MOM SAID: “OFF WITH HIS HEAD!”
MATTHEW 14:1-12
#MothersDay
VIDEO INTRODUCTION… https://youtu.be/P3YmUx1rM8M [45secs]
INTRODUCTION… theguardian.com/childrens-books-site/2015/apr/04/off-with-their-heads-the-10-greatest-quotes-from-alice-in-wonderland [adapted]
Lewis Carroll’s children’s classic, Alice in Wonderland, is 159 this year because it was written in 1865. In the United States, 1865 was a pivotal year in American History with the end of the Civil War and the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. Alice in Wonderland was first published in 1865 in England and was inspired by a boat trip that author Lewis Carroll took with some family friends, the Liddell children, down the River Thames in Oxford. He told the youngest daughter, Alice, a story as they rowed along and she begged him to write it down. When he got home that evening he began right away.
For a century and a half, it has delighted and puzzled us equally. We have fallen down the rabbit hole with Alice, taken tea with her and the Mad Hatter, been maddened by the Cheshire Cat and had to convince the Queen of Hearts that we didn’t steal her tarts!
The book, and its sequel ‘Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There,’ have been translated into at least 65 languages and have countless film and theatre adaptations. There are many great quotes from the book and adapted movies that stick in our minds:
* “Who in the world am I? Ah, that’s the great puzzle.”
* “Oh, you can’t help that,” said the cat. “We’re all mad here.”
* The Queen of Hearts said: “Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
* “I can’t go back to yesterday because I was a different person then.”
* “No wise fish would go anywhere without a porpoise.”
* “I give myself good advice, but I seldom follow it.”
* Alice meets the caterpillar: “You used to be much more...muchier. You’ve lost your muchness.”
* “Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!”
* “Off with their heads!”
TRANSITION
Yes! Today is Mother’s Day. Mother’s Day is a secular holiday that we also loosely observe in the church because it is not a bad thing to focus on motherhood, encourage thankfulness of mothers and women who have influenced us, and even challenge mothers in their important task. I was reading passages about motherhood and looking at different mothers in the Bible and came upon a passage in Matthew 14 about a mother that piqued my interest and immediately the scenes and quote from Alice in Wonderland: “off with his head!” popped into my mind.
Let’s read from Matthew 14 today:
READ MATTHEW 14:1-12 (ESV)
At that time Herod the Tetrarch heard about the fame of Jesus, 2 and he said to his servants, “This is John the Baptist. He has been raised from the dead; that is why these miraculous powers are at work in Him.” 3 For Herod had seized John and bound him and put him in prison for the sake of Herodias, his brother Philip's wife, 4 because John had been saying to him, “It is not lawful for you to have her.” 5 And though he wanted to put him to death, he feared the people, because they held him to be a prophet. 6 But when Herod's birthday came, the daughter of Herodias danced before the company and pleased Herod, 7 so that he promised with an oath to give her whatever she might ask. 8 Prompted by her mother, she said, “Give me the head of John the Baptist here on a platter.” 9 And the king was sorry, but because of his oaths and his guests he commanded it to be given. 10 He sent and had John beheaded in the prison, 11 and his head was brought on a platter and given to the girl, and she brought it to her mother. 12 And his disciples came and took the body and buried it, and they went and told Jesus.
TRANSITION
This scene in the Bible that feels a little bit like the Kardashians meets Game of Thrones meets 20/20 Investigates focuses on four people.
THE KING’S SIN (verses 1-12)
The first person is a man named Herod Antipas or Herod the Tetrarch is one of the major focuses of this passage. We should note that this King Herod is not the same one that was king when Jesus was born, but rather was that king’s son. This king is called “the tetrarch” or Herod Antipas and ruled in Galilee and Perea in Jesus’ time and shared ruling responsibilities with others. Both men called Herod were rulers and both had questionable character and were terrible men.
