Matthew 14:1-2 (NIV) At that time Herod the tetrarch heard the reports about Jesus, and he said to his attendants, “This is John the Baptist; he has risen from the dead! That is why miraculous powers are at work in him.”
Many people in times of stress show themselves to be more superstitious than they believe themselves to be. Part of this tendency is that people easily become the center of their own universe, and begin to interpret things based on their own feelings, their own thought patterns, and even their own guilt, instead of on the genuine truths that God has revealed.
Herod fell into all three of these categories. He heard about the miracles that Jesus was doing, and instantly responded in fear. He had been pushed into having John executed, and ever since that day had lived under a dark cloud of guilt. He had known at the time that John was a righteous man, and he hated himself for giving the order to have him beheaded. In that action he saw his own smallness, his own powerlessness. He was supposed to be a powerful man, the king of the Jews, but he had been so easily manipulated and trapped in his own words that he wondered who he really was.
Herod had always slept uneasily, but now his sleep was even more disturbed. Surely God would somehow punish him for killing a man that was undoubtedly a genuine prophet. But he had no idea from which direction the punishment would come, or what form it would take.
But now he was terrified at the thought that John had risen from the dead, and was able to exercise miraculous powers. There was no way that Herod could fight that! If John suddenly appeared on his doorstep ready to take vengeance on him, maybe striking him and his household with a plague of some sort, there was no way that he could defend himself against that! So Herod was tormented, looking over his shoulder constantly, ever waiting for God’s wrath to fall on him out of the sky, or for the grim specter of John to appear at his door. Such is the power of guilt!
Father, guilt really can drive us into strange and tragic places. How much better, when we feel guilty, to simply come to You in repentance to receive forgiveness. It is tragic that so many allow shame to keep them from coming to You, but simply choose to live with the guilt, or to try to medicate it away or distract themselves from their guilty feelings. Every cover-up we devise is always illusory, but Your forgiveness is real and reconciles us to Yourself. Give us the grace that we need to truly repent, so that we can receive true forgiveness. Amen.