Series: The Gospel of Mark
Get Ready to Party
February 08, 2026 | Jed Stalker
Passage: Mark 6:14-29
Summary
The story of John the Baptist's death presents one of Scripture's most perplexing examples of how life can feel unfair and confusing, even for those who faithfully follow God. John was no ordinary man - he was the angel-announced messenger who prepared the way for Jesus, the first to recognize Christ as the Lamb of God, and the fulfillment of Malachi's prophecy about Elijah's return. Yet this righteous man met a violent end at Herod's birthday party, beheaded because of political manipulation and a king's rash promise.The circumstances surrounding John's death highlight the tension between God's providence and human understanding. John believed he was living in the fulfillment of prophecy about the great and dreadful day of the Lord, expecting to see the wicked burned up and the righteous victorious. Instead, he found himself vulnerable in prison while the corrupt Herod wielded power. This wasn't how the story was supposed to unfold according to human logic. However, John's example teaches us crucial lessons about navigating confusing seasons. He chose to speak God's truth regardless of consequences, confronting Herod about his unlawful marriage despite the political risks. He prioritized character over comfort, maintaining his integrity even unto death. Most importantly, John understood that he wasn't the main character in his own story - Jesus was. While John's earthly mission ended abruptly, Jesus continued the work of seeking and saving the lost. John's temporary defeat becomes eternal victory, as he awaits his place of honor at the true King's table, where he will leap for joy once again in Christ's presence.
Transcript
h, Lord God, you are the light of the world. In your light, we see light. We ask now that you would shine your light into our hearts, that we would be able to perceive the truths of this word, that we would go out from here changed and loving you more. We pray that you pray these things in the name of Jesus, Amen.
Well, friends, life is strange. We come here hopeful and trusting in God, even though we come on this day which commemorates one of the saddest days in our shared history. I refer, of course, to Malcolm Butler intercepting Russell Wilson with less than a minute to play in Super Bowl 49.
Stop heresy. Giving the Patriots their fourth championship and extending Tom Brady's reign of terror. So, as you know, the super bowl is later tonight. The Seahawks are playing the Patriots. So it's a rematch of that game.
That game, honestly, was. It's right up there with the worst moments in my life as a sports fan. I'm trying to learn to distinguish between sports fan life and regular life. I'm getting there. When that game happened, I was teaching down in North Carolina, and the very next day, the Monday afterwards, I was giving a quiz and one of my ninth graders said, oh, man, I need to do a Russell Wilson and pass when I shouldn't.
Still too soon. Anyway, we heard today the super bowl is happening. I just looked up. It's probable that somewhere between 65 and 80% of Americans will be watching at least a portion of tonight's game, which is somewhere between two to four times as many people as will attend church this morning. So, interesting stuff.
If you're interested at all in sports, you're probably thinking about the game right now. Will Seattle put a spy on Drake? May the whole time, and if so, how will they disguise their coverages? This is important. Or maybe you're just wondering what kind of commercials we're going to see tonight.
I read that the average cost for a 30 second commercial tonight is $8 million, so they better be good. So you're thinking about that, and then you come to the house of the Lord and you hear the texts that we read together today, and it's a little bit of emotional whiplash, right? The death of John the Baptist is startling, but even though it is startling, I think this is the right text for us as a church today, and I think it's good for us to be startled by the Bible. So what we've got here is shocking political violence at a birthday party. So my title today, Get Ready to Party, is supposed to be doing a few different things.
So first of all, it's referring to this banquet that Herod throws for himself, which turns deadly. It seems to me that Herod was not prepared for the party, even though he was the one throwing it. And it seems to me that John the Baptist was prepared for the party, even though he was not exactly invited. I also want my title to do double duty and remind you that your super bowl party tonight, which I hope will be a lot of fun, will go better for you, having come and worship the Lord in His holiness here today. When we come to the Lord's table regularly, all the other tables take their proper significance in our lives.
I tend to think so. With that said, what can we learn from the unpleasant end of John the Baptist's story? I think we can look at John's story with three sort of different lenses. And those will be my three points today. Those are confusion, clarity, and confidence.