Here is what happened leading up to this particular birthday event:
CONTENT… en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phasa%27el
Herod the Tetrarch had a royal wife named Phasaelis and were married for over 20 years. In 23 AD, Herod Antipas visited his half-brother Herod II who was then living in Rome as a private citizen. During his stay, he became enamored with his brother’s wife Herodias. Herodias later divorced Herod II under Roman law. Three years later, in 26 AD Phasaelis found out about the relationship and discovered Herod Antipas' intention to divorce her. Desiring to return to her homeland, Phasaelis used the pretext of visiting the mountain fortress of Machaerus situated by the Dead Sea. Phasaelis then fled across the border to her father, whom she told of her husband's intention to divorce her and marry Herodias. This caused relations between the kings to sour and Phasaelis’ father later invaded Galilee and Perea and his armies defeated his former son-in-law in battle in 36 AD. In the middle of all of these events, around 30 AD, John the Baptist fulfills his role as a prophet and publicly criticizes Herod Antipas for divorcing his first wife and poaching his brother’s wife. Herod tosses John in prison.
We now have this wife-stealing king throwing a birthday bash with all the royal trimmings. He wants people to have a good time and he wants to impress on everyone that he is a really big deal. There is cake. There is booze. There is dancing. One of the dancing girls is his stepdaughter. A request is made. A good man dies.
The words that characterize Herod the Tetrarch are: selfish, opportunistic, lustful, proud, jerk, weak-willed, and several other words that are probably not appropriate for Sunday morning church. I also thought of a passage from 2 Timothy 3 that summarizes this Herod pretty well:
READ 2 TIMOTHY 3:2-7 (ESV)
“For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, 4 treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people. 6 For among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions, 7 always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth.”
TRANSITION
We have in view now some of the background of this passage and some knowledge about Herod the Tetrarch. We next need to know about John the Baptist. John is not a Baptist like your neighbor might be a Baptist, but is John the Baptizer because he was known for immersing people for repentance as a prophet of God.
THE PROPHET’S BOLDNESS (verses 1-4)
The first four verses in this passage focus on the second person; John the Baptist and his interactions with Herod the Tetrarch. The purpose of John the Baptizing Prophet was to preach and teach and immerse people for the purpose of getting people’s hearts ready for Jesus. We read about John in Matthew 3 and about his simple effective ministry:
READ MATTHEW 3:4-6 (ESV)
“Now John wore a garment of camel's hair and a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. 5 Then Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan were going out to him, 6 and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.”
In our passage for today, we find that in addition to calling people in the desert to repentance from sins and preaching about the coming Christ, John was also calling the royalty in the land to holy living. He called out the king for immoral actions with his current wife named Herodias. He called out the adultery. He called out the divorce. He called out the immorality of it all.
Herod does not take to kindly to the prophet and arrests him and throws him into prison. The ironic thing is that Herod imprisoned John in the same mountain fortress of Machaerus that Phasaelis fled from a few years before. John is in prison when Herod throws his birthday bash.
The word that characterizes John the Baptist in this passage is: “bold.” Even though it is in the Old Testament, Proverbs 28 describes John the Baptist and even Herod Antipas very well:
READ PROVERBS 28:1-6 (ESV)
The wicked flee when no one pursues, but the righteous are bold as a lion. 2 When a land transgresses, it has many rulers, but with a man of understanding and knowledge, its stability will long continue. 3 A poor man who oppresses the poor is a beating rain that leaves no food. 4 Those who forsake the law praise the wicked, but those who keep the law strive against them. 5 Evil men do not understand justice, but those who seek the Lord understand it completely. 6 Better is a poor man who walks in his integrity than a rich man who is crooked in his ways.
John the Baptist was bold as a lion in speaking up to Herod. John wanted his land to have stability and we know that six years later the land would be unstable and invaded because of all that Herod had done. John was right. The king forsook the law of God and John the Baptist was striving against him. Herod was crooked in his ways and John boldly called him out on it. John was right. The end result is John the Baptist was put in prison and then after this birthday bash he literally lost his head.
