How do we respond when we see signs that the LORD is at work in the world? Do we listen to the prophets he sends to speak? Just as the LORD sent John to show Herod the path to repentance and growth so too does he send his word to us.
“It is not lawful for you to have her.”
The words the LORD gives may, indeed almost certainly will, call us to relinquish some of our claim to autonomy. We will need to lay down rights we perceive to be ours, the freedom to decide without reference to God's will and wisdom. But this is not easy. There is a part of us that is as sure of our self-rule as Herod was sure that he was the ruler of Galilee. This part of ourselves often becomes so used to issuing commands that it feels free to do so without discernment. Indeed, in reading that previous sentence, do we feel a tension? Almost the beginnings of a rebellious thought? Why should we need to discern, except perhaps in special and extraordinary cases that we seldom encounter? After all, our inner Herod probably does not think of itself as evil or corrupt. But it probably does believe this because of overconfidence in its own judgment rather than because it is well trained in virtue. The degree to which we find the authentic prophets of God threatening is precisely the degree which we need to hear them.
Let us try to recognize the voices speaking on behalf of the LORD. These voices are evident because they are not speaking out of desire of gain for themselves. They have the assurance of a truth, which, in the case of Jeremiah and John the Baptist, would be easier ignored, but which they can't help but speak.
For in truth it was the LORD who sent me to you,
to speak all these things for you to hear.
We need to move beyond Herod's fascination with hearing John the Baptist speak. There was something compelling enough about John that Herod "was greatly perplexed, and yet he heard him gladly" (see Mark 6:20). This sort of fascination is still only the door and the invitation. It is not yet the reception of the message. While this isn't our condition all of the time with all of the preaching we hear it is probably still a majority of it. When we stay on the surface, at the level of fascination, we don't actually allow the word to change us.
Like Herod we know and rightly fear that we can't resolve the problem ourselves. We can't resolve all the different demands put upon us from so many different directions. As a ruler we are liked Herod who "feared the people". As long as we remain on the throne we are not simply unwilling but indeed unable to respond to the messengers of the LORD.
The Lord is not calling us simply to repent harder. From the vantage point of the throne of self this isn't going to work. He is asking us to vacate the throne. He is asking us to willingly offer that throne to the one for whom it was always meant. Jesus ruling in us can do what we cannot. He can himself as the power to effect the life changing transformation to which he first invites us.
“See, you lowly ones, and be glad;
you who seek God, may your hearts revive!
For the LORD hears the poor,
and his own who are in bonds he spurns not.”
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