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This Week's Sermon THE MARTYRDOM of ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST 29 August 2010 "Let Me Never Be Put To Shame" Mark 6:14-29 LSB Series C Pastor Philip G. Meyer Soli Deo Gloria!

A few minutes ago we sang these words from the Introit:

In you, O LORD, do I take refuge; let me never be | put to shame;*
in your righteousness de- | liver me. [Ps. 31.1]

David asked that he never be put to shame because of God. He does not want the judgment of God to fall on him. Rather, he asks that God deliver him because of God's righteousness.

The cross is an instrument of shame. It is not unique to Christianity. The ancients knew it well, but it was the Romans who popularized it as an instrument of death. So horrible was the sentence of crucifixion that no Roman citizen was allowed to be crucified. Romans citizens, if they suffered capital punishment, were beheaded. Death happened quickly and relatively painlessly. It was as humane as was possible in the ancient world. But the cross symbolized a horrible, cursed death. It was shameful.

Death and the Christian faith go together. The cross with the body of Jesus on it reminds us what it cost God to redeem fallen and sinful humanity. It cost the death of God's only-begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. On the cross he died a shameful, degrading death. After Peter confessed Jesus to be the Christ, Jesus spoke to the crowds as well as his disciples, saying:

Mark 8:34 (ESV)
34 "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

Jesus calls you to follow after him, denying yourself, and taking up your cross after him. For these disciples it meant that they would die like he did. Bearing the cross these days means self-denial. Few people expect that confessing Christ is going to result in their deaths.

Plenty of people hate Christianity. It isn't just rival religions such as Islam, but the world is opposed to it. Even Christianity's symbol, the cross is hated. I am sure you have noticed crosses put along highways. These spots mark places where people have died in accidents along our nation's highways. Yet, this has been challenged in courts by those who despise Christianity. They complain that the cross is a religious symbol. It is and it isn't. It does have the connection to Christ and his death, but it can be a symbol merely of death. That's how the Romans viewed it.

What got John martyred? Very simply, it was the preaching of repentance. As Jesus sent out the Twelve disciples he gave them instructions in what to preach. They were to preach repentance. The verse immediately preceding our text tells us something interesting:

Mark 6:12 (ESV)
12 So they went out and proclaimed that people should repent.

Herod heard about this preaching because Jesus' name had become known, Mark says. That brought back memories of John the Baptizer whom Herod had beheaded because John had spoken publicly against Herod's taking his brother's wife to be his own. Herod feared John because John was a righteous man and had exposed Herod's sin for all to recognize. John's speaking the truth about Herod's sin got him killed. Yet, John was not afraid of Herod, nor of any human being.

We don't think too often that we could be martyred for our faith, but I think that is changing. As Christians speak up about the prevalent sins of our society, they incur the wrath of those who commit them or live in them. Speaking out against the sexual sins of our age will certainly earn you the enmity and bitterness of a large segment of our population. You are called names because you speak God's truth and those who commit such sins do not want to hear God's truth. It used to be that they merely stopped their ears so that they wouldn't hear it. Now they stop the mouths of those who speak it by censure and lawsuits. In some western nations it is illegal to speak out against homosexuality or same sex marriage.

Someday soon, unless the trend is reversed, the only proper place for Christians to be will be in prison, convicted for speaking the truth. They'll be like John, imprisoned for speaking the truth that the world doesn't want to hear. And they'll die for that confession, too.

Those on the receiving end of condemnation for their sins don't like it. No sinner does. You and I don't like it much, either, but only by warning the sinner can there be repentance. Condemning sin does not come from a "I'm holier than you" position, but from the position of one who is also under the sentence of death because of sin.

Herod was afraid of John, but he was more afraid of Herodias and his guests. Mark tells us that Herod was greatly perplexed when he listened to John, "yet he heard him gladly" [Mark 6.20]. Herod seemed to be close to repentance, but Herod's fear was not so much of God as it was what others would think of him.

