Herod's Evil

Mark’s Account of John the Baptist’s Death

If you have your Bibles, turn with me to Mark chapter 6, and we're going to find our place tonight at verse 14, so Mark chapter 6, verse 14. This is a very familiar account from the Gospel of Mark, and it is Mark who gives us the most explicit account of this particular narrative.

Matthew gives us a similar but not as lengthy note, and then we have Luke who just mentions it in passing, and John who really doesn't mention it at all, very much rather, but it is the death of John the Baptist.

We have somebody coming in, would you open that door for him? Just to remind you that we have been doing a verse-by-verse study of Mark on Wednesday night and sort of to kind of give you an overview, when we get to the 6th chapter, it begins with Jesus being rejected in his hometown, he was in Nazareth, which is in Galilee, and as Jesus is there teaching, it says that the people recognized him as their hometown person and did not show him much regard because of that, and he did not do many mighty works there because of their unbelief.

But then we move on to the next portion where Jesus sends out the twelve, and I spent a couple of weeks on this, Jesus sent out the twelve apostles as, and really in that sense sort of making them apostles, because the word apostles means ones who are sent, and so up until this point they had been disciples, learners, followers, they had not been preaching, they had not been teaching, they had not been healing, up until the beginning of Mark's Gospel, Jesus was doing all of those things, but in the beginning of Mark's Gospel, they become the objects of Jesus' sending, and he sends them out to go and do those things, and if you'll remember correctly, I said, if you look at verse 12, it says, So they went out and proclaimed that people should repent, and they cast out many demons and anointed with oil many who were sick, and healed them.

And then if you jump down to verse 30, it says the apostles returned to Jesus and told him all that they had done and taught, and then he takes them away to a desolate place, and we talked about that last time as likely a time of debriefing, a time of rest, a time of going over what all had just happened, but in the midst of that, between the opening of the story, which is verses 7 -13, and then the close of the story, which is verses 30 -32, we have an aside, or a story within a story, and it is the story of the death of John, Jesus' cousin, the forerunner of the Messiah.

We've talked about John quite a bit in previous studies because John was very important in the earlier passages of Mark, and so now we come to his conclusion. So I'd like to read for us the entire account.

It's rather lengthy, it's verses 14 all the way down to verse 29, so this is the word of the Lord. King Herod heard of it, for Jesus' name had become known. Some said John the Baptist has been raised from the dead, that is why these miraculous powers are at work in him, but others said he is Elijah, and others said he is a prophet like one of the prophets of old.

But when Herod heard of it, he said, John, whom I beheaded, has been raised. For it was Herod who had sent and seized John, and bound him in prison for the sake of Herodias, his brother Philip's wife, because he had married her.

For John had been saying to Herod, it is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife. And Herodias had a grudge against him and wanted to put him to death, but she could not, for Herod feared John, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man, and he kept him safe.

And when he heard him, he was greatly perplexed, and yet he heard him gladly. But an opportunity came when Herod on his birthday gave a banquet for his nobles and military commanders and the leading men of Galilee.

For when Herodias' daughter came in and danced, she pleased Herod and his guests. And the king said to the girl, Ask me for whatever you wish, and I will give it to you. And he vowed to her, Whatever you ask me, I will give you, up to half my kingdom.

And she went out and said to her mother, What should I ask? And she said, The head of John the Baptist. And she came in immediately with haste to the king and asked, saying, I want you to give me at once the head of John the Baptist on a platter.

And the king was exceedingly sorry, but because of his oaths and his guests, he did not want to break his word to her. And immediately the king sent an executioner with orders to bring John's head. He went and beheaded him in the prison and brought his head on a platter and gave it to the girl, and the girl gave it to her mother.

And when his disciples heard of it, they came and took his body and laid it in a tomb. Father, I thank you for your word. Pray even now that you would keep me from error as I teach, not for my sake, Lord, but for your name's sake, for the sake of your people, not that I deserve any goodness from you, God, but that you would give me grace in this moment.

In Jesus' name, amen. When I was a kid, I would sometimes go and spend time with my mom when she had, when her and my dad had separated. I lived with my dad, but I would go and stay with my mom. And I remember during the summertime specifically, we would sometimes be at the friend, one of her friend's house, and she loved to watch daytime soap operas.

And I never quite understood the fascination of the soap opera, but there are people whose lives mirror the soap opera. And I remember because the soap opera is based on drama all the time. And some people, it seems like their life is drama all the time.

