the initiative to resist.
The most poignant verse in the whole narrative in Mark 6 isn't to do with Herod at all, merely comes at the finish of the story:
On hearing of this, John's disciples came and took his torso and laid it in a tomb. (Mark 6.29)
Here is a body without a head, and hither were disciples without a rabbi, and followers without a leader. It was non but John, but his whole movement which had been decapitated, and you lot can experience the poignancy in the brevity and simplicity of this verse.
And Mark is most likely writing his gospel to followers of Jesus in only such a situation. The Christians in Rome have already witnessed the expulsion of all Jews nether Claudius, and this would take included important Jewish leaders in the fledgling Christian communities (as we see in Acts 18.2). They were soon to face up a greater challenge—the blaming by Nero of the fire in Rome on Christians, and the torture and death of many of them, including leaders like Peter and (nearly likely) Paul.
What should they do and retrieve? Among this calamity for such a modest movement still in its early on days, what was God doing? The answer, Mark tells us through this narrative, is that God was still at work, bringing healing, deliverance, and spreading the proficient news of the kingdom.
The friends and family of the Copts beheaded past ISIL discovered this for themselves. It is reported that their mothers thanked ISIL for releasing the video of their execution, considering it meant they could hear their sons' terminal words: 'Jesus is Lord'. And one who was present with them was also bedevilled by the manner of their death:
Afterwards the beheadings, the Coptic Orthodox church released their names, but at that place were merely twenty names. In the video, the leader'southward victim was of blackness African descent, in dissimilarity to the others, who were ethnic Copts. Information technology was later learned that this 21st martyr was named Matthew Ayariga and that he was from Republic of ghana. (A few sources say he was from Chad, but most say he was from Ghana.)
According to some sources, he was not originally a Christian, only he saw the immense faith of the others, and when the terrorists asked him if he rejected Jesus, he reportedly said, "Their God is my God", knowing that he would exist martyred.
Can we imagine a time when the church in the UK might be 'decapitated', with our leaders removed and our institutional influence gone? That is the reality for many Christians around the world. If information technology does happen, we might notice ourselves reading this passage over again with renewed interest. And perhaps being like those who travelled everywhere, and in all the places they went proclaimed the proficient news of the kingdom to all they met, might not seem such a featherbrained thing to practise after all.
(A previous version published in 2018.)
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