Mark 6:14-16

The Mission (2) – Arousing Opposition

Mark 6:14-16 – Herod Senses Threat

Mark probably included the following episode for two reasons.

Firstly, it would serve to highlight the political climate in which Jesus’ ministry, and that of the disciples, was being exercised. What had happened to John could happen to Jesus (and the disciples). Mark had mentioned some time back that some Pharisees had begun to plot with Herodians how to eliminate Jesus (3:6). The message of God’s Kingdom did impinge in fact on the political realities of the day. To confine morality to the purely private realm is to misunderstand it.

¹⁴ King Herod heard about him, for his name had become well known.

Herod, in fact, had been almost paranoid about security. He had even killed members of his own family who he feared could have been a threat to his power. It was not surprising that the activities of Jesus should have become personally known to Herod, especially if the mission of the disciples had been as extensive as Mark had painted it. Herod would have had “intelligence” agents constantly on the move around his Kingdom.

The other reason why Mark placed the incident precisely here was to keep alive the question raised earlier on the lips of the amazed disciples: Just who exactly is Jesus (4:41)?

People were saying

that John the Baptist had risen from the dead,

and therefore his deeds of power were effected;

¹⁵ others said he was Elijah;

others again said he was the prophet,

or one of the prophets.

Similar rumours about Jesus would be mentioned again as the narrative unfolded (8:27-28). In his depiction of John at the height of his mission, Mark had emphasised John’s garb, portraying it in the words used in the Hebrew Scriptures to describe Elijah (1:6). Jesus would comment in time about John that in some ways the rumours were not wrong.

Why Elijah?

The reference to Elijah needs to be understood in the light of the writings of the prophet Malachi, the last of the Hebrew prophets. Malachi’s writings had concluded with the following verses:

See, the day is coming, burning like an oven,

when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble...

But for you who revere my name

the sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings.

You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall... (Malachi: 4:1,2)

Lo, I will send you the prophet Elijah

before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes.

He will turn the hearts of parents to their children

and the hearts of children to their parents,

so that I will not come and strike the land with a curse. (Malachi: 4:5-6)

Some people at least had suspected that with the advent of Jesus God was about to intervene powerfully in his world. Not knowing what to make of Jesus, and being uncertain about the full import of Malachi’s words about Elijah, it was not surprising that those people suspected that Jesus himself might have been Elijah.

¹⁶ When Herod heard the rumours, he said,

“It is John, the one I killed -

he has been raised.”

Herod’s own suspicion possibly indicated his fear. If John were in fact once more alive and on mission, he would have constituted the same danger that he had been before, and with even greater credibility and invulnerability.

Next >> Mark 6:17-32