How Will You Be Remembered?
Matthew 14:1-12
October 1, 2006
Introduction
I don’t know about you, but one of my favorite things to read are biographies of people who made a difference.
People like Teddy Roosevelt and Winston Churchill. Daniel Boone, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington. Pee Wee Herman...
Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and Billy Graham.
You get the idea.
In the Scriptures we find descriptions of the lives of many, many people. Some are remembered for good, others for the bad they did.
Some of the more fascinating biographies in Scripture are those found in Kings and Chronicles.
Some of the kings died and the people mourned, like they did for David.
But there was one king, Jehoram, who ruled Judah for a while, and here’s what the Bible says about him –
Jehoram was thirty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem eight years. He passed away, to no one’s regret, and was buried in the City of David, but not in the tombs of the kings.
Yowza. How would you like to be remembered like that? Not me.
Well, as I was looking at our passage for today, I started thinking about what we could take away from this that could really make a difference in our lives if we’d let it.
This got me to thinking about the different personalities that are involved in this incident from Scripture, and then I got to thinking about what it was about them that made us remember them.
And that’s how I got to the title and theme of the message, and that is basically, how will you be remembered?
I’m guessing we’d all like to be remembered well. But obviously, not everyone is.
For instance, when I say, “Adolph Hitler,” do you just get flooded with warm fuzzies? How about “Charles Manson?”
Kinda icky, huh? Kinda the way I feel when I hear “Barney the Purple dinosaur.”
Let’s look at our passage and see what we can learn from three people in particular, okay?
Please turn with me to Matthew 14:1-12 (Page 692) –
1 At that time Herod the tetrarch heard the reports about Jesus, 2 and he said to his attendants, "This is John the Baptist; he has risen from the dead! That is why miraculous powers are at work in him."
3 Now Herod had arrested John and bound him and put him in prison because of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife, 4 for John had been saying to him: "It is not lawful for you to have her." 5 Herod wanted to kill John, but he was afraid of the people, because they considered him a prophet.
6 On Herod’s birthday the daughter of Herodias danced for them and pleased Herod so much 7 that he promised with an oath to give her whatever she asked. 8 Prompted by her mother, she said, "Give me here on a platter the head of John the Baptist." 9 The king was distressed, but because of his oaths and his dinner guests, he ordered that her request be granted 10 and had John beheaded in the prison. 11 His head was brought in on a platter and given to the girl, who carried it to her mother. 12 John’s disciples came and took his body and buried it. Then they went and told Jesus.
What I want to focus on here isn’t so much the fact of the martyrdom of John, as much as to look at the people involved in that tragic ending of John’s life.
I want to point out…
Three “characters” (and their characters…)
In other words, their internal make-up, if you will.
There is a ton of stuff we can learn that will impact us, if we’ll let it.
And so let’s just kind of dive in, shall we?
Let’s start by looking first of all at…
1. Herodias – the schemer.
Some background is necessary here:
Herod the Great was the ruler of Judea when Jesus was born. He’s the one who ordered the slaughter in Bethlehem in an attempt to kill the infant Jesus.
Herod had several children. Three of his sons became rulers over portions of Judea when he died.
Now it’s important to understand that Rome had ultimate authority in Judea, and the Herods were basically puppet kings who had to submit to Caesar.
Anyway, one of Herod the Great’s sons was Herod Antipas, or Herod the tetrarch, and he’s the one discussed in our passage today.
Another son of Herod the Great was Herod Philip, who lived in Rome as a private citizen. He was not a ruler of any part of Judea.
Now here’s where it’s going to get a bit strange.
I’m sure by now that you’ve noticed that the name Herodias is similar to Herod, right?
Well, not only did they have similar names, they were family! Herodias was one of Herod the Great’s granddaughters.
She first married Herod Philip – her uncle, then left him to be with Herod Antipas – another uncle, Philip’s half-brother.
So she not only committed adultery, she had also committed a kind of incest.
And because John the Baptist had the guts to call her and Herod out, she wanted him out of the picture permanently.
Mark, in his gospel says that she nursed a grudge against him.
Nursing a grudge is something a lot of people do, including Christians.
At the root of a grudge is unforgiveness. Unforgiveness and bitterness is poison to the soul, and Scripture says that it’s sin.
“But Brian – that person really hurt me. But Brian, you have no idea what happened. But Brian – you can’t be serious! How can I forgive what that person did to me!”
Believe me, folks, I know what you’re saying. You’ve been hurt, some of you have been hurt badly.
You may have a legitimate hurt – in other words, you may be upset about something legitimate.
But you are not allowed to nurse a grudge. Jesus commands you and me to forgive those who have hurt us.
“But they don’t deserve it!”
I know! But neither do you. And Jesus forgave you in spite of that, and He says that we’re to forgive others just as the Father forgave us.
Herodias didn’t give a rip about Jesus, and she certainly had no love for John! She nursed the grudge, and ultimately it led to the death of John the Baptist.
- How will you be remembered? Will it be like Herodias who let unforgiveness and bitterness rule her life? I hope not.
These led her to scheme out the death of John.
And this leads me to someone else we should discuss a bit, and that is Herodias’ daughter, Salome.
I was going to put her in the list, giving her a place in the outline, but the more I researched the passage, the more convinced I became that while she was an incredibly important figure in this episode of Scripture, her involvement was not as crucial as the others.
Why is that? Hang with me here, and I’ll let you know in just a few moments.
Her name is not mentioned in Scripture, but the first century Jewish historian, Josephus tells us her name. Her dad was Herod Philip.
Two things in particular I want to mention regarding Salome:
* [Her dance was probably very sensual, designed to excite the lusts of those who watched it. We can’t know that for sure, but given the outrageous morals of the Herodians and the low status of dancing girls suggests that it was.
Secondly, and probably the hardest part of this whole deal to me is that according to the commentaries I read:
* Salome was only between 12 and fourteen years old.] (Expositor’s Bible Commentary)
And for that reason alone, I’m ready to cut her some slack. I’m also ready to barf. How about you?
This little girl probably didn’t have any choice about learning to dance that way, or any choice about dancing at this particular party.
That’s why I was hesitant to list Salome in this message as one of the characters I’m discussing.
Now if there’s a lesson here regarding Salome, it’s for the parents:
* Don’t influence your children to live down to the standards of a society in the gutter.
What do I mean by that? Usually we talk about living up to some standard, and we should work with the Holy Spirit to live up to the standard of Christ.
But in this case, Salome was influenced to appeal to the most base urges of the people in the crowd.
Just a warning. The next few moments will be brutally frank, and you probably won’t like it. But I believe it needs to be said, so hold onto your seats.
Can you imagine asking your 12-14 year old daughter to dress like prostitute and go dance in a way that gets men excited about your daughter in a way that, if acted upon, would land those men in jail?
That’s just what Herodias did. And while few parents are intentionally dressing their daughters this way, the fact of the matter is that many are allowing them to dress this way, simply because it’s the style.
“It’s just the style – it’s perfectly innocent. Besides, I don’t want them to be different from their friends.” Folks, you need to pull your head out of the sand.
When I worked at Herberger’s, my department was next to what they called “Juniors,” which is the section of clothing for girls who are pre-teens, teens, and young adults.
And I determined that I would never let my daughters shop there for clothes. The clothes were designed to accentuate areas of the body that ladies should cover modestly.
I couldn’t believe how these young girls were dressing when they came to the store, and as I walked through the mall.
The current styles of clothing for young ladies is not innocent in the least. It’s meant to attract and excite guys, and not just so they can come over to your house and meet your Ward and June Cleaver family.
Remember Leave it to Beaver? Of course, I only saw it in re-runs…
One guy’s name was Eddie Haskell. The guy was a sneaky, conniving sort of guy. But when he was at Wally and Beaver’s house, he was all sugar.
“Hello, Mrs. Cleaver. That’s a nice dress you’re wearing today. I hope your day is going well, Mrs. Cleaver. That was the best sauerkraut soufflé I’ve ever tasted, Mrs. Cleaver.”
But even Mrs. Cleaver saw through his insincere flattery.
Do you understand what I’m saying here? You’re the parent – your job is to parent. And one of the jobs of parenting is making sure your children are dressing in a way that is modest, not provocative.
I’m gonna move on, but I hope you see my point. If not, come talk to me, give me a call, or shoot me an e-mail, and I’ll be glad to explain myself further.
But let’s go on to the second “character,” and that is…
2. Herod – the weakling.
Let me give you a bit more background here:
First, this marriage to Herodias was not his first. [He had been married for 15 years to the daughter of another king, but left her for Herodias.
Years later, that king defeated Antipas’ troops, partly to get some revenge for throwing aside his daughter.] (NIV Application Commentary)
This is the Herod who would judge Jesus at one of His trials before His crucifixion.
According to the passage here, Salome’s dance did its job, so much so that Herod made an incredibly foolish promise, offering up to half of his kingdom to Salome.
But instead of asking for that kind of wealth and power, Herodias convinces her to ask for the death of John the Baptist. And he caves.
He caves because he’s afraid. And there are three things he’s afraid of in particular:
> John the Baptist;
This isn’t in the passage from Matthew, but Mark tells us that Herod was afraid of John because John was a righteous and holy man.
And our passage in Matthew says that Herod wanted to kill John.
Now this is weird, because it also says in the gospel of Mark that he liked to listen to John. Contradiction? I don’t think so.
Here’s my guess – I think that he liked to listen to John because maybe John was giving him words of hope through the Messiah, as well as giving words of conviction regarding his marriage.
Again, that’s speculation on my part. Nobody knows – we can ask John when we get to heaven.
Second, Herod was afraid of…
> What others would think;
Our passage in Matthew tells us that Herod was afraid of the people of Judea, because they considered John to be a prophet.
But wasn’t he the ruler? Yup – but remember, he didn’t have much real power. If the Roman government didn’t think a local ruler was doing his job keeping the people under control, they would come in and remove that person and install someone they chose.
Herod surely didn’t want that. So he had to keep the people from revolting against his rule.
But the Judeans weren’t the only people whose opinion of him mattered. He had his guests to consider as well. Mark tells us that he had his military commanders, high officials, and the leading men of Galilee with him at this celebration.
He couldn’t afford to look like someone who breaks a pledge.
He could afford to look hen-pecked, but not like someone big enough to realize he’d made a foolish pledge.
And lastly, he was afraid of…
> His wife.
I just alluded to this a moment ago, so let me just say this:
His wife was obviously someone who didn’t allow herself to be messed with.
She wore the crown in that family. I’d say that she wore the pants in the family, but nobody wore pants back then…
- So how will you be remembered? Will it be like Herod, who let his fears define his life? I hope not.
Before we move on, I think I need to say something here about fear.
Fear is part of our lives. We, being human, find ourselves in situations where we are scared at times. And that’s okay. If you were to come up to me and tell me you’re never scared, I’d be willing to say that you’d lie about other stuff, too.
Fear is part of the human condition in a fallen world. It’s a fact of life.
It doesn’t have to rule our lives, though, like it did Herod’s.
What I want to say is that while fear is part of our lives, courage should also be a part of our lives.
Courage isn’t the absence of fear, it’s moving on in the face of it. My father-in-law recently sent me a quote by John Wayne where he says that courage is being afraid but saddling up anyway.
I kinda like that. How about you?
My point is that the presence of fear doesn’t mean you’re a fearful person. You can be courageous in spite of fear, unlike Herod.
Let’s look now at the third main character in Matthew 14, and that is…
3. John the Baptist – the bullhorn of the kingdom.
I say “bullhorn,” because we get this picture of John the Baptist literally shouting to Herod – at least that’s how he’s portrayed in the movies.
Scripture doesn’t tell us just how he communicated his message to Herod, but there was no mistaking that it getting across loud and clearly.
Some things to keep in mind about good ol’ John:
* He lived and died for the kingdom.
What was his message as he was in public message?
“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.” And his message prepared the way for the Messiah, who brought the kingdom.
What was his message to Herod? “Repent.” And it got him killed.
I wonder if John ever got scared while talking to Herod? Probably. But he never wavered from the message.
* He always pointed to Jesus instead of himself.
Man. Right there he’s in a category that sets him apart from a lot of people.
Who’s number one in our society? Me. Who ever “me” is to you, that’s who’s number one, right?
Not to John. His job was to point to Jesus, and when Jesus came, what did he say to his followers.
“Go with that guy. He’s the one you need to be around. He’s bringing the kingdom. Don’t worry about me – I need to decrease so that He can increase.”
Does that sound like a guy who was stuck on himself? Nope.
- So how will you be remembered? Will it be like John, who lived like it was all about Christ and His kingdom? I hope so.
Conclusion
I’m not going to take a lot of time as we finish up here.
I simply want you to ask yourself this question:
“If I were to die today and someone had to write my obituary, what would they say about me?”
Think about the people we’ve looked at today – a schemer who let bitterness and unforgiveness run her life, a weakling who cared more about the opinions of others than what was right, and a bullhorn for the kingdom of God who lived and died for the kingdom.
If you could only pick from those three, which one would you pick to be most like?
And if you were to be brutally honest with yourself and had to pick which of these three you were most like now, who would you pick?
That’s not as fun of a question to answer is it?
But if you want to progress from being a person who only gives lip-service to Jesus to being a person who really lives for Him, you need to examine yourself, and this is one way to do it.
So my prayer for you is that you’ll take this seriously, and ask the Holy Spirit to make you into a person who will be remembered well here on earth, and commended by the Master when you reach heaven.
Let’s pray.
