Herod the tetrarch heard about all that was happening,
and he was greatly perplexed because some were saying,
"John has been raised from the dead";
Herod had an ambivalent relationship to John while he was still alive. On the one hand he didn't appreciate the way in which John criticized his unlawful marriage. On the other, he liked to listen to him speak. On the one hand he wanted to suppress the voice of conscience manifested to him in John the Baptist. On the other, there was something about how he talked that was interesting and hard to ignore, something like a broader horizon of imagination than that of Herod, which seemed to be limited mostly to sensual pleasure. In killing John Herod had at least hoped to put this inner tension to rest. But the trouble was that John was just a representative, speaking to him the words that God would have him hear.
But Herod said, "John I beheaded.
Who then is this about whom I hear such things?"
And he kept trying to see him.
Herod seemed to be hoping that he could find in Jesus all of the same entertainment value he found in John the Baptist without the sting of the voice of conscience. But while Jesus had more important things to do than criticize Herod's marriage he would not be made the object of mere curiosity nor serve only as a means of entertainment. Herod sought Jesus without any real openness to change on his part. He wanted to see him without being transformed by the sight. And that lack of openness made him blind. It made it impossible for him to truly see Jesus, to recognize in him what it was that made him utterly fascinating to others.
Now thus says the LORD of hosts:
Consider your ways!
You have sown much, but have brought in little;
you have eaten, but have not been satisfied;
You have drunk, but have not been exhilarated;
have clothed yourselves, but not been warmed;
And whoever earned wages
earned them for a bag with holes in it.
Because he would not listen to conscience when it spoke Herod found himself seeking his own pleasure and ignoring God, just like the people in today's first reading. He was similarly dissatisfied, but did not know where to turn. Herod himself was meant to be a house of God, but refused to recognized that that house which he was meant to be lay in ruins. Had he been open he would have heard in both John and Jesus an invitation to rebuild, to himself become a place where right praise was offered to God.
Thus says the LORD of hosts:
Consider your ways!
Go up into the hill country;
bring timber, and build the house
That I may take pleasure in it
and receive my glory, says the LORD.
We may not go so far as to kill the Lord's messengers, but we still may sometimes try to suppress the voice of conscience that speaks in our hearts. We do this not only when we refuse the Lord flat out, but even when we employ delaying tactics, saying things like, "The time has not yet come to rebuild the house of the LORD". The issue with not responding is that it causes a hardening to come upon our hearts that make it more difficult to respond in the future, like the Gentiles Paul descried who "became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened" (see Romans 1:21).
If we hear the voice of God, if his prophet is speaking his words to us, then let us not delay, but rather respond at once. Simple curiosity is not enough to bring about transformation if at a deeper level we remain closed even to the idea of change. Our God is a consuming fire (see Hebrews 12:29) and it is impossible to truly approach him without being transformed thereby.
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