The Parish Church of St John-at-Hampstead

One of the features of Mark’s Gospel is the narrative “sandwich”; while telling one story, he breaks in with another, after which he concludes the first story. The point of the interlude, is not always very obvious. Mark draws no overt link or contrast between the filling and it wrapper.
 The story of the beheading of John the Baptist comes as a break in the bigger narrative of Jesus sending out the twelve disciples through Galilee to call out for repentance and to drive out devils and cure the sick by anointing them with oil. Overlying this narrative is another, wider, theme concerned with the identity, recognition and authority of Jesus.
In the immediate context, Herod’s reaction to the mission of the twelve is a little odd. We have to suppose that as the twelve went around making their proclamation and healing people, they made it clear who had sent them and by whose authority they were acting. Herod’s concern is, perhaps, that an outlandish preacher wandering the desert and persecuting the establishment was one thing; sending out mission of twelve men begins to look more like a movement which might really threaten the established order. And, Herod has a guilty conscience; his own attitude to John was, as Mark makes clear, at least ambivalent. He locked John up but also thought him a righteous man; he feared John precisely because he respected him.  So in his way, Herod had every reason to be concerned about just who Jesus was. There is an irony in his fear, which he knows is irrational, that Jesus might be John come back from the dead. John did not come back from the dead but Mark knows, as we do, that Jesus will.
There is a compelling fascination in story of Salome and her dance and it’s no surprise that it has appealed to artists and writers, mostly of course male, down the centuries; sometimes it’s  the dance; not just the opportunity for titillation (although there is, in fact, no mention in Mark or Josephus, who also tells the story, of any number of veils coming off nor the removal of other items of kit) but the power of rhythm and gesture  of the dance, captured by medieval sculptors and Richard Strauss. Then there is the opportunity to contrast the grisly hirsute and very dead head of a wild man on a silver charger with the saucy prettiness of a young girl and her scheming mother- all men’s worst fears about women realized. It’s the decadent sleaze of perverted desire, and nihilist morals that appeals to Oscar Wilde. Flaubert adds a political menace as his story takes place in a castle about to be besieged by angry Arabs (they are cross because Herod has ditched their princess for Herodias). There is of course, none of this overt politics in Mark although one does have the feeling that Herod is himself besieged; he’s not altogether bad- he recognizes John’s righteousness- but gives in to his own lasciviousness and the intrigues of his family and we suspect the religious and political establishment; John’s criticism has not been restricted to comment on Herod’s ethics. This is perhaps reading rather a lot into Mark’s short account, but  the seeds of these developments are there.
Mark’s story is not pretending to be history and presumably some of his original readers would realise that he had some of his facts wrong- not least the identity of Herod and his relationship with Herodias and Salome. Mark can perhaps be forgiven for getting confused about a family in which all the males are called Herod and each is either in bed, or at daggers drawn, with the female members of his family.
Mark isn’t trying to write history; this is an anecdote drawing on familiar themes from myth and tradition. The deceit and danger of women goes back as far as Eve in the garden of Eden, but Mark may be thinking of,Jezebel and Ahaz, another king fault  whosewas giving in to wiles and wickedness of a pagan queen. The idea of extracting a promise in return for impliedly sexual favour comes from the story of Esther although Mark has given it a dark and vicious twist. Esther was a virtuous Israelite who saved her people, using her charms to extract promises, from the Persian King Ahasuerus and, as result avoiding a progrom.
Mark has used these examples to create a sort of myth, or fairy story. By echoing these familiar ideas, the story is given permanence beyond its immediate historical context.
The first point of this is to emphasize that Jesus was not John the Baptist. That may seem to us rather an unnecessary emphasis but we come to the story from a long way down the road. I suspect that in Jesus’ time there was some confusion about their respective identities. Both were after all itinerant preachers living on the edge of society and highly critical of the establishment. Both proclaimed a Gospel of repentance and, while we only hear about it obliquely of John, they shared a healing ministry. Both put themselves in the tradition of the “old prophets” and notably in the tradition of Isaiah. When asked who Jesus was people sometimes confused him with John and John clearly had a following (his disciples are mentioned) and influence which persisted under the spread of the new Christianity. When Paul visits Ephesus he finds another missionary whom he clearly admires, Apollos who though he knows about Jesus- is still preaching the baptism of John. The mixing and perhaps confusion over their Gospels, and even their identity is not surprising and John himself was aware it; he is emphatic that he is the forerunner preparing the way for Jesus. And Jesus puts himself firmly in the same tradition, by having himself baptized by John.
Mark wants to make it quite clear that they are not the same; and so this story of intrigue and corruption in high places contrasts with the rural simplicity of the twelve being sent out into the villages  and towns with minimal baggage and a simple and almost stark message of repentance and healing. This is very different from Herod haunted yet fascinated by the eerie denunciations of John rising up from his dungeon below the fortress; the stink of the oubliette rises like aural incense to fumigate the morally putrid palace. But John is a prophet, in the tradition of Elijah and Jeremiah and other thorns in the flesh of the powers that were, and the story of his death is set in the quasi-mythological framework of Old Testament history.
And yet John is like Jesus, not only in the content of his message, but in his life and death. Both are killed because of their message; John’s beheading is the direct result of his criticism of Herod. The causes of Jesus’ execution are more complicated but they include, primarilly, the anger of the Jewish establishment. We hear an echo as John’s disciples come to take away his body; a very similar phrase will used after the crucifixion. Jesus death follows a Passover feast; John’s a birthday party; the immediate agent of Jesus’ arrest and consequent death is a disillusioned follower turned traitor. John is betrayed by folly and depravity.
Mark’s story is simply told and the underlying rumble of perverted sexual desire has been amplified by the artists and writers. Nevertheless, I think it is there, lurking under Mark’s surface. And I think the point is that, John’s beheading results from a perversion of what should   be a life giving, creative force. It’s no coincidence that the commonest euphemism for sex is making love. Maybe love making would be better. It doesn’t just make children, but all sorts of relationships and new lives. But when perverted by hunger for power, greed, envy or a host of other depravities, nothing is more destructive and deadly. Contrast this with the crucifixion which, although set in misunderstanding, perverted loyalty, squalor, pain and shame, is ultimately, the renewal of life, and a life that transcends the fallible material world. We can often see ourselves in Herod’s palace; but this story in its context, reminds us its failings and perversions are temporary and illusory. We have been granted the opportunity to enjoy full and everlasting life. Amen.