TRANSITION
We first have the sin of the king and then the boldness of the prophet and then the passage shifts quickly to the daughter of Herodias. Historian Josephus tells us her name was Salome.
THE PRINCESS’ SHAME (verses 6-7)
The middle of this passage focuses on the actions and dance and request of the third person in the passage, Salome who is the daughter of Herodias and Herod Antipas’ step-daughter.
CONTENT… en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salome
This young lady, because of her actions, has plays, ballets, several poems, over 40 songs, and over 12 movies dedicated to her or referencing her in a major way. I honestly had no idea she was such a big deal in songs and art, but she remains a muse for many.
This young lady is not a major part of the passage, but does dance her way into the birthday event that is the focus of the passage. We find in verses 6-7 that this daughter of kings and queens lowers herself to dance before drunken men. It should be noted that in Esther 1 in the Old Testament, the same type of request was made from King Xerxes to Queen Vashti. Queen Vashti refused. Vashti, the daughter of kings and queens did not lower herself to dance before drunken men.
We get the sense from the context that Salome had no modesty about her dance. She is not doing the hokey pokey or a waltz in front of these drunken men at this birthday party. I was doing some reading on this passage and the following statement was made: “The sin of the guilty mother is already bearing bitter fruit in the shame of her ill-trained daughter” (Pulpit Commentary, Matt Vol 2, 1913, page 75).
Herod liked what he saw and he wanted to make an impression on his guests. He told his stepdaughter he would give her whatever she wanted. She wasn’t sure what to ask for, so she went to her mother. Her mother insisted: “Off with his head!”
TRANSITION
Salome’s brief dance in the spotlight is over and verse 8 picks up with focusing on Herodias, the mother of Salome, the wife of Herod, and the executioner of John the Baptist.
THE QUEEN’S REVENGE (verses 8-11)
The last and definitely not the least is the fourth person in the passage named Herodias. Herodias’ name is the female form of Herod probably because she was the granddaughter of Herod the Great which means the two husbands she had that we have talked about were both her uncles. The naming reminds me a little bit of boxer and grill spokesman George Foreman who named all five of his sons George and one of his seven daughters Georgetta.
The Bible does not tell us much about Herodias, but her actions recorded in the Gospels show an immoral, bitter, and manipulative woman. If we were to compare her to another person in Scripture, it would be an Old Testament counterpart just like her named Jezebel (1 Kings 16-21, 2 Kings 9). What Herodias was to Herod, Jezebel was to Ahab. Both Ahab and Herod were wicked men of low character, but in both cases the women in their lives were more wicked.
Both Jezebel and Herodias fostered hate and bitterness that became deadly against a prophet of God. Jezebel hated Elijah and sought to kill him. Herodias hated John the Baptist and succeeded in his murder by removing his head from his body. Not only that, but Herodias enlisted the help of her daughter who acted immorally and then was the actual instrument of John’s death. She is not a great lady.
Herod Antipas and Herodias were equally guilty of their marital mess, but it seems that her ambition to gain a place of political prominence led her to leave one husband for the arms of another. She paid a high price for her wants even though her wants were wrong.
If we had to pick a word or phrase to describe Herodias, it would be: infectious bitterness. Herodias made decisions about her first marriage that led her to her second marriage. John was not incorrect in anything that he said to the royal couple in pointing out the immoral foundation of their relationship. Her bitterness spread from her to her daughter and then to the prophet of God.
APPLICATION
Why mention this passage to you today?
Why mention this passage to you on Mother’s Day of all days?
Why bring up mother Herodias?
One word: Influence
Influence is a noun that means: “the capacity to have an effect on the character, development, or behavior of someone or something, or the effect itself.” Words that mean the same thing are: sway, control, authority, power, guidance, and pressure. Influence is powerful and important. Jesus Christ talks about influence in Matthew 5…
READ MATTHEW 5:13-16 (ESV)
“You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet. “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father Who is in heaven.”
