Where Is God?
“Where Is God?” Amos 7:7-15; Psalm 85:8-13; Ephesians 1:3-14; Mark 6:14-29
What a horrible story! What could possibly be the good news in this awful, terrible story of the execution of John the Baptist?
So Herod Antipas – this is the son of the Herod we know from the Christmas story – is the king over part of the land of Israel, including Galilee, where Jesus is from, ruling on behalf of the Roman Empire that installed him in power. John the Baptist has criticized Herod Antipas for marrying his sister-in-law, his brother’s wife – and this is not simply a matter of private morality. You see, the Herods were only barely Jewish by ethnicity, and they were perceived by ordinary people as foreign parasites who worked for Rome, not for the people. And John’s point was basically: If you’re going to claim to be the Jewish king of Israel, you could at least try to pretend to follow the Law of Moses. John’s criticism was, in part, political. And so he is arrested.
Herodias, Herod’s new wife, apparently liked being married to the richest and most powerful man in town better than being married to his loser brother – and who wouldn’t? She saw John as a threat to her power and wealth and wanted to get rid of him. But, we are told, Herod Antipas was intrigued by John the Baptist. He couldn’t figure him out, and liked to listen to him. He had no interest in actually doing anything John the Baptist said, but John was different and Herod found it entertaining to listen to him now and then.
The standoff was broken one terrible night, on Herod’s birthday. The king threw a birthday party for himself and all the notables of the kingdom. Herodias’s daughter performs a dance. In the movies, she is portrayed as a voluptuous young woman (Rita Heyward was, I think, around 35 when she played her) – but in our gospel text today it’s clear she’s a girl. Mark uses the same Greek word to describe her as he did the daughter of Jairus in our reading a couple of weeks ago, and she was 12 years old.
So Herod is kind of turned on by the dancing of his underage niece-slash-stepdaughter, which is pretty creepy. In fact, he’s so taken by her that, in front of all the important people, he promises to give her anything she wants, up to half the kingdom. Now, she doesn’t know what she’s supposed to ask for – she’s just a kid, right? So she asks her mother. And instead of giving her daughter advice, she think – Hey, here’s a chance to manipulate Dad into doing what I want him to do!
So even apart from the terrible thing that Herodias uses her little daughter to trap her husband into doing – it’s clear that these are just horrible people. And the thing that they do is even more horrible. In comes a severed human head on a platter – now let’s get back to the party!
What a ghastly, horrible story. And in reflecting on this text this week, I kept asking myself: Where is the good news in this story? Where is God in this story? How can we possibly see God at work anywhere in this gruesome and appalling tale? And I was tempted to say that we can’t find God anywhere in this story. That there is nothing redeeming about this story – that this story is simply a story of pure evil, of the deliberate murder of an innocent man of God, of bad people doing bad things and there’s nothing good anyone can say about it.
But then I realized: If we do not know how to find God in this story, how will we find God in the dark stories in our own lives? How will we find God today in the death of a child, when we are isolated and alone and subject to the lies and machinations of others as John was? How will we find God in a camp for unaccompanied minors at the border, in a collapsed condo building in Miami, in a prison cell or on a Covid ward? If we do not know how to find the presence of God in this story98lk, of human evil and despair, how can we hope to find the presence of God in the darkest parts of our stories?
You have probably heard of the late Elie Wiesel, the novelist and survivor of Auschwitz. There is a very well-known story he tells about two adults and a boy who were hanged by the Nazis one evening at Auschwitz. All the prisoners were lined up to watch the hangings. As they watched, someone called out from the crowd: Where is God? Where is he? And Wiesel writes: “I heard a voice within me answer him: Where is He? Here He is – He is hanging here on the gallows.”
Wiesel’s instinct – that in a situation of unspeakable suffering, God is present in and with the one who suffers – is profoundly rooted in the Jewish Scriptures. And especially for us as Christians, who believe that the character of God is most clearly revealed when God takes flesh in Jesus so that the eternal God can enter into the midst of human suffering, to bring the worst of what human beings do to one another into the life of the eternal God – so that God can truly be present in every situation of evil, every situation of suffering, to every human being who is laid low.
I think this is what Mark intended us to see in this story, because as he tells it he highlights the details of John’s death that resonate with the coming trial and crucifixion of Jesus. For example, John is silent in this story, as Jesus is silent before his accusers. Pilate, like Herod, doesn’t really want to order the execution of Jesus, but is manipulated into it by the jealous rivalries of so-called leaders. And there are others.
Where is God in the story of John the Baptist? Where is God in any story of death and suffering and injustice? God is in the story because Jesus, God-made-flesh, suffered injustice and died. And so God is present to us in our suffering as one who was with us to the end – and who revealed God’s power of life and grace beyond even death. God can be present to John in his moment of death because in Jesus God has walked that path, and so John can hope that like Jesus he will be raised to life and peace and joy that, unlike Herod’s birthday party, does not end.
I believe that Mark invites us to see this as he tells the story of the death of John the Baptist, as he highlights the details of John’s death that are similar to the trial and the crucifixion of Jesus himself.
Where is God in the story of John the Baptist? Where is God in any story of death and suffering and injustice? God is in the story because Jesus, God-made-flesh, suffered injustice and died. In our baptism it is said that we enter into the death of Jesus, so that in our deaths Jesus may enter into our deaths, may be present with us, may bring us the presence of the eternal God – so that we might also share in his resurrection.
And where are we in the story? When we are the ones who are suffering, when we are the ones who must live where God seems farthest away, then we can know – as we must hope John knew – that in Christ God in fact could not be nearer, with the power of faith and resurrection.
And when our neighbors are the ones who are in the dock – then Jesus has already told us where we can find his presence, in the least and the neediest and the most distressed. And this is the last service that John’s disciples perform for John at the end of our gospel story today. As they come and take John’s body for burial, they associate themselves not with the revelers at Herod’s birthday party but with the one who lived and died in Christ.
May we likewise tend to the presence of God in our neighbors who are in need, so that when we ourselves are in need, we may already know how to see the presence of God in the midst of our own distress.