How often has that happened to you, that you feared more what others thought of you than you did of God? With shame we must confess that we have often done that. We have been more afraid of man than of God. We have worried about what man can do to us. What have worried about our own egos rather than about speaking the word that might bring our neighbor to repentance. We have failed again and again to speak the word that brings God's condemnation of his sin because we are worried that he won't like us.

Interestingly, this happens often also inside the Church! A brother falls into error and we are reluctant to bring it to his attention. He absents himself from the Divine Service and we don't know what to say to him. We don't want to judge him wrongly, so we say nothing at all. We let him cruise merrily along in his sin against the Third Commandment, a sin which also becomes a sin against himself because he stands condemned by God. We don't want to disturb "the peace," as it were. It often becomes a conspiracy of silence. We let him go on in his sin, convincing ourselves that we are doing the loving thing.

Of course, that's not what John did! He was not ashamed to speak the word of truth, this call to repentance, because he feared God more than he did Herod or Herodias. John was not ashamed of God's Word. He did not fear what man could do to him. Jesus warns us:

Mark 8:38 (ESV)
38 For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels."

You see, you and I have much of which we need to repent! Repentance is not just for the other guy, it's also for us.

Today we commemorate the martyrdom of John. Martyrdom. We understand the word to refer to one who has died for the faith, but its basic meaning is to speak the truth, to confess the faith, to witness to something. Sometimes that results in death. But one makes the good confession anyway, knowing that speaking the truth may earn him death. Christians do not seek martyrdom, unlike Muslims who use to it pay for sins. Christians do not attempt to aggravate others so as to cause one's own death because we know that Christ alone has atoned for our sins by his death. Christian martyrdom is always done by another's hand, never one's own. Yet, if it is God's will that we die speaking the truth, then we accept it.

Did you notice how, in the First Reading [Rev. 6.9-11], the martyrs in heaven ask how long it will be before God avenges those who were slaughtered for the sake of Christ? Hear God's answer carefully:

Revelation 6:11 (ESV)
11 Then they were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete, who were to be killed as they themselves had been.

More martyrs! In God's plan more Christians will suffer death for their confession of Christ before the day of salvation is over. We tend to think of martyrdom of something that took place in the first few centuries as the Church was established. More Christians suffered martyrdom in the 20th century than in all of the centuries leading up to it.

No doubt you don't want to think about this, that you could be put to death because of Christ, or that your children or grandchildren could end up dying because of their confession of faith, but it may very well be as Satan continues to unleash his fury against those who belong to Christ. It makes us afraid, but God himself has established a limit, an end beyond which all the forces of evil cannot go, and he has also said:

Isaiah 51:7-8 (ESV)
7 "Listen to me, you who know righteousness, the people in whose heart is my law; fear not the reproach of man, nor be dismayed at their revilings. 8 For the moth will eat them up like a garment, and the worm will eat them like wool; but my righteousness will be forever, and my salvation to all generations."

In spite of hostility we are kept safe in the hand of God. Perhaps you think John was not kept safe, but you would be wrong. St. John Chrysostom, one of the early Church fathers said of John's martyrdom:
"For what occurred was not a death, but a crown, not an end, but the beginning of a greater life" [Ancient Christian Commentary, New Testament II, Mark, p. 88]. And did not our Lord Jesus Christ say:

Revelation 2:10 (ESV)
10 Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and for ten days you will have tribulation. Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life.

Death is the gate to eternal life!

That brings us back to the words of our Introit, the words of the Psalmist:

Psalm 31:1 (ESV)
1 In you, O LORD, do I take refuge; let me never be put to shame; in your righteousness deliver me!

Take refuge in Christ! Take refuge in his Word and especially in his body and blood, given and shed for you for the forgiveness of your sins! Hide yourself in his holy wounds! You have been baptized into the death and resurrection of Christ! Christ's death is your death and his resurrection is yours as well. Our risen Lord encourages you to make the good confession by reminding you:

Revelation 3:11 (ESV)
11 I am coming soon. Hold fast what you have, so that no one may seize your crown.

Take refuge in Christ amid the raging of Satan and the unbelieving, hostile world. You are safe in his wounds. Make the good confession. Christ will never let you be put to shame.

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.