Message for the Ordination
of
Heath Curtis
Trinity Lutheran Church
Burr Ridge, Illinois
September 29, 2004
“It’s
Not About You, It’s About Truth”
Mark 6:17-29
For Herod himself had given
orders to have John arrested, and he had him bound and put in prison. He did
this because of Herodias, his brother Philip's wife, whom he had married.
[18] For John had been saying to Herod, "It is not lawful for you to
have your brother's wife." [19] So Herodias nursed a grudge against John
and wanted to kill him. But she was not able to, [20] because Herod feared
John and protected him, knowing him to be a righteous and holy man. When Herod
heard John, he was greatly puzzled ; yet he liked to listen to him. [21] Finally
the opportune time came. On his birthday Herod gave a banquet for his high
officials and military commanders and the leading men of Galilee. [22] When
the daughter of Herodias came in and danced, she pleased Herod and his dinner
guests. The king said to the girl, "Ask me for anything you want, and
I'll give it to you." [23] And he promised her with an oath, "Whatever
you ask I will give you, up to half my kingdom." [24] She went out and
said to her mother, "What shall I ask for?" "The head of John
the Baptist," she answered. [25] At once the girl hurried in to the king
with the request: "I want you to give me right now the head of John the
Baptist on a platter." [26] The king was greatly distressed, but because
of his oaths and his dinner guests, he did not want to refuse her. [27] So
he immediately sent an executioner with orders to bring John's head. The man
went, beheaded John in the prison, [28] and brought back his head on a platter.
He presented it to the girl, and she gave it to her mother. [29] On hearing
of this, John's disciples came and took his body and laid it in a tomb.
Mark 6:17-29
Pastor Curtis: During your year in Waterford, you became more than a vicar, you became a colleague and a friend. So when you called me a few weeks ago and asked me to preach for your ordination, I was honored and excited. Then, when you told me the texts chosen for this service, the honor remained, but the excitement somewhat abated. The Commemoration of the Beheading of John the Baptist? You want to be ordained and installed with visions of a bloody head on a silver platter bouncing around in everyone’s head? How could I write a sermon on that? How could I relate John’s experience to your experience today? I truly hope there isn’t a correlation. So I decided to preach on something else. But then I remembered a professor at the seminary who once said that a good Law & Gospel sermon could be preached on any verse in the Bible. So you have thrown down the gauntlet -- and I will pick it up.
John the Baptist -- forerunner of the Christ, the last great Prophet, labeled
by Jesus Himself as the greatest of the Prophets. Probably known by most people
for basically two things: (1) Preparing people for the arrival of the Savior
by calling them to repentance and baptizing them in the Jordan River, and
(2) losing his head for speaking out against the adulterous relationship that
King Herod has with his brother’s wife. I could preach on the baptizing,
the calling to repentance, the pointing to Jesus, “the Lamb of God that
takes away the sin of the world.” Good Law & Gospel stuff. Good
John the Baptist stuff. But that’s not the text for today -- the Jordan
River and the surging throng of penitents. No, today we’ve got Salome
dancing and Herod lusting and Herodias scheming and John dying.
But, of course, all of these details, as seamy and as brutal as they are,
are only window dressing. There is something beneath this that is more important.
What was God’s purpose for John? What drove John’s life? What
captured John’s mind and heart? What was the intended result of John’s
preaching? This is the stuff worth hearing on Ordination Day.
It was all about the truth, wasn’t it, Pastor Curtis? The truth. That’s
what ties the end of John’s ministry in Herod’s prison to the
beginning of John’s ministry on the banks of the Jordan. There was a
truth that needed to be told. John’s focus was to simply speak that
truth. The first truth, the disturbing truth, the uncomfortable truth, is
the truth of the Law, the truth of sin, rebellion, and it’s consequences.
Oh yes, we say, John lost his head because he spoke the Law to Herod. True.
Herod had taken his brother’s wife. There was blatant adultery here.
The Sixth Commandment was taking a beating -- by Israel’s king, no less.
Someone needed to tell Herod. Someone needed to be like Nathan, another
prophet in an earlier time who stared another adulterous king in the eye and
said, “You are the man!” So John approached the king, his king,
and said with clarity and boldness, “It is not lawful for you to have
your brother’s wife.”
But was John doing anything different that what he had done his entire ministry?
Remember his familiar words, “Repent, every one of you! ... His
winnowing fork is in His hand to clear His threshing floor, to gather the
wheat into His barns but to burn the chaff with unquenchable fire”?
Where there is sin, there must be God’s Law. No one will embrace a Savior
from sin unless he’s first convinced that he’s a sinner in need
of saving. What John said to King Herod was no different from what John
said to countless people throughout his ministry. You are a sinner. You cannot
ignore your sin. You cannot run away from it’s consequences. You cannot
atone for your sin. It is real. It is yours. And it will be the eternal death
of you.
The only difference here is the reaction to the preaching of the Law. In earlier
times, there in the wilderness, the people heard the Law -- and were cut to
their very souls. They recognized their sin as John laid bare their sinful
thoughts, hurtful words, selfish actions. They repented. They acknowledged
their spiritual poverty and looked to John to provide words of rescue and
redemption. Herod, on the other hand, didn’t reach that point. His heart
was no more foul than others, or ours, for that matter. But he wouldn’t
hear of it. He wouldn’t come to grips with it. He wouldn’t repent
of it. He would kill the messenger. And the saddest thing of all -- by murdering
John he would silence the voice that would have told him about forgiveness
in the “Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”
You see, that was John’s message too. He preached a Law that exposed
sin and laid bare the sinner. But he preached the Gospel too -- the sweet
message of forgiveness. The Lamb of God walked the earth only miles
from John’s prison cell. That Lamb, the Christ, was moving toward Jerusalem
where He would willingly suffer and die on the cross for the sins of the world
and rise again to guarantee eternal life to all who believed in Him.
There is your calling, Pastor Curtis. Whether you will be called upon to live
as John lived, only God knows. Whether you will one day die as John died,
for the reasons for which he died, only God knows. But as to whether or not
you are to speak as John spoke, that I do know. God has called you to be His
minister, His servant, His voice of truth, in this day, in this place. You
are called to speak the truth.
The truth of the Law. I don’t want to be told that I am a “poor
miserable sinner,” but I am, nonetheless, so I need to hear it. I need
to hear it lest I become arrogant in my sin and, like Herod, make a mockery
of God’s Commandments, one at a time, until I thumb my nose at them
all. I need to hear the Law lest I trust in my own good works and thereby
abandon Him who was perfect in my place.
And I need to hear the truth of the Gospel. I need to hear that God loves me despite my sin. I need to hear that Jesus took all of my sin and guilt and shame upon Himself and died for me. I need to hear, especially as I gray and grow older, that because Jesus rose from the dead, He will also raise me up to a new life in heaven.
These people, your people, they want to hear it too. I don’t want you
to have to live like John. Camel’s hair and locusts just aren’t
you. And I pray with all my heart that you will not have to die like John.
But I pray just as hard today that you will love me and love these wonderful
people of God like John loved his people, even Herod. Love us enough to tell
us we’re sinners, even when that truth might hurt or anger us. And love
us enough to tell us we’re redeemed and restored and forgiven by the
blood of Jesus. Tell us everything that Jesus tells us. Give us everything
that Jesus give us in Word and Sacrament.
Be like John for us. All we ask of you, all we need from you, and all God
expects of you, is the truth. In season and out, please tell us the truth.
Amen.
May the peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and
minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
Soli Deo Gloria!