Mistaking Jesus for John

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A few weeks ago, my dad was with me and we took the kids to Atwoods, the older two, and we were pulling into the parking lot and my dad lets out this audible gasp. And I tell people, you can’t do that when I’m driving because I think there’s going to be a problem. I mean, I start looking around, did I sideswipe somebody with my trailer?

What happened? And we finally get to a parking spot, and Dad says, oh my goodness, did you see that man that came toward us in the aisle in his truck? I said, yeah, he was driving a little fast for being in a parking lot.

I thought so too. He said, no, head on, that looked just like my dad. I said, I didn’t see that.

I didn’t notice it. He said, in profile, didn’t look anything like him, but head on, it looked just like my dad. I said, well, I would have thought I would have noticed that.

But it took him by surprise because my grandfather’s been gone for six years. And just to see him like that, it was, or not see him, but see somebody that looked like him was a little bit of a shock. There was a time a few years ago when I had been gone from my home church in Moore for several years.

I’d been gone from Moore for several years, but happened to be back probably doing something with my parents or Charlie’s mom. And I ran to Walmart. And of course, you know, it’s always like town reunion.

But I ran to Walmart and I about panicked. I called my mother. I said, I just saw so-and-so.

And she said, well, and I’m just beside myself. She said, why is that? What’s the big deal?

I said, well, she’s dead, isn’t she? And she said, no. Somebody they go to church with and that I used to go to church with from there. I said, I’m pretty sure she died.

I’m pretty sure I got the email from the church months ago. She said, no, she was in the hospital. That was her husband. I said, okay, well, I feel better.

Not that he’s dead, but I feel better that I’m not seeing dead people at Walmart. It was a little bit of a shocking experience to see somebody at Walmart that I was really, really sure had died. A lot of us may have similar stories where we see somebody we thought was dead, or we saw somebody that looked like somebody that we know who’s passed on.

And experiences like that can be unsettling, to say the least. And there’s a man in the Gospels named Herod Antipas who had an experience like that when he became familiar with Jesus’ ministry. And that’s what we’re going to read about tonight is Herod’s experience with Jesus and how he mistook Jesus for John. We’re going to be in Mark chapter 6 tonight, if you’d turn there with me, if you haven’t already.

Mark chapter 6, and there are handouts there and there if you want to be able to compare Matthew and Luke as well. Mark chapter 6, we’re going to start in verse 14 tonight. If you’d stand with me once you find the text, it’d be nice if I could spit out a complete sentence, but once you find the text, if you’d stand with me, we’re going to read verses 14 through 29 tonight.

It says, Now King Herod heard of him, for his name had become well known, and he said, John the Baptist is risen from the dead, and therefore these powers are at work in him. Others said, It is Elijah. And others said, It is the prophet, or like one of the prophets.

But when Herod heard, he said, This is John, whom I beheaded. He has been raised from the dead. For Herod himself had sent and laid hold of John, and bound him in prison for the sake of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife, for he had married her.

Because John had said to Herod, It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife. Therefore Herodias held it against him and wanted to kill him, but she could not. For Herod feared John, knowing that he was a just and holy man, and he protected him.

And when he heard him, he did many things, and heard him gladly. Then an opportune day came when Herod, on his birthday, gave a feast for his nobles, the high officers, and the chief men of Galilee. And when Herodias’ daughter herself came in and danced and pleased Herod and those that sat with him, the king said to the girl, Ask me whatever you want, and I will give it to you.

He also swore to her, Whatever you ask of me, I will give you up to half my kingdom. So she went out and said to her mother, What shall I ask? And she said, The head of John the Baptist. Immediately she came in with haste to the king and asked, saying, I want you to give me at once the head of John the Baptist on a platter.

And the king was exceedingly sorry. Yet because of the oaths and because of those who sat with him, he did not want to refuse her. Immediately, the king sent an executioner and commanded his head to be brought, and he went and beheaded him in prison, brought his head on a platter, and gave it to the girl.

And the girl gave it to her mother, and when his disciples heard of it, they came and took away his corpse and laid it in a tomb. And you may be seated. So the first thing that you’ll notice is that John the Baptist was executed for being faithful to God’s standards and God’s word.

Just to make sure you understand, because even the New King James can at times be a little bit of a challenge to keep up with what’s going on here. Just to recap the story we’re looking at. Herod Antipas.

It’s also important to know which Herod we’re talking about, because there are multiple Herods that are spoken of in the New Testament. The one who ordered the slaughter of the infants at Bethlehem, that was Herod the Great. I don’t think he was so great, but that’s what he was called, was Herod the Great.

