Biblion Bible Commentary
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Nazareth, and the Baptist's Head
Mark 6:1-29
1 He went out from there. He came into his own country, and his disciples followed him. · WEB
Hometown unbelief that amazes Jesus, twelve sent out with nothing but a staff — and between sending and return, the story of what happened to the forerunner.
"Isn't this the carpenter, the son of Mary...?" So they were offended at him Mark 6:3.
Nazareth cannot get past its own familiarity. The synagogue concedes the wisdom and the mighty works Mark 6:2 and stumbles on the résumé: the carpenter, the local family, the sisters here with us. Familiarity functions as inoculation — enough exposure to prevent the real infection of faith — and the result is the book's strangest sentence: he could do no mighty work there Mark 6:5. Not lack of power; the healings that did happen prove otherwise. Unbelief closes the door miracles serve, and Jesus marveled because of their unbelief Mark 6:6 — one of two things that amaze him in the Gospels, the other being a Gentile's faith Matthew 8:10.
He called to himself the twelve, and began to send them out two by two... He commanded them that they should take nothing for their journey, except a staff only Mark 6:7–8.
The apprenticeship becomes practice: authority delegated, and provisions forbidden. No bread, no bag, no money — the mission is designed to run on hospitality received, so that the messengers arrive needy and leave dependent on the homes that take them in Mark 6:10. The dust-shaking for the towns that refuse Mark 6:11 leaves judgment where it belongs, with God at the day of judgment; the preachers' only weapons are the message and their own visible reliance on it. They go, preach repentance, cast out, anoint, heal Mark 6:12–13 — the master's ministry running in six directions at once.
But Herod, when he heard this, said, "This is John, whom I beheaded. He has risen from the dead" Mark 6:16.
While the twelve are out, Mark tells the story that explains Herod's guilty arithmetic — the book's only extended narrative not about Jesus, and it is here as a preview: this is what the world does to God's messengers. The anatomy of the murder deserves its detail. Herod feared John, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man, and kept him safe... and he heard him gladly Mark 6:20 — a king who liked his prophet's preaching and would not obey it, holding conviction at the exact distance where it entertains without changing anything.
The king was exceedingly sorry, but for the sake of his oaths and of his dinner guests, he didn't wish to refuse her Mark 6:26.
The trap springs at a birthday feast: a dance, a drunken oath, a daughter sent to consult her mother, and the request — right now the head of John the Baptizer on a platter Mark 6:25. Herod's sorrow is real and worthless; he weighs a prophet's life against the embarrassment of retracting a toast in front of guests, and the guests win. It is Mark's study of how weak men do murder — not by hating the victim but by fearing the audience Proverbs 29:25. John's disciples take up the corpse and lay it in a tomb Mark 6:29; the forerunner has now gone before his Lord in death as in preaching, and the pattern stands published for the twelve who are, at this moment, out preaching.
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