Herod feared John, knowing him to be a righteous and holy man,
and kept him in custody.
When he heard him speak he was very much perplexed,
yet he liked to listen to him.
It is not enough to enjoy hearing truth speak while it remains as yet imprisoned in our lives. The truth is oddly compelling, even when it tells us what we would prefer not to hear. Because this is so we seldom want to silence it entirely. Instead, we provide a little cell to contain it, where it can't disrupt our lifestyle too much. We can even deal with conviction about our actions as a mere abstraction, as long as it doesn't escape and start interfering in our behavior and our relationships.
What was clear from Herod's imprisonment of John the Baptist was that, although it was John who was literally in custody, it was Herod who was the less free of the two. He was so much a servant to his pride, his sensuality, and his arrogance that he promised half of his kingdom at the behest of one girl, because of a single occasion of temptation. After it happened Herod was conflicted for he knew that he ought not kill John, that John had something important to say that Herod had yet to accept. He had been entertained by the things John said, had been interested in them, so much so that he spent time listening even to one whom he had imprisoned. But he had not taken the voice of John seriously enough to be protected by the power of the truth it spoke. His voice was for Herod very much a seed that fell on the path and was too choked by thorns to bear any fruit.
The king was deeply distressed,
but because of his oaths and the guests
he did not wish to break his word to her.
When Herod chose not to acknowledge the truth that the Baptist spoke, even while on some level recognizing it as truth, he created for himself the conflict that would eventually lead to the fracturing of his identity. There was the part, the truer part, that knew that John should live and speak. But there was the part that held sway that thought that all the pomp and circumstance of his kingdom was more important, that any choice that he made as king was a correct choice. Not heeding the truth led to the conflict. Conceding to the power of the lie led to his being haunted by what he had done.
But when Herod learned of it, he said,
“It is John whom I beheaded. He has been raised up.”
Herod was not entirely wrong. The truth could never really be killed entirely. What John the Baptist spoke in a partial and fragmentary way was incarnated fully in Jesus himself.
Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me (see John 14:6).
Jesus would not allow himself to be contained in the prison cells of petty little kings such as Herod or ourselves. He burst even the bars of death in order that his voice could not be silenced, not be merely interest or entertain, but free to restore and heal. Herod was right to suspect that, if he listened, Jesus wouldn't leave in tact the sinful circumstances in which he lived. However, Jesus would not stop at criticism without offering himself as a solution. He himself could offer the forgiveness and restoration of which Herod stood in dire need. But Herod seemed to have anesthetized himself truth by the point that he heard about Jesus. Scripture doesn't tell us, but we could hope that the seed that John planted was eventually given freedom to grow by what he heard or experienced of Jesus himself. Even if the extra biblical accounts make this seem unlikely, who knows what he remembered and embraced as his hope at the hour of death.
There is no story too depraved for God's forgiveness to redeem it. In our first reading this morning we read praises for the many great deeds of King David, but those deeds were remembered and praised precisely because the "Lord forgave him his sins". Only then was his strength truly exulted. Could a king like Herod still end his life with the success and exultation of David? With God all things are possible.
You who gave great victories to your king
and showed kindness to your anointed,
to David and his posterity forever.
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