And when I was studying to prepare for tonight's lesson, and I was going back over the life of Herod, and really all the Herods, I began to just be reminded that sometimes the soap operas aren't too far off base.

Because we're in an account now in Mark's gospel where we're going to be talking about a family that is just outrageously sinful. And has just, it's just piled on with moments of drama. And so what I want to do as sort of an introduction to the study is I want us to understand who it is we're talking about, and what has brought about this situation.

Because we know that the situation has to do with a man who married somebody else's wife, and then has caught the attention of a prophet who called him out publicly, and because of that was imprisoned.

And his wife hated him, and it all brought about this very dramatic ending. So I want to begin tonight by simply asking the question, who are the key players in this scenario? First one of course is John the Baptist himself.

John is the cousin of Jesus. Most of us are very familiar with him just by reading the scripture. And John was not only the cousin of Jesus and the forerunner of Messiah, he himself was a preacher and prophet, and Jesus said the greatest of all prophets.

So John was a man who was a powerful preacher and one who was willing to call out men for their sins. He called men to repentance of sin and to be baptized. That was his preaching. That was what he preached.

And so we know who John is. It's really not a question mark for us. But the next person that we see is this figure called King Herod. So I'm just going to start right here by recognizing when we say King Herod, if that's all we say, that's not enough because there are multiple people in the Bible who are described as King Herod.

We have to also understand that this title is not a proper name, but rather it is a dynastic name. Much like in the Old Testament we would see the name Abimelech. Abimelech was more of a title because we see Abimelech in the life of Abraham than we see Abimelech in the life of Jacob.

Likely two different Abimelechs, probably a dynastic title. And Herod also is a dynastic name. And it began with the first Herod who was Herod the Great. Now we could say he was the great sinner because as far as greatness goes, his greatness was really only his greatness in regard to how evil he was.

You remember that it was Herod the Great who was king when Jesus was born. And Herod the Great ruled over the people from Jerusalem even though he himself was not a Jew. This is an interesting historical note, but even though he was king of the Jews, he himself was an Idumean, which are the descendants of the Edomites.

He was a descendant of Esau, not a descendant of Jacob. And that led to part of the controversy of his leadership. And so we can say that Herod the king was told by the wise men that the true king had been born.

You remember that in Matthew's Gospel. And what happened when he learned that the true king had been born in Bethlehem? What did he do? He sent for all of the children, two years old and younger, to be murdered.

I mean what an absolute horrific thing. What an absolute just mind-bogglingly grievous thing to do. To say I will not take any threat to my throne and therefore I will be willing to send out my soldiers to kill.

And in history this has been known as the murder of the innocents. That's just if you look up like historical notes, it's the murder of the innocents because they were killing children. And who certainly did not in a human sense have any deserving of any capital crime.

So this is Herod the great. After this we read about Herod Archelaus. Herod Archelaus is the one who ruled after Herod Archelaus after Herod the great. And he was the one who when Joseph was coming back from Egypt after they had heard about the death of Herod the great, they decided not to go back to where they were which was Bethlehem but rather decided to go to Galilee because he was not ruler there.

And so they went to Galilee and obviously to Nazareth. But that was Herod Archelaus and his rule was relatively short. Now there are others. There is the one that we are looking at today. I'm not going to try to write Archelaus.

It's a little long and I guess I could figure it out but it's in your scriptures. The one that we're looking at today is Herod Antipas. Herod Antipas. Now who is Herod Antipas? Herod Antipas is the son of Herod the great and he is the son of a woman named Malthas.

And so Herod the great had multiple wives. He had Maromne the first, Maromne the second, Malthas, Cleopatra, not the one you're thinking, a different Cleopatra but he did have a wife named Cleopatra. Obviously a fairly common name at that time.

And with those wives had several sons. And one of the sons had two sons called Philip. One was named Herod Philip. He was the son of Maromne the second and Herod, or excuse me, Philip the Tetrarch. Now you hear that name Tetrarch.

Tetrarch means ruler of a fourth. Tetra meaning fourth. Tetrarch is a ruler of a fourth. It means the fourth of the kingdom. And it was just a term that was used to identify how much of the land, how much of the area they had control of.

And so Herod Philip was the husband of a woman named Herodias. And Herodias met Herod's brother Antipas on a trip. And I could go over, I could read it to you but I'm giving you the CliffsNotes version.