Let me explain. When we. From inside our own stories, as the Lord in his providence is directing, when we try to understand what God is doing, it can be very confusing. The big picture is difficult to understand. So that's point one.
But in the particulars of our lives, no matter what's happening, big picture, very often we can know what to do. We can have clarity as to what our next action should be. So that's point two. And then finally we can rely on God to reconcile all of it, fix what appears to be broken at the end of all things. We can have confidence that the judge of the world will do what is right, as Abraham said way back in Genesis.
So that's point three. Let's jump in. Point one. God in his providence is confusing. And John the Baptist is maybe the prime example of how it's confusing to try to follow the Lord or how you know the work that you're putting in and the faith that you have and the expectations that you have based on the word of God.
And the character of God can still sometimes turn out very differently from what you had expected or hoped.
I think we can see that in sort of concentric circles as we look at John here. I want to stress that John's a big deal. Did you know that Jesus's public ministry in all four gospels is initiated or introduced by John? It's in. In all four of them.
It's John who's linked with the prophecy from Isaiah. Prepare you the way of the Lord. And then the Lord Jesus shows up. Okay, Mark begins with one introductory verse, and then it says in verse two, it is written in the prophets, behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee. That's a prophesy from Malachi, chapter three.
That's right before what we read earlier today. Then verse three, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare ye the way of the Lord. That's the prophecy from Isaiah. And then verse four, John did baptize in the wilderness. There he is.
That's how this gospel begins. It links Old Testament prophecy to this specific person, John. And John's purpose is to introduce Jesus, and he does so. Chapter one in this story is the story of Jesus baptism by John in the Jordan. And we hear the very voice of God from heaven saying, well done.
This is exactly right, you cousins, good work. And that was like four pages ago in the text in front of you, right? If you read your Bible like you read a novel, and I think we should sometimes this violent exit of the character John from the plot is a pretty surprising thing. And it's even more surprising if you have some memory of the other Gospel accounts. This is Concentric Circle, Part 2.
We heard in Luke, for instance, that John has a miraculous birthday. His ver. His birth is announced by Gabriel, just like Jesus's birth. We also see in that text that John is the first person to leap for joy in the presence of Jesus. He does so in Elizabeth's womb.
Then John goes out into the desert and he starts this revival movement and is eating locusts and honey. And he's the first one to publicly identify Jesus as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. You may also remember that in chapter one of the Gospel of John, people come to John the Baptist and ask him, are you the Christ? And it says that he confesses and does not deny, but he's not the Christ. So what's really interesting is that in life, John is mistaken for the Christ.
And then after John's death, Jesus, who is the Christ, is actually mistaken for a resurrected John. Right? John's a big deal. His birth and his life are both heroic and now he's just abruptly dead. So this becomes even more confusing, you know, another concentric circle out.
If you consider John not just in the context of the Gospels, but in the context of the Bible as a whole. So if you will, let's take another look at that Old Testament text that we read today. If you're following along in your Bible, you can just flip back a couple of pages to the end, the very end of the old testament, page 955. Malachi, chapter four. I'll just read quickly again.
For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble. The day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says the Lord of hosts, so it will leave them neither root nor branch. But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healings in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall, and you shall tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet. On the day when I act, says the Lord of hosts, remember the law of my servant Moses, the statutes and rules I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel.
Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. So John in our text seems to think that he's inhabiting the time that this chapter is referring to. He seems to think that the great and dreadful day of the Lord has come, and the Lord has come. So he's at least partially right. So later on in the Book of Mark, by the way, Jesus, chapter nine, Jesus is going to say people are going to ask him, why does it say that Elijah must first come?
Right. When people are identifying Jesus with the Lord who is going to come, why do they say that Elijah must come? In that text we just read, and Jesus says, elijah did come. It was John. So in two counts here, John was right about where he is in the story.
And so it's very obvious, right, that his confusion is sort of justified, right? Why? Well, because in addition to saying that the Lord is going to come, in addition to saying that Elijah is going to come, it says, remember, God is going to burn up all of the proud, right? And the righteous are going to stomp on them as if they were ash, right? So in the text that he's reading, he's correctly seeing that it's being partially fulfilled in his own time.
And yet the wicked are not burned up, right? Almost exactly the opposite is happening. John, the righteous one. Did you see that, that little note here? Herod feared John, knowing he was a righteous and holy man.
Herod knew that John was righteous. The righteous is in jail. He's totally vulnerable. He's the one who's like ashes, right? The wicked can have him killed on a whim.
So that's all confusing. And that's my first point, right? And because of this confusion that this text, I think, should give us, I think we in our own lives are justified in having sort of an emotional gentleness with ourself, a generosity with ourself, when we're confused or sad about the way the world is, or about how we're being treated. We don't have to be all smiles all the time. This is a text, this is a record saying that bad things do happen and we don't need to be thrilled about it.
So that's all point one. However, while this outcome is sad and even startling, as I say, I do think we can have certainty on a few things in this text. Starting with this. Even though John ends up dead in this text, he's not the loser in this text. So on the surface, this is kind of a story without winners, Right?
But Herod is absolutely the loser in this text. Even on his own terms, even according to what he thinks is important, he's the loser. Look at the way the text portrays him. So Jesus is out there doing the works of God and Herod responds by saying, oh yeah, that's John the Baptist, he's risen from the dead. He's here to bother me.
Herod is seeing ghosts. This guy has a bad conscience.
And what does this mean for Herod? Well, it means he cannot see Jesus clearly. His bad actions made him unwilling to hear John when John was saying repent. And now his fears make him unable to hear the message. That is his only real hope.
Right? And that message is that Christ, who John was pointing to, saves. That's the message we need to hear. And Herod cannot hear it because he can't stop thinking about himself.
Herod is startlingly like Claudius from Hamlet. I think he married his brother's wife, he got to be king, he's got everything he wants, but he can't rest easy. His power does not make him happy. Oh, my offense is rank, it smells to heaven, says Claudius. And Herod would say the same if he could think clearly.
So Herod has the money and the political clout to throw these big parties to try to make himself look good. This is verse 21. An opportunity came when Herod on his birthday gave a banquet for his nobles and and military commanders and the leading men of Galilee. It's his birthday and he gives this feast and he ends up looking like an idiot. His daughter in law comes in and dances and he promises he's going to give her anything she wants, up to half of his kingdom.
I'm guessing he's drunk. You don't make promises like this if you're sober, right? And she goes to her mom, who sounds like a total class act, right? And she says she wants her enemy John's head. And Herod doesn't want to do it.
But yet he feels like he has to. Why? Because of the guests and his oaths. That's verse 26. And so he has John killed.
Okay. Can you imagine the way these nobles and military commanders and leading men of Galilee are feeling as they exit this party? Great party, Herod. Happy birthday. Love the way you had that innocent guy killed on a whim, even though you didn't want to and knew it was a bad idea.
That inspires confidence.
So Herod is doing this for his reputation, and his reputation does not look good. Herod is a figure for mockery in Oscar Wilde's play Salome, which we get that name for the dancing girl from Josephus. Some people are trying to tell Herod. In this play, people are trying to tell Herod about Jesus and how he can even raise the dead. And this is the way he responds.
I do not wish him to do that. I. I forbid him to do that. I allow no man to raise the dead. This man must be found and told that I forbid him to raise the dead. He's this contemptible little king who's trying to impose his own will on God.
Let's make sure we're not doing the same. Yes. By the way, just to be clear, this is not the same Herod who tried to have Jesus killed as a baby. That was a different guy. He was called Herod the great.
Biblical commentators suggest there were no less than six different Herods mentioned in the New Testament. What's interesting to me about this is that the biblical authors don't seem to care much about distinguishing between them. Pick a Herod, any Herod. They lump them all together. They don't think any of them are great.
It makes me think of CS Lewis's great quote, how monotonously alike all the great tyrants and conquerors have been, how gloriously different are the saints. It's hardly even worth figuring out which Herod we're dealing with here. But when you meet John eating locusts in the desert, you know you've got something special. So that's all part of my second point. Even though it might be confusing where we are in God's story, sometimes we can know what kind of part we want to play.
In that story. We don't play a faithful part. We want to be more like John than like Herod. And so why is John in prison? It's because he was willing to speak the truth of God's word, even if it made powerful people unhappy.
And here's an interesting thing. So even though Herod was a Moral disaster as a person, as we've sort of outlined here, it looks like he might not have been an awful ruler, practically speaking, at least compared to some of his other peers. A scholar from the Biblical Archaeology Society says that Herod, unlike his brother, quote, took care not to offend the religious sensibilities of his Jewish subjects with graven images and pagan temples, unquote. And also that the economy of his time was doing quite well. All that to say there were probably well meaning Jewish people who, when John was out there preaching about Herod against Herod, were saying, hey, don't make that guy angry.
He's on our side. He's the kind of king we want. But John would not have listened to this. John treasured the moral law of God over and above party politics. And I tend to think that we as Christians in our day and place, we desperately need to learn from John on this point.
John knew what was right and wrong without being confused by the political situation and party loyalty. Friend, do we treasure God's word over and above party politics? And I'm not saying this to either major political party in particular, I think both need to be ruled by our morality and our morality needs to be ruled by the word of God. Is our moral compass shaped by God's word or by political commentary? If I am unwilling to say that a bad thing is bad because it's done by somebody who's on my side, I am in desperate confusion.
So I know there's some people who would call me naive on this, some very smart people who I trust and I want to be patient with that. But I think the question the story is calling us to ask ourselves would I rather be politically naive with John or would I rather be politically sophisticated with Herod?
So I think we need to retrain ourselves to view the moral landscape in terms of God's revealed will before we even think about party politics anymore. Are you ready to party? Do you see what I did there? Okay, that was part two. Our individual moral acts don't need to be confusing.
We can have clarity about how we should act in the world. We should act as people whose consciences are captive to the word of God. And actually we see a good humble example of this at the end of our passage in verse 29. When John's disciples heard about his death, they came and took his body and laid it in the tomb. They knew that wrong had been done and they mourned.
They show appropriate respect for their beloved religious figure. And this in itself, you have to think this is a Little bit brave, right? If Herod and his wife are sort of out of touch enough to kill a guy at a birthday party because they disagree with him, who's to say that they won't come after these guys? But regardless, they know what's right and they do it. So here's the sub point.
There's a good reason to have clarity as to our moral actions. And that's simply that it looks like there's a pretty good chance that our actions might have some tangible result in the world, right? We see this in a positive way in these disciples showing bravery. We see it in a very negative way in Herod's happy little family, right? Think about poor Salome.
She gets asked to come out and do her dance routine for her stepfather and his cronies. And then he creepily asks her what kind of reward she wants. She goes to her mom, which shows she does want to please her mother by her actions, right? And then the mom makes this disastrous moral ask, I want John dead, want John's head. And she not only goes through with it, but in fact, it looks like it's her suggestion that it comes out on a platter.
She's the one who adds that detail in verse 25 there. So she kind of one ups her mom's horrific demand. So constant badness has created a situation in which she is extravagant in her badness. Friends, may our homes and our lives be the opposite. Might we deter demonstrate goodness consistently so that goodness becomes habitual and valued around us?
And maybe those little moral alternate ecosystems will show up against our broader culture. So all of that was on how we can have clarity in our actions. And if you notice, I was just trying to give practical, even secular rationale for why we can have clarity. John is admirable. Herod is despicable.
John knows what is good and is willing to suffer for it. Herod appears to know what is good and is willing to actually go against his own conscience in order to do wrong. Think about that little detail in verse 26. The king was exceedingly sorry, but he did it anyway. So Herod is a wretch in this text, even from a secular standpoint.
But now I want to move to a different motivation to do good. And that is a religious stance, and that is this. God is not only in control during this life, but he's in control after this life. And he will reward his servants and he will punish his enemies. My third point is this.
We can have confidence in God in the long run. And that's a point that's not actually found here. Sort of an implication. And it's also something we confess every week. He will come again to judge the living and the dead.