This is Herod Antipas, who I can’t remember, his grandson, his nephew, he’s related. He’s one of the Herods. Later on, there’s Herod Agrippa I, Herod Agrippa II.

There are some of the ones that deal with the apostles later on in the book of Acts. This is Herod Antipas. He’s the ruler of Galilee.

This is, I believe, the same Herod that Jesus answers questions of right before his crucifixion. Now, Herod Antipas was married to a woman named Phaselus, And he divorced her because he wanted to marry Herodias. Herodias was, I think she was related to him too, which is weird to us, but a lot of the royal families did that back in that day.

She was married to his half-brother, Herod Philippus I. So you get a really strong Jerry Springer kind of vibe going on here. There’s just nothing right or normal about this.

But we see in verses 17 and 18 that he divorced his wife so that he could marry her once she had divorced his half-brother. John the Baptist criticized the arrangement as a violation of God’s law. If we saw our rulers doing this kind of thing today, we would criticize them too, probably in a gossipy kind of way.

John the Baptist went out right in the open. I don’t know if he walked into Herod’s palace and said something about it, or if he’s just standing there on the street corners shouting about it, but he did it where Herod would find out. And it enraged the family.

He said this is not lawful. This is a violation of God’s law. This is a violation of not only the letter of the law in some ways, but it was a violation of definitely the spirit of the law to be just divorcing and remarrying at the drop of a hat, especially family members and spouses of family members.

There was just nothing right about this. And so Herodias had a little bit thinner skin than Herod did. And it says she really held a grudge about this.

she hated John for what he had said and according to verse 19 she wanted him dead now Herod Antipas refused to do anything which tells you something about how much he feared John as it says in in verse 20 because his wife clearly a demanding woman has told him she wants John dead and if you’ve never if you’ve never had a wife I can tell you that even if your wife is the sweetest person in the world, she nudges you and gives you that look and says, I really would like this to happen. You know there are certain requests that are not just requests, right? So he says, no, I can’t do that.

That gives you some idea of how much he fears John. I would go so far as to say not only did he fear John, but he was fascinated by John. Now, Matthew adds a little bit of a detail in there when he says in Matthew 14.

5 that he was afraid of the people because the people regarded John the Baptist as a prophet. Now, I’ve noted it on your handout, but I want to be very clear. This is not a contradiction.

This is one of those places where people in internet lists will say, see, the New Testament’s full of contradictions. It would be a contradiction if one gospel said Herod feared John and another gospel said Herod did not fear John. That’s a contradiction.

To say Herod feared John and to say Herod feared the people, those two things can be true at the same time. Herod could walk and chew gum at the same time. He could have this respect and this fascination for John, and we could call it fear because there’s a little bit of an awe over the supernatural power and authority that is there wrapped into the package that is John.

And there’s also the fear of the crowd because the crowd has the same perception of John, and Herod realizes, if I do anything to John, there’s going to be an uprising. So he fears the spiritual power of John, and he fears the political power of the people if they were sufficiently motivated. So that’s not a contradiction there.

Both of those are reasons why Herod just kind of sits tight and tells Herodias, just let it go. But then comes his birthday, and his stepdaughter Salome, she’s not named in the New Testament, but Josephus, the historian, tells us that her name was Salome, she performed a dance for his guests. And he was so excited by this dance that he offered to grant her a request. Whatever you want, up to half my kingdom.

That must have been some dance is all I can say. He promises to give her up to half his stuff because of this dance she performed. And so Salome goes and asks her mother, what should I ask for?

Herodias told her to go and ask for the head of John the Baptist. We see that in verses 24 and 25. Now Herod did not want to break his promise. Not only had he promised this to his stepdaughter, and probably is going to catch it from Herodias too if he refuses this request because they’ve got him.

But on top of that, he doesn’t want to be seen in front of his guests going back on his promise here. And so he dispatches a soldier to the prison to behead John the Baptist. and return the head to Salome on a platter. And then the disciples of John go and recover the body and bury it.

And all of this is because John had the audacity to stand by God’s word and God’s principles and what God said was right. And the powers that be didn’t like being called out on it. They wanted to just make up right and wrong as they went along.

They wanted just to pick and choose what of God’s law they would follow. And John called them out on it. And there are a lot of things that we can learn from John’s story here in just these verses where it’s covered.

It answers some of the historical questions that we would have about what happened to John the Baptist after the rise of Jesus’ ministry. When Jesus comes along, John the Baptist, who was pretty prominent, says, he must increase and I must decrease. and that’s what happened because we don’t hear very much about John after that and so we would have this lingering question about what happened to John after this and and God in his grace and in his wisdom gave us the answer there are a lot of those questions we have in scripture where we would like to know the rest of the story and God doesn’t give it to us but in this case God tells us what happened to John the Baptist it also teaches us the importance of of being bold and standing for godly principles even when it costs us.

There’s a lesson in there for us in the world we live in today that we would do well to follow John’s example. You might say, well, yeah, but look at how it turned out for John. Yeah, it’s going to cost us something to stand for godly principles in the world.

But the thing here is that John’s story is not the story. What happened to John is not the main point of why this is in the passage, why this is here. Because as I’m reading reading through Mark and preparing to teach through Mark, I come to this story and I find myself asking, why in the world is this here?

I mean, I mentioned some reasons why it’s beneficial to be here, but everything we’ve been doing up until now, everything we’ve been reading and studying up until now, Mark is really working on one point, one thesis. He’s making the case that Jesus Christ is God. And so we’ve got week after week, we’re putting another brick in that wall.

And then suddenly there’s this random story about John the Baptist. And I think, why in the world? Why in the world is it here? There are 16 verses in this passage we’ve looked at tonight, and 13 of them talk about John’s execution.

So it would be understandable if we think, well, that’s the point of the story. That’s what he’s talking about is John’s execution. But when we look at Matthew, Mark and Luke all together, as in the chart that I’ve given you, we see the real reason why the story’s here, particularly when we bring in the way that Mark just gives us a brief synopsis.

If you see the way I’ve laid it out for you, Mark kind of gives the bookends of the story, I’m sorry, Luke kind of gives the bookends of the story that clarify what Mark is saying. Mark gives us some information at the beginning of the passage, but it’s just the way Luke tells us about the beginning and the end that make it clear to me that John here, even though this is, I believe this is an accurate historical account, this really happened, telling us the story of John here is really a vehicle for telling us something about Jesus. Jesus is the story, not John.

This is a flashback. This whole story, this whole account that we read, starting at verse 14, going through verse 29, taking in the passages from Matthew and Luke, it is a flashback that where we are in the story, call that the present time for us, all that’s happening is Herod is having a flashback to the execution of John that happened earlier. And it demonstrates something about Jesus.

This is really about Jesus, as I said. When word got out about Jesus, Herod associated Jesus with John. And we see this in verse 14.

It says, now King Herod heard of him, for his name had become well known. Now, for this, we have to refer back to some of the passages we’ve already looked at. Some of the miracles that we’ve studied earlier, some of the previous verses.

If you look back at Mark 6, verses 12 and 13, it says the disciples went out and preached that people should repent, and they cast out many demons and anointed with oil many who were sick and healed them. So just before this happened, was the point in time when we talked about, Was it last Sunday night that we talked about this, how he sent the disciples out two by two to preach about the coming of the kingdom? And what they were really preaching about was Jesus Christ. They were preaching the gospel to the extent that they understood it at that point.

And so really their message was about Jesus Christ coming as the Lamb of God, the Savior of the world. They didn’t understand the crucifixion and the resurrection yet, but what they understood, they were going out to preach about Jesus and call people to repent. And as they’d been traveling Galilee telling people about Jesus, word got out and word got back to Herod.

Word got back to Herod about the miracles, about the teachings. Word got out about how he taught with this supernatural authority that people who listened to him were blown away because they said he doesn’t teach like anybody else. Everybody else is relying on somebody else’s authority.

Well, I’m quoting this teacher who quoted that teacher, who quoted that teacher, quoted that teacher going on back and back and back. And Jesus just came and said, you’ve heard all these people say this. Well, here’s what I say.

It’s a pretty bold claim. And he taught with that kind of authority and got people’s attention. And Herod recognized that he had seen this kind of thing somewhere before.

Not exactly the same kind of authority because John didn’t come and say, I say. But John had some incredible supernatural authority to his teaching as well. And Herod’s response is kind of along the lines of, I’ve seen this show before.

Something feels familiar about this. And so he needed to find some explanation for why and how Jesus was able to say and do such remarkable things. That’s what they were trying to do in the Nazareth synagogue that we talked about a few weeks ago.

They were trying to come up with some explanation. And so Herod concluded what he said in verse 14, John the Baptist is risen from the dead, and therefore these powers are at work in him. When Jesus comes teaching with this authority, Herod is scared to death.

In his mind, he’s seeing a ghost. He is experiencing the second coming of John the Baptist. This is terrifying to him. He can’t imagine that there are two teachers out there with that kind of supernatural authority and that are able to do miracles and are able to call people to repent. He cannot imagine that there are two people able to do this.

Now, other people, it wasn’t just Herod. Other people noticed the same thing. And they’re trying to come up with their explanations as well.