They met each other as they were both traveling. They met each other and they concocted a plan for her to leave her husband Philip and for him to leave his wife because he was also married. And so they concocted a plan for him to put his wife away, for her to divorce her husband, and for them to come together and marry.

So that is the story of Herodias somewhat very brief history of what brings us to this situation in the scriptures. Now there's an interesting prologue, I'm sorry epilogue that comes later which I'm going to get to if we have time about what happens after all this.

But that's what brings all this here because their marriage in the eyes of John was a violation of Jewish law. And therefore he is calling the king to account for his breach of God's commands. He is calling him out for having married a woman whose husband was still alive and had not divorced for any righteous cause.

And so John calls them to account. And she didn't like that. She didn't like that at all. So let's go back to the text. Well now that we've got a little bit of history let's read a little bit more. So beginning at verse 14 it says, King Herod heard of it.

Heard of what? Well he heard about the men going about preaching Jesus. He heard about these disciples, these apostles who had gone out. That's the direct reference heard of it. The it is their preaching.

So their preaching spread far and wide. It spread even to the ears of the king or the tetrarch rather. So King Herod heard of it. For Jesus name had become known and some said John the Baptist has been raised from the dead.

That is why these miraculous powers are at work in him. But others said he is Elijah and others said he is a prophet like one of the prophets of old. Now where have we heard this before? Where have we heard this expression, these expressions?

Remember when Peter gives the great confession? Every time somebody joins the church what do we get them to say? Jesus is the Christ, the son of the living God. Is it Caesarea Philippi where Peter said that and Jesus said flesh and blood has not revealed this to you but my father in heaven has revealed this to you.

What preceded that? Jesus asked who do they say that I am? And the disciples give the same record that is given here. Some say you're John the Baptist reincarnated. Some say you are one of the prophets.

Some say you're Elijah. Then Jesus said but who do you say that I am? And Peter said thou art the Christ, the son of the living God. So this particular line is not that same line because we're going to see this again in Mark that actually comes up later.

But this particular line is showing that that particular understanding of who Jesus was is actually pretty widespread. There's a lot of people who think and I don't know why anyone would think that he was John the Baptist reincarnated because he was with John the Baptist.

I guess they just didn't know that. But like him and John the Baptist grew up at the same time. Him and John the Baptist were cousins. John baptized him. It's obvious that he's not John the Baptist. Not so obvious that he's not necessarily one of the prophets reincarnated because again they don't know.

But it's obvious, it should be obvious it's not him. But when Herod, verse 16, when Herod heard of it he was convinced John has been raised. And notice what he says. John whom I beheaded. See verses 14 to 16 tie this to the what's going on.

Jesus sends out the apostles. The apostles are preaching. Herod hears about it. They say who is this man that they're preaching about? Some say he's this person. Some say he's that. And Herod says no.

I know exactly who he is. This is John and he's come back for me. You see what we see here is the fear of Herod. Herod knows of his guilt. He knows of his sin. He knows what he's done. And he, like many people, when they are guilty and they know they're guilty, they automatically begin to assume that whatever's happening is happening because of their guilt.

And so he says, John whom I beheaded has been raised. And then verse 17 down to verse 29 gives us this story which seemingly comes out of nowhere. But again, Mark gives us, and what's funny is Mark's the shortest gospel.

Mark gives us the least accounts of Jesus's life in comparison, especially to like Luke because Luke's really long and has a lot more accounts. But when Mark tells a story, he tells the whole story. Mark likes to give us a lot of information comparatively.

When he tells a story, he gives us a lot and he does here. And so beginning in verse 17, we get this narrative. And John MacArthur, when he was preaching on this text, he said this, which I thought was interesting.

I didn't check it, but I'm going to assume he was right. He said, this is the only time in Mark's gospel that the story is not about Jesus. And I thought that's interesting because this is really about John.

This whole account takes an aside. We're talking about Jesus sending the apostles, talking about Jesus doing this stuff, but then it stops. And for this short amount of time, it's just about what happened with John.

Not that Jesus is out of view, but it's focusing on John. So it says verse 17, for it was Herod who had sent and seized John and bound him in prison for the sake of Herodias, his brother Philip's wife, because he had married her.

See, there's the account that I just mentioned. This is the soap opera. For John had been saying to Herod, it is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife. And Herodias had a grudge against him and wanted to put him to death.

Herodias is not a good woman. Neither is Herod a good man. They are two peas in an evil pod. And in one sense would sort of remind you of the Jezebel of the Old Testament. You know, it just is her willingness to hate the prophet of God and want to see him destroyed.

She does. She hates him and wants to see him destroyed. But she could not, the end of verse 19, she could not, for Herod feared John, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man, and he kept him safe.

That part is eerily reminiscent of Pilate and Jesus. Because you remember when Pilate is confronted with Jesus, Pilate's intention, just flog him and send him home. You know, scourge him and send him away.

And even his wife, Pilate's wife, have nothing to do with this righteous man. And he says to the people, I find no sin, no guilt in this man. I wash my hands of this man. I don't want anything to do with him.

And again, I'm not saying it's the exact same situation. It's just reminiscent of this idea that the man in power recognizes true power. The man who's in power over men recognizes the one who comes from the man who created, the one who created man.

And that is who John is to Herod. He represents God. And so he feared him. And I do think that's important. When we read that Herod feared John, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man. And so he kept him safe.

I've told this, I've mentioned this before. And I think even in this class, I mentioned this before, so I won't go too far into it. But we are most afraid of things that are different from us. We call that xenophobia, fear of strangers, fear of differences, fear of that which is not like us.

And there's nothing more unlike us than God. That's what holy means. He is other. He is completely other than us. And when someone represents God in a way that is dramatic, like John did with Herod, he also fears him because of who he represents.

I have to tell this story. And I heard this story from R .C. Sproul. So if you want to know where I got it, it's from him. He was telling a story about a golfer who was a, like a, he was a Masters Champion golfer.

And he had the opportunity to play a round of golf with Jack Nicklaus, which is one of the greatest golfers who ever lived, the President of the United States, and Billy Graham. You've heard this story?

You said Billy Graham before I did. I don't know if you've heard this. Okay. Have y 'all heard this story? Where they went golfing? Sounds familiar? Well, what happened? They go golfing, and this professional Masters-level golfer has a horrible round.

And afterwards, he's just spitfire mad because he had such a terrible round. And he goes out, and he's just clobbering. He goes to the practice green and just starts clobbering balls out. And his friend comes up and says, what's wrong?

He said, I had a horrible round. He said, I don't need Billy Graham shoving his religion down my throat. He said, okay. He said, what did Billy say? Nothing. He was just there, right? He just represented God in that sense.

To this man, Billy Graham was holy. And it messed up his day because he was with that man. Now, think what you want about Billy Graham. I know there's, you know, people have issues with certain things, but you understand the point.

This guy saw him as someone that was special, that was holy. And Herod saw John that way. He saw John as holy, and he feared him. And so he kept him safe. And this part, this part amazes me. The last sentence in verse 20, it says, when he heard him, he was greatly perplexed, and yet he heard him gladly.

Now, there's different ways that we could take that. And I think, I think about the end of Jesus's life, where he's right fixing to go to the cross, and he's before Herod. You remember what Herod wants from Jesus?

A show. Remember, do a miracle, right? Do something, put on a show. So in that sense, when it says he heard John gladly, I wonder what that means. Was he just, was he just astounded at this man? Because I don't think he was truly listening to him based upon his life, there's no sign of repentance, there's no sign of brokenness or anything like that.

But he is listening gladly. And in what way, perhaps the novelty of it, the novelty of a truly holy man willing to say the things that no one else will. But that's the scene. His wife hates him. John wants to protect him.

I'm sorry, Herod wants to protect John, puts him in prison. But I want to say this. I do think, again, Herod is not a man that we should in any way think good things about. He's an evil man. So whatever we say, when we say protected him, don't think for a second that I'm giving him a pass.

I'm not. I'm just saying this was what the text tells us. But then we get to verse 21. And this is the fateful day. An opportunity came when Herod on his birthday gave a banquet for his nobles and military commanders and the leading men of Galilee.

The key word there is men. This is a gathering of men fighting men, military men, noble men. This was probably not much mixed company. These men did not come likely with their wives or entourages. This was a this was a men's meeting.

And that's going to play a part in a moment when we see what happens next. Because Herod has these men. And verse 22, it says, When Herodias his daughter came in and danced, she pleased Herod and his guests.

Now, the text is not altogether explicit. But there is one thing I can say beyond doubt. Salome, which is her name, and I'll tell you how we know that in a bit because it's not in the scriptures, but we do know who she is.

And I'm not sure if it's Salome or Salome. I tend to think Salome, but whichever. It's S-A-L-O-M-E. So Salome was not a ballerina. This dance was not the nutcracker. This was most likely an erotic dance.

And so the, as it were, stripper comes and performs for the king and his friends. And they enjoyed it, apparently, because in verse 23, or rather verse 22, it says,. And the king said to the girl, Ask me for whatever you wish, and I will give it to you.

And he bowed to her. Whatever you ask me, I will give you up to half my kingdom. Now, a couple things about this. Number one, Herod didn't have much of a kingdom to begin with. The Herods at this point were basically just arms of Rome.

And whatever power, whatever little power they did wield, was basically on the end of a string that was tugged whichever way it wanted to go by the leaders in Rome. We're going to see later when we talk about the epilogue of his life when Caligula comes into power, he essentially deposes Herod and sends him off to France.

So, or Gaul, what was called Gaul at that time. So his power was limited. His kingdom that he's offering her half of was not much to be impressed by. But also, this is an idiom. The idea of half my kingdom, he's not going to write her a deed to half of Galilee, or Perea, which is the areas that he was the Tetrarch over.

That was not what he was saying. He was basically saying, I'll grant you a wish. Within the realm of my power, I'll give you one wish. What do you want? And I don't know if you guys remember this. But Mike Collier reminded me of this last night, as I was sitting at his house with him.

And we were talking about this text, because he said, well, you're preaching tomorrow. And I said, I'm preaching about the death of John the Baptist. And he said, you remember what I said? No, you say a lot.

I say a lot. I don't remember what you said. Well, a few years ago, it was on Good Friday. And he was going through the history of Jesus. And he mentioned this story. And he said, and I'm quoting my brother now, and I hope I'm getting it right, something to the effect of stripper proposition receives a stripper request.

Basically, she is an immoral woman. They are immoral people. And you open the door for anything you want, you're going to get an immoral request. And that's what we see. She gives the the most rancid of requests.

I mean, if you think about it from any sense of decency, what she asks for, and the method by which she wants it presented to her is cannibalistic. Think again, what does she say? He says, ask me, I'll give it to you up to half my kingdom, verse 24.

She went out and said to her mother, what should I ask? And she said, the head of john the baptist, notice the mother doesn't mention the platter. Mother just said, bring me I just want him dead. I've wanted him dead forever.

You're dead. You're your step dad, which again, makes it really weird when you think back to the stripper part. But anyway, your stepdad wants him dead. I want him dead. He won't let me this is this is our opportunity.

So what does she say? And she went out or excuse me, she came in immediately with haste to the king and asked saying I want you to give me at once the head of john the baptist on a platter, serve it up like you would one of these lumps of meat that sit on the table that these men are consuming.

And the king was exceedingly sorry. Just so you know, I don't feel sorry for him, but he felt sorry. And the king was exceedingly sorry. But because of his oaths and his guests, he did not want to break his word to her.

Now I want to stop right there. Before we get to verse 27. I want to make a comment. The Bible is replete with men who take foolish vows. We can go back to judges with Jephthah, who vowed the first thing to come out of the door of my home, I will offer up a burnt sacrifice.

And what was it his daughter, we can go to Saul, no one's able to eat the one who eats I'm going to kill and who's who's who's suckling at the honeycomb his son Jonathan. They had to come to his rescue.

You remember, right? Mike taught on that. The one I think about most is Darius. In the book of Daniel. Remember, they said, his say traps came to him and said, we want you to make a rule that if any man prays to any other God other than you, Oh, king, that that man will be thrown into the den of lions.

And so he makes the rule and he signs it with a signet that where it can't be changed. The vow is made, the oath is made, the rule is set, it's done. And Daniel walks out on his porch, aims towards Jerusalem, like he does all the time, and he prayed.

But it was a foolish vow. It was a foolish rule, a foolish law. And that's what we see here. As I said, the only reason I feel I do think Darius, at least in one sense, sort of at the end, I don't say redeemed himself, but at least he at least he did truly care about Daniel, he prayed for him, he fasted all night when they when he came the next day and the animal the lions hadn't eaten him, at least he was happy and he threw the say traps in there instead took Daniel out.

So there's there's some redeeming qualities about Darius. But when we get to Herod, here's a man who like so many before him, made a foolish vow. Now, what should he have done? I thought about this. I really have what what what should Herod have done?

He should have said no. You say, but wait a minute, that would have made him lose face in front of his friends. Yeah, but the op the opposite is the holy man is going to lose his head. And if Herod had any scruples at all, which he doesn't.

And if he had any righteousness at all, which he doesn't, he would care more about the head of the Baptist than the face of himself. But it does remind us about the hastiness with which we make promises.

In fact, I'll give you this proverb as a thought. Proverbs chapter 20, verse 25 says it is a snare to say rashly it is holy and to reflect only after making vows. Basically saying this, we some people make promises and then think about it.

You know, you sign that you sign that credit application and then you go home and realize you don't have to pay. That's what that proverb is talking about making hasty and foolish vows. Well, John has made a hasty and foolish vow.

And because of his willingness to not lose face, verse 27, and immediately the king sent an executioner with orders to bring John's head. He went and beheaded him in prison and brought his head on a platter and gave it to the girl.

And the girl gave it to her mother. Beloved, what an ugly thought. What a presentation. What a picture. It's ghastly to consider. Verse 29 ends the narrative with one simple sentence. It says, when the disciples, when his disciples heard of it, now remember, John still had disciples.

Even though he had sent men after Jesus, some still followed him. Some still cared for him while he was in prison. We we remember the story in I think it's in John's gospel where, no, I'm sorry, it's in Matthew 11, where Jesus sends or his disciples are sent to Jesus to say, are you the one or is there another member?

So John had disciples. They were going to him. They're ministering to him in prison. I think that was God's God's provision for John. So while he was in prison, he had men who cared for him and did things for him.

But it says when his disciples heard of it, they came and took his body. And laid it in a tomb. Now, if you have your Bibles open, I just want you to I want to go one other place. Turn over to Matthew's gospel just for a moment.

And I want to read a verse or chapter 14. Go to chapter 14. There's two. There's a couple of things in this. And we're not going to I'm not going to stop at every line like I did before. But I just want to show you.

Remember, harmonizing the text are important. And this is the this is the next longest of this that we have. So just just bear with me as we read verses one to twelve quickly. Says in verse one, at that time, Herod the Tetrarch heard about the fame of Jesus and he said to his servants, this is John the Baptist.

He has been raised from the dead. That is why these miraculous powers are at work at him. Same as what we have in Mark. For Herod had seized John and bound him and put in prison for the sake of Herodias, his brother, Philip's wife, because John had been saying it is not lawful for you to have her.

Same as we have in Mark. And though he wanted to put him to death, he feared the people because they held him to be a prophet. Notice that, as I've been saying, Herod wanted him dead, too. As much as he enjoyed listening to him, as much as he got his jollies on hearing what he had to say, and as much as he thought he was a holy man, he wanted him dead, too, because he was just as much a thorn in his side as he was in the side of his wife.

So before we take any any attempt to side maybe on Herod and think that he maybe had a soft side, no, he wanted him dead, too. He just had political pressure to keep him alive. Verse six. But when Herod's birthday came, the daughter of Herodias danced before the company and pleased Herod, so that he promised with an oath to give her whatever she might ask.

Prompted by her mother, she said, Give me the head of John the Baptist here on a platter. And the king was sorry, but because of his oaths and his guests, he commanded it to be given. He sent and had John beheaded in prison, and his head was brought on a platter and given to the girl, and she brought it to her mother.

Same, same, everything we've read. But this is where the difference is. Verse 12. Big difference. And his disciples came and took the body and buried it, which means they put it in a tomb, burial and entombment, same thing.

And they went and told Jesus. That's different. Mark doesn't mention that part. And the reason why I bring it up is I've actually preached this at funerals several times. Because often in times of grief, it's hard to know what to do, especially when someone dies unexpectedly.

It's hard to know how to respond. And I've often said that Matthew chapter 14, verse 12 actually gives us a, if you will, an outline. It says his disciples came and they took his body and they buried it.

That's the first thing we do is we deal with the physical the needs. But then they went and told Jesus, that's the spiritual, because that's the part that comes after the physical is over. The most difficult thing about a funeral often is the first two or three, or not the first two or three days after the person dies, because you're so busy dealing with funerals and food and getting people together and telling people and and making sure everyone knows and then all of the things.

It's the week after the funeral that is often the hardest. Because it's at that point that the meals quit coming, the phone calls get less, cards are no longer in the mail, and you're back at work, but the person is still gone.

Now I may be reading more into this text than is here, but they went to Jesus when John died. And when somebody in our life dies, we need to go to Jesus too. That's where we need to take our pain. That's where we need to take our questions.