Right. I bring this up because my second point might not actually be all that convincing. Right. Even as I'm saying Herod is bad, John is good. Part of you might have been thinking, well, yeah, but John is dead, Herod is at a party.
I think I would rather be at a party. I mean, there's something to that. Unless you consider the long term, Right? The very long term. The fact that when our stories in this life are over, as happens to John in verse 27, they are not over entirely.
Though our bodies will die, we perdure. I have that quote in your bulletin from Plato, or rather Socrates. Plato quoting Socrates saying it's better to suffer wrong than to do it. So these are pre Christian thinkers, but their argument is that since your soul will last forever, you need to not injure your soul. If you do injury to your soul by doing moral bad in this life, well then you enter eternity with an injured soul.
They know that the best argument for not doing bad things is because there's a life to follow this one. And as Christians this should be our mindset as well. One pastor says this quote, if the universe is meaningless and good and evil are just categories of power or distinctions between friend and enemy, well that's one thing. But if there is an all seeing God and Jesus is alive, then the judgment seat is quite different from public opinion.
Well, there is an all seeing God and Jesus is alive. And John, even if he didn't know all the details, knew that judgment was coming. And though he faced death, he knew God's truth would be vindicated eventually, somehow. You think about that quote from Malachi. Malachi again.
The day is coming, says the Lord of hosts, when all the proud and those who do wickedly will be burned up. But you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings and you will leap like calves from their stall. So though John is dead, shockingly his head is on a platter. He will jump for joy again as he did once in the presence of his Savior.
And Herod in his arrogance will be smashed down finally never to do irresponsible violence again. Where do we see this in the text? We don't. Not quite. What do we see?
We see after this episode is over, it picks up with the story of Jesus, right? That's how this whole thing happened, right? Now King Herod heard of back in verse 14 the stuff that Jesus was doing. And some said John the Baptist has been raised from the dead. That's actually how we first hear that John was dead.
And then once the story has been told, the gospel writer, he just moves on. He goes back to Jesus and the work that Jesus is doing. And that's the answer for us too. We can get confused by what's happening in the world. We can be saddened by what's happening to us personally or those that we love.
These disciples bury John's body. There are deep sorrows that happen in a world marked by sin.
My pipes froze last night. Sometimes the wrong team wins the Super Bowl. But Jesus is still doing his work. John called it correctly back in chapter one. There comes one after me.
And he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit. Jesus goes forward on his mission to seek and to save the lost. And because of that, we can have confidence that John is that God is going to right all of the wrongs. The Lord will heroically deliver his people. He will bring judgment on those who have wronged his people.
Earth has no sorrow that heaven can't heal. And that's what we have to remember. John's story ends abruptly, but that's okay even for him because he's not the main character in his own story, because Jesus is the main character. This is just the end of John's earthly story. And there's more story to come.
And the epilogue is going to be a feast way better than Herod's feast. And John is going to be the big shot. Then John will be a guest of honor at the feast of the true king and friend. If we remember that Jesus is the main character in our stories as well, we also will be guests of honor at that party. And our time here is to help us to be remembering that party.
Get ready. Right.
Please pray with me.
Oh Lord God, we live in a world in which your treasured people die tragically, sometimes violently. We live in a world where things don't often make sense. But we praise you that you are good. That you are bringing all things to glorious completion in Christ. We praise you for your mercy.
We praise you that the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in his wings. Help us, Lord, to fix our eyes on them. Make us people who desire you and desire that day spring above all else. We pray all this in Jesus name. Amen
Series Information
Mark's gospel is fast. He jumps right into what is central to the good news, the gospel, of Jesus. John the Baptist comes, and he is great, but his whole message is one of preparation for the greater one who would come after, Jesus. And everything John says has to do with this comparison of just how great Jesus is. We also see this through the writer of the gospel, Mark, and the apostle who was behind Mark's writing, Peter. Then we quickly move to Jesus' baptism by John and we see here the other central idea of the gospel, that this great one who has come humbles himself to associate and own the sins of humanity. Here is good news!
