Mayhem, Murder & Martyrdom

MARRIAGE, MAYHEM, MURDER, MADNESS & MARTYRDOM

It sounds like something from the Gerry Springer Show. It really does. Goes to show you that there is nothing new under the sun - not even Gerry Springer!

First there is the grandfather, a suspicious man with an inferiority complex, who was married five times, each of his five wives bore him sons, and as they each had a different mother that meant they were half-brothers who were in fierce competition with each other ..... and I mean in fierce competition with each other!

The grandfather stands accused of murdering three of his sons for no other reason than he was afraid that they might murder him first. All together he had seven sons, three were murdered which left four to fight among themselves.

Now remember these remaining four were half-brothers, and as they say all is fair in love and war, and one of the sons while visiting his half brother seduced his half-brother’s wife and stole her away and persuaded her to become his new wife. Seems she was more than willing. Remember, it takes two to tango.

Next, this errant wife had by all accounts a beautiful daughter who loved to dance and she would eventually marry her step-father’s youngest half-brother, born to her grandfather’s fifth wife. Now both her step-father and her husband were really her uncles and she their niece, for her father was their half-brother, but also her mother who was once a sister-in-law to her husband became his mother-in-law and also made her her daughter’s aunt by marriage. Whew!

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I speak of course of Herod the Great, a nasty piece of work whose reign occured during the birth of Christ, and not only did Herod murder his own children, he stands accused of ordering the massacre of infant children in an attempt to murder the one who was said by the Magi born to be the king of the Jews.

The errant wife who left her husband is the Herodias in our Gospel this morning, a cold calculating woman who would stop at nothing to get her way in the world.

It was her daughter Salome who danced for Herodias new husband, Herod Antipas who seduced her away from his own half-brother while visiting him in Rome. Salome would later marry the youngest brother of this Herod Antipas, in reality marrying her uncle, making it a family thing to engage in maritial relationships that defied all explanation and served only to confuse and infuriate.

It is these maritial relationships that John the Baptist denounced as being immoral and against all public decency. The very fact that Herod Antipas, who was both Salome’s uncle and set-father would permit his neice/stepdaugher to dance in the seductive way she did for not only his lustful pleasure, but for the pleasure of some of the most powerful men from in and around Galilee speaks volumes of the decadence and moral decay found in the King’s own court.

It stood on a lonely ridge, surrounded by great ravine over looking the east side of the Dead Sea. it was said to be one of the grimmest and unassailable fortresses in the world at that time. Even its name said it all - Machaerus - meaning the Black Castle. It was in this bleak and desolate place that the last act of John the Baptist’s life was played out. Not a children’s story for sure.
A young girl dances a dance that is unquestionably lascivious, meaning both lewd and lustful, and her dancing pleased her uncle who was also her step father and eventually would be her brother-in-law. But let me explain further.

And so the scene is set. In this story there is all the simplicity of a tremendous drama. The people were outraged at the antics of Herod Antipas whose adulterous behaviour, and confusing nuptials set a new standard among those who didn’t have standards. It was into this arena that John the Baptist fearlessly walked and denounced the behaviour of Herod and Herodias.

This frightened Herod, who liked to listen to the Baptist. He intrigued him, but it didn’t stop Herod from breaking all the rules of convention. He was also afraid that the people might rise up agaqinst him if he did anything to harm the Baptist. At any rate, under pressure from the scheming and calculating Herodias, Herod was forced to have John arrested and put in prison - Joh was imprisioned in a cell deep in the bowels of the Black Castle.

It was Herod’s birthday. For the cunning and conniving Herodias a day of opportunity had come. She would rid herself of the Baptist who dared denounce her life style and questioned her choices. How dare he do that. How dare he!

Herod was giving a banquet for his courtiers and to the captians of his army and he had invited some of the leading and most powerful men of Galilee. It was while they were reclining at the table that the daughter of Herodias came in and began to dance that unquestionably lewd and lustful dance and all eyes were fixed on her as she danced a dance that was away beyond her years.

She so pleased Herod, and because his tongue was loosed with the intoxicating wine, he promised the girl that she could have anything she wanted - even up to half of his kingdom. It was a generous offer - an offer suitable for the occasion, more said to impress those seated around Herod’s table and not an offer to be taken literally. it was more for show. He promised her in front of all his invited guests who were among the most powerful men in and around Galilee. Herod was an unusually wicked man - for no man would ask his daughter or step daughter, or niece to dance for the entertainment of his friends.

The girl, old enough to dance a lewd and lustful dance, was not old enough to make a decision for herself and so she went to her mother, Herodias, who seized the opportunity, the day had come when she would be rid of the Baptist.

Her mother didn’t even pause to think, she told her daughter to ask for the head of John the Baptist. At once the girl hurried to the king with the request" I want you to give me right now the head of John the Baptist on a platter."
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The king was greatly distressed, more for his won sake than for the Baptist. People might well revolt as they and Herod knew that John the Baptist was a man who spoke truth and was a man of God. But he had made the promise in front of his guests and no great man would go back on his promise and risk losing the respect of his peers - so he dared not refuse her. So he sent his executioner at once with the order to bring back John’s head on a platter.
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The executioner went as ordered, going into the depths of the great Black Castle, down to the cell were John was imprisoned and brought back the head of the Baptist on a platter. He presented it to the girl - it was her reward for dancing and pleasing the king, and the girl gave the gruesome trophy to her mother who believed that she had silenced the Baptist for ever.

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However, there is a post script to this story. When Herod Antipas stole his half-brother’s wife Herodias away and made her his own wife, there was the little matter of his ‘other’ wife, Phasaelis, daughter of Aretas 1V, whose family honour had thus been irrevocably shamed and discredited by Herod’s divorcing of his daughter, subsequently invaded Herod’s territory capturing some of the land and enjoying a succesful routing Herod’s army.

When Herod Antipas divorced Phasaelis to take his half-brother's wife Herodias, mother of Salome, Phaesalis, seeing the writing on the wall, and being forewarned, quickly fled to her father. Relations between Herod and Aretas IV were already strained over border disputes, and with his family honor shamed, Aretas IV invaded Judea, and captured territories belonging to Herod Antipas..

The classical author and historian Josephus connects this battle, which occured during the winter months of AD 36/37 with the beheading of John the Baptist. At any rate Herod’s days of power were coming to and end - and eventually was exiled by the Roman Emperor Gaius Caesar Caligula to Lugdunum (modern Lyon), in Gaul in the year AD 39 and he fades from history.

But the story is not about Herod Antipas, but about John the Baptist, a man of courage who dared speak the truth and call public leaders to account for their actions whether public or private. For someone who enjoyed the wide open spaces to languish in a dank prison cell in the dark dungeons of the Black Castle must have been torture indeed. John was the man who preferred death to falsehood and refused to go along with the lies and deceit rampant in his day.

John lived for the truth and was prepared to die for the truth.

We do not like to hear truth. But when a man like John speaks for God, there are many, who like Herodias would go to any lengths to silence him. Therefore the one who speaks for God must always take his life in his hands - for there are those, both in the Church and in the world who would seek to silence him.