Murderous Power of Grudges and Saving Power of Forgiveness– Reflection of the Passion of John the Baptist in light of Jesus’ Passion

August 29 is the memorial feast of the passion of John the Baptist. John (not to be confused with John, one of the Apostles and the evangelist who wrote the Gospel of John and his epistles, also penned down the Book of Revelation) was a social reformer and prophet, just before Jesus began his public ministry in Galilee.  Because he is the son of Elizabeth, an elder cousin of Mary, the mother of Jesus, John is considered as Jesus’ cousin.  While he was still in Elizabeth’s womb, John leaped for joy, as Mary with Jesus in her womb, visited his mother (Luke 1:44).

Both John’s birth and Jesus’ birth resulted from rather highly unusual circumstances, as Elizabeth’s pregnancy was rather a miracle for her post-menopause age after years of infertility, while Mary’s virgin pregnancy was a great mystery of the power of the Holy Spirit. Interestingly, there is a similarity between the way John the Baptist died and the way Jesus died, to some extent, as well as a certain parallel aspect between the life of John the Baptist and the life of Jesus. In remembering how John the Baptist died on his memorial feast, let us take a quick look at John’s life in comparison to Jesus’.

Luke 1 tells (especially v.26), John was 6 months ahead of Jesus in conception.  As to prepare for Jesus’ public ministry, John was preaching for penance, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near”(Matthew 3:2), also citing Isaiah 40:3, “A voice of one calling in the wilderness, 'Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him’ ”(Matthew 3:3), while baptizing people in the Jordan River.  As Jesus also taught penance (i.e. Luke 15:7) and the imminence of the Kingdom (i.e. Matthew 4:17), John the Baptist was a harbinger of Jesus, and Jesus’ teaching for salvation was built upon the teaching of John.

John’s function as a forerunner of Jesus is not only in regard to his teaching but also his death, given what amounted to John’s execution.  In fact, the tetrarch Herod Antipas found John to be a “problem”  because of his teaching. Thus, Herod arrested and imprisoned John.

So, why did Herod found John’s teaching to be a “problem” ?

It has a lot do with Herod’s “marriage” to Herodias.

In order to understand the connection between Herod’s “marriage” and the beheading of John the Baptist, we must go beyond what is written in the scripture in regard to Herod’s relation to Herodias.  Consulting Flavius Josephus’ “Antiquities of the Jews” is helpful in this regard.

Herod Antipas was first married to Phasaelis, daughter of Nabateans king, Aretas IV Philopatris. However, when he visited Rome, he developed a crush on the beautiful wife of his half-brother, Herod II (a.k.a. Herod Philip I).  He seduced Herodias to be his wife and divorced his original wife, Phasaelis. Herodias moved  where Herod was the tetrarch with her daughter with Philip, Salome.  Thus, Herod became a step-father to Salome by his adulterous “marriage” to her mother, Herodias.

To understand Herod’s motive to arrest John, we must understand his adulterous “marriage” to Herodias, who was his brother’s wife (Mark 6:17). Because John had told Herod of his “marriage”’s illegality, not only Herod but also Herodias found John quite disturbing, as Mark 6:18-19 suggest. The scripture verses make it clear that Herodias harbored grudge (ἐνέχω/enecho) against John for criticizing her adulterous “marriage” to Herod, prompting Herod to imprison him. Herod personally wanted to kill John (Matthew 14:5), as Herodias did (Mark 6:19). While Herodias did not have the power to kill John, Herod hesitated of killing him because of his fear of John, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man (Mark 6:19-20). Thus, John remained in Herod’s “protective” confinement, despite the fact that both Herod and Herodias wanted him to be killed.

The sin that Herod and Herodias committed, adultery, is grave and punishable by death, according to the Mosaic Law (Leviticus 20:10), and this is what John the Baptist pointed out. No wonder both Herod and Herodias wanted to “get rid of” John.

Then, it was on the occasion of Herod’s birthday banquet to prompt John’s execution.

During the banquet, Salome, the daughter of Herodias from her previous marriage, pleased Herod for her dance performance for his birthday.  To reward this girl for her wonderful performance, Herod told Salome, with his oath,  that he would grant whatever she wanted him to give her (Mark 6:22-23). Then, Salome asked Herod to give her the head of John the Baptist on a platter immediately (Mark 6:25). To this request from Salome, Herod was not only surprised but rather distressed (Mark 6:26), because of his fear of John.  However, at the same time, Herod did not want to refuse Salome’s request for he was bound by his own oath and did not want to lose his face in front of the banquet guest (Mark 6:26).

Herod had a choice – an option to refuse Salome’s request out of his fear of John, his some respect for John as a holy righteous man, and an option to accept her request out of his pride. He chose to follow his pride rather than his remaining conscience, which made him afraid of John for his righteousness, as he ordered the beheading of John the Baptist on the spot (Mark 6:27). Following the execution, the head of John the Baptist on a dinner plate was delivered to Salome, and she gave it to her mother, Herodias (Mark 6:27-28). This is how John the Baptist was disposed.

John was captured, imprisoned, and beheaded, for his preaching for repentance, virtuousness, and the coming of the Kingdom. Later, his cousin, was captured, tortured, and crucified to death, for his teaching of repentance, virtuousness, and the Kingdom.

Psychologically, what led to the execution of John the Baptist was Herodias’ grudge and Herod’s pride to save his face to Salome and his birthday banquet guests. However, underneath the grudge and pride, there was deep-seated fear of John’s confrontation of their own grave sin of adultery. Salome’s request served as a convenient excuse to get rid of Herod’s fear of John’s criticism of his sin by having him killed, overcoming his fear of him for his righteousness and holiness. This psychological aspect behind John’s execution has some similarity to Jesus’ execution.

What mounted to the execution of Jesus was Jesus’ persistent confrontation and challenge to the hypocrisy and sins of the religious leaders. Because of this, