As you know if you have read the Old Testament prophets, prophets of God were compelled to speak out against all sin and injustice, but in Israel itself especially against violations of the law of God given through Moses.
It was intolerable that an Israelite ruler should deliberately disobey a law of God given in the Torah. John was a true prophet, and had to rebuke Herod Antipas for marrying the divorced wife of his brother. The sin was not in marrying any divorced woman, but a woman who had been married to his own brother. This was forbidden by the Mosaic law ("Do not have sexual relations with your brother’s wife" Lev 18:16 NIV).
The Leviticus law is not intended for a situation in which no divorce has taken place, in other words adultery. Rather it is a law against a kind of incest. Since according to biblical thinking, when a man and woman are joined in marital union, they have become "one flesh." For a man to subsequently sleep with a woman who had been his brother's wife was like sleeping with his own sister.
Herod Antipas knew this, and yet he followed the promiscuous lifestyle of his pagan Roman friends and laughed at the quaint Jewish laws that were his heritage. John could not remain silent. He rebuked Herod publicly for this act and brought extreme notoriety and embarrassment to both Herod and Herodias (his brother Philip's former wife). This led to John's imprisonment (Mark 6:17 = Matt. 13:3 = Luke 3:19) and eventual death at the instigation of Herodias.
But before his death, John sent some of his disciples with a message to Jesus (Matt. 11:2-6 = Luke 7:18-23). The message showed John's fears that he had not discharged the mission for which he was born: to prepare the way of the Lord's messiah.
"Why," you may ask, "would he have any doubts?"
You have to understand that we look at what Jesus accomplished through his death and resurrection with the benefit of hindsight. John didn't know this. What he expected was that the messiah would be acclaimed by the whole nation of Israel and would proceed to bring in the kingdom of God, a universal rule of righteousness and peace, with even the gentiles acknowledging the Lord's messiah.
This had not happened. Instead he saw opposition to Jesus from among his own people, and no sign of a worldwide turning to the God of Israel. It was quite understandable that he should now worry that he might have made a mistake. Under these circumstances, he did the right thing: he sent to Jesus himself and asked the direct question. "Are you in fact the messiah?"
Jesus' answer was for the messengers to tell John what they saw happening in Jesus' miracles:
"the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.”These were the miracles of the messiah predicted by the ancient prophets. They spoke for themselves. But Jesus added: "blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me" which—paraphrased—means "I advise you not to have false expectations, which I will not fulfill." The gospels don't tell us how John reacted to this reply, but knowing what he was made of, I believe his faith was strengthened and he died in firm faith in Jesus.
After John's messengers departed, Jesus turned to his disciples and—suspecting that they might look down on John for having any doubts at all—he praised the prophet with these words:
“Truly I tell you, among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist; yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. … and if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come. Let anyone with ears listen!” (Matthew 11:11-15 NRSV)
The actual account of John's martyrdom is found in Mark 6:17-29 = Matt. 14:3-12.
But that is by no means the end of the story. John's influence lived on. Sometime towards the end of the Apostle Paul's second Missionary journey, while he was founding the church in the Greek city of Corinth, there came to the city of Ephesus in western Asia Minor an eloquent and learned man from Alexandria in Egypt. His name was Apollos. He had been baptized as a disciple of John the Baptist. Luke tells us in Acts 18:25-26 "He had been instructed in the way of the Lord, and he spoke with great fervor and taught about Jesus accurately, though he knew only the baptism of John. He began to speak boldly in the synagogue."
Apparently, Apollos knew of Jesus through John's teaching and was eager to persuade fellow Jews that Jesus was the messiah. Two friends of Paul's, a couple named Prisca and Aquila, decided to help this man in his efforts. So they took him under their wing and tuaght him more about Jesus and about the gospel. As a result, he shortly thereafter sailed westward to Greece and continued Paul's ministry in the Corinthian church.
“When Apollos wanted to go to Achaia, the brothers encouraged him and wrote to the disciples there to welcome him. On arriving, he was a great help to those who by grace had believed. For he vigorously refuted the Jews in public debate, proving from the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ.” (Acts 18:27-28 NIV)Faithful John did not live to see the resurrection of his Lord. But he paid the price of martyrdom for his bold faith, and long after his death his life continued to bear fruit in people like Apollos.
It should be our prayer that God in his mercy will allow us to plant seeds of faith in our children and friends and acquaintances that will bear fruit even after we may be gone.
[This is the end of my short series on John the Baptizer leading up to Christmas and New Years. In January this blog will begin a new series on St. Paul's Letter to the Romans. I hope you will continue as a follower of these postings. Merry Christmas and a Happy 2009!]
No comments:
Post a Comment