Today’s reading is Mark 6.
We’ve reached an incredibly sad moment in Mark’s record of the gospel. John, the forerunner of Jesus, dies. He doesn’t just die. He is executed. In a miserable, offhanded, senseless way, John’s work ended in a Herodian prison to settle a petty grudge held against him by brutal and vindictive Herodias.
On the one hand, John’s death foreshadows what is coming for Jesus. John was sent to prepare the way for Jesus. If the herald and forerunner gets executed, what will happen to the one whose way is being prepared. This death happens even as the one who ordered his execution had “heard him gladly.” The people have been hearing Jesus gladly. But how fickle people can be when you teach against their pet sins.
John did not die in glorious battle for his king. He was simply seized, carted off to a prison, then unceremoniously dispatched without fanfare where no one but a guard and executioner witnessed. It is not fantastic, romantic, or glorious in any sense of any of those words. He dies because of the petty revenge of a woman who could not stand being affronted. He dies because a man’s fleshly pleasures cause him to run his mouth before he engages his brain.
And John just dies. No escape attempts. No hero sweeps in to rescue him at the last minute. No honors or accolades for the fallen hero. His disciples simply bury his headless body in a tomb.
This sad story gives us insight into the good news in a stark and even uncomfortable way. The good news is not long life. It is not health and wealth. The good news is not well-off retirement. It is not accolades, awards, and recognition of men. The good news is there is more to life than what we experience here. Mark doesn’t explicitly tell us what comes next for John. But in context of the gospel pictures and New Testament story, we recognize John’s story doesn’t have as sad an ending as this account might lead us to believe. Even the people believed there was more to John’s life than an ungracious death. When Jesus works miracles, they thought perhaps John had been raised from the dead. Even the man who had him killed thought that might be the case. Everyone, including Herod, expected there was more to John’s life than his death.
Of course, that is only true because of what happens with Jesus’s death. Because Jesus was raised, we know John will be raised. But in John’s life we see the choice we have to make. We can either put our eggs in the earthly life basket or we can put them in the resurrection basket. Granted, not everyone who serves the Lord will be martyred, but John’s death shows us the choice we have to make in a blunt and discomfiting way. John’s death only makes sense through Jesus’s resurrection. But Jesus’s resurrection should help us be willing to face John’s death.
And in John’s death, we see in extremis what it means to be willing to lose our lives in order to save them. John could have apologized, recanted, ingratiated himself to Herod and Herodias. But He didn’t. He stands as an example of one of those “refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better life” (Hebrews 11:35, ESV).
Praise the Lord for such an example. Certainly, none of us long to face what John did. But may we all long to be willing to do so. And if it ever comes to it, may God graciously strengthen us to lose our lives in order to save them.
Tomorrow’s reading is Mark 6.
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PATHS:
Discuss Today’s Meditation with Your Family
How does Mark 6 prompt or improve your trust in God?
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