Sin never really goes away until we repent, confess and let God put it all back together. And Herod is the perfect example.
Did you hear it? At the beginning of today’s Gospel we are told that people were saying that Jesus was really John the Baptist, come back from the dead. And the one who really seems to believe this ghost story is Herod, who had the Baptist beheaded.
You heard that story too. How Herod has John the Baptist imprisoned after John told him that it was sinful for him to marry his sister-in-law. Now put yourself in Herod’s shoes. He knows it was wrong to marry his sister-in law and he knows it was wrong to put the man who told him that it was wrong in prison…and now they are urging him to kill John the Baptist, and he knows that would be the worst sin of all!
But then, thanks to the urging of Salome, Herod commits the greatest sin of all, and beheads John the Baptist.
Which brings us back to the beginning of today’s Gospel, as Herod’s sin, like some ghostly specter, is haunting him and gnawing at his soul.
For that’s the way sin is. It eats you up, until you spit it out, confess it, and let God put it all back together for you.
