Mark 6:14-16
Popularity,
notoriety, celebrity, trending. Being known can have it disadvantages. Today
one selfie can put you in a lot of hot water. Once it hits social media, there
is no telling where it might end up. You don’t even have to be famous for your
photo to go viral. But if you are popular, have notoriety, are a celebrity you
might end up trending. Within minutes millions of people can see your photo.
The
problem with this type of connectivity is that we generally don’t broadcast the
best in people. We catch famous Hollywood stars without their makeup, showing
too much fat, with clothing malfunctions. We don’t catch them helping the poor
while trying to remain anonymous. We don’t catch kindness on film. Compassion
doesn’t sell. Rumors of caring don’t continue for long, if started in the first
place.
You
see, we are a people who feed on bad news. We thrive on the trivial, mostly
unimportant drivel of the day, week, month and year. We would rather know the
type of dress than the fact of and the impact of the lie. We want to hear bad
news about other people, but we avoid hearing bad news that impacts us
directly. We truly are a strange lot!
In
Jesus day, long before selfies, when the King knew your name, and you had never
met, your name had to be well known. Normal, everyday people weren’t known by
the King. He was too important for the likes of us.
But
Jesus’ name had become well known. His teaching and the miracles that He did
were so unusual that He would definitely be trending on Twitter. There would be
photos of some of the people healed and Jesus, although Jesus might have turned
away at the last second. He really didn’t want any publicity.
For
the King, guilt drove his opinion of who Jesus was. He had killed John the
Baptist, knowing he was innocent, believing him to be a righteous person.
Others put Jesus in the category of Old Testament prophet, a pretty select
group.
This
also says something about the King’s theology. He thought that people could
come back from the dead. For him it was almost a “haunting” event. John came
back to get him. He rose in order to make Herod feel his guilt. There seems like
there is even some paranoia present. Maybe the King needed a psych evaluation.
Of
course even today there are many opinions about Jesus’ identity, many based on
rumor and assumptions. There are popular opinions that trend like guilt: they
avoid any touch with reality. They avoid any facts. They dismiss any hard
evidence.