Others said it’s Elijah. Others said it is the prophet. Maybe Jeremiah there.

Or like one of the prophets. That phrase, like one of the prophets, that basically means we don’t know exactly who he is, but we’re pretty sure he’s one of the prophets. He’s somebody like that.

If he’s not John the Baptist, if he’s not Elijah, if he’s not Jeremiah, he’s certainly within that realm of people. And part of this may have been also Herod’s guilty conscience about killing John. Like he’s seen a ghost. He was confused about Jesus’ actual identity.

Where in verse 16, the other people had said, it’s Elijah, it’s the prophet, it’s like one of the prophets. Herod is emphatic in verse 16. No, this is John.

This is the one I beheaded. So he’s confused about Jesus’ actual identity, but he was right to recognize that there was something different about Jesus. He was right to recognize that Jesus was not like all the other ordinary teachers running around.

And his confusion shows us that he recognized that Jesus was more than an ordinary man and an ordinary teacher. Again, here in verse 16 when he says, This is John. This is the one I beheaded.

He’s been raised from the dead. It’s almost a panic. The way this reads, there’s almost a panic in his voice.

He recognizes there’s something supernatural about Jesus and his ministry. Because he swears up and down, this is John. And John had that incredible authority.

But on top of that, he’s saying, it wouldn’t surprise me if this was John back from the dead. I mean, it doesn’t get much more supernatural and much more supernaturally empowered than somebody being raised from the dead. So he recognizes there’s something supernatural about Jesus.

There’s something supernatural about his ministry. And then Luke, recording this, reflects his conclusion. It tells us the rest of the story in Luke 9.

9. Herod said, John I have beheaded, but who is this of whom I hear such things? So he sought to see him.

Somewhere along the line, he realized, maybe it’s not John, but still there’s something unusual about him. That’s where Herod eventually landed. No, maybe you’re right, he’s not John, because I did behead John.

But then how do I explain this guy? Because he recognized Jesus was different. Herod was clearly confused.

There was clearly a lot that Herod didn’t understand, but the one thing that he did understand, the one thing that he did get right, was that Jesus was not just an ordinary teacher. And when you look at it that way, Herod’s kind of the opposite side of the coin from the people at the synagogue in Nazareth. They were all looking at the evidence of Jesus and who He was and Him backing up His claims. They were looking at the miracles He performed.

They were looking at the things he taught. They were looking at the authority of his teaching. They saw all this evidence of who Jesus is.

And the people at Nazareth, they couldn’t reconcile it in their minds with what they expected. And so they just got angry and turned against him. Well, Herod here is in the same conundrum.

He sees the evidence of who Jesus is and he can’t reconcile it in his mind. So he begins flailing for an explanation. I mean, you’re really grasping at straws when your best explanation is the guy I killed came back to life and is haunting me.

But that’s how badly this troubled Herod. Because he sees this evidence. He sees the miracles, or at least hears the testimony of the miracles that Jesus has done.

He hears about the teachings. He hears about this authority, and it doesn’t compute. It’s so outside of anything he has a frame of reference for that he’s flailing for some kind of explanation.

And so these two groups, Herod and the people at the Nazareth synagogue, are opposite sides of the coin, but they’re the same coin. Of people who see the evidence of who Jesus is right in front of them and can’t wrap their minds around it. The point is the same.

The evidence of who Jesus is confronted these people who witnessed it. And that evidence of who Jesus is refused to be ignored. On the surface, this looks like a story about John.

I was so excited to come share this with you today. And maybe you won’t be as excited about this as I am and have been. But reading this, thinking, why is there this random story about John at this spot?

And realizing it’s actually about Jesus. And I’ve never noticed that before. When you look at the little details about what Herod said beforehand and what Herod said afterwards, it’s about Jesus.

It’s about the evidence of who Jesus is, being there staring somebody in the face. And they may not be able to understand it, they may not be able to explain it, but the one thing they can’t do with it is ignore it. And Jesus has made it so abundantly clear for us, if we’ll just pay attention, who He is and what He came to do.

The evidence is there in His miracles, the evidence is there in the things that He taught, the evidence is there in His authority, the way He carried Himself. There’s never been anybody else like this. I mean, it says something about how incredible his ministry was.

That in Herod’s mind, the most reasonable explanation was that the guy I killed is haunting me again. It tells you there’s something incredible taking place in front of Herod. There’s something incredible unfolding in the hills and in the valleys and in the villages of Galilee.

They are seeing Jesus right in front of them, giving all the evidence they need that He is God in human flesh and that He’s come to deal with their problem of sin.