The Apostle Peter talks about influence in 1 Peter 2…
READ 1 PETER 2:12 (ESV)
“Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.”
The writer of Hebrews talks about influence in Hebrews 10…
READ HEBREWS 10:24-25 (ESV)
“And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.”
If we are honest with ourselves, we would understand that it is women in most societies that wield a whole lot of influence. Influence comes from stability and authority in the home, raising a family, and even being wise and essential in companies and work places. Women are the original influencers.
Why mention this passage to you today?
Why mention this passage to you on Mother’s Day of all days?
Why bring up mother Herodias?
One word: Influence
Our legacy is constructed from the principles we embrace, priorities we establish and our philosophy for living… meaning the influence we wield and how we choose to use it. People will remember how we influenced them and what difference we made in their lives. Ladies, moms, grandmas, aunts, sisters… may you commit to leaving a legacy of faith where your influence was all about Jesus. May you live the principles that Jesus preached and make Jesus a priority for those under your influence and live for Christ.
Influence that changes generations and lasts for generations starts in the home. By using the word “home,” I do not mean the physical house, but the atmosphere and environment of faith, hope, and love that we help create. By “home,” I mean the encouragement, safety, and inspiration that we bring with us wherever we go and to whomever we talk. Ladies, moms, grandmas, aunts, sisters… may you commit yourself to creating and bringing with you an atmosphere that is always about Christ.
Ladies, moms, grandmas, aunts, sisters… How do you use your influence for the Lord? You may not realize the extent to which others respect you, listen to you, learn from you, and look up to you. Those people in your lives in your circle of influence are impacted by your principles, priorities, and environment you create.
Also, ladies, moms, grandmas, aunts, sisters… please allow God’s Word and commitment to Christ and the presence of the Holy Spirit to grow and deepen in your life. May God be more of an influence over you today than He was yesterday. Please be influenced by God to influence others for God!
CLOSING ILLUSTRATION… theguardian.com/childrens-books-site/2015/apr/04/off-with-their-heads-the-10-greatest-quotes-from-alice-in-wonderland [adapted]
Lewis Carroll’s children’s classic, Alice in Wonderland, is 159 this year because it was written in 1865 and is memorable and creative. For a century and a half, it has delighted and puzzled us equally. There are many great quotes from the book and adapted movies that stick in our minds. The one we started with today was: “Off with their heads!” The one we finish with today is: “I can’t go back to yesterday because I was a different person then.”
Ladies, moms, grandmas, aunts, sisters… please be Godlier and follow Christ more and be more filled with the Spirit because the rest of us need you to be a different better more Christlike person than you were yesterday so that you can influence us for Christ today! Thank you for your influence.
PRAYER
INVITATION
I read a passage from 2 Timothy 3 earlier when reflecting on Herod. Verses 6-7 in 2 Timothy 3 says…
RE-READ 2 TIMOTHY 3:6-7 (ESV)
“burdened with sins and led astray by various passions, 7 always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth.”
This morning you might be here burdened with sins and being led astray by various passions. Maybe you feel a bit lost. Maybe life doesn’t make much sense. Maybe the choices you have made are leading you down a rabbit hole and you are afraid where it comes out. Maybe you see much of yourself in Herod and Herodias.
Please learn and arrive at knowledge of the truth. The truth is that all of us are sinners in need of a savior. The truth is that the Savior is Jesus Christ. The truth is that by believing in Jesus and confessing and repenting and accepting Him in baptism we receive the forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit. The truth that I would love for you to arrive at is Jesus is What and Who you are looking for.
Jesus shows the way. Jesus makes it make sense. Jesus casts out fear. Jesus makes us new.
Please come and chat with me if you would like to know more about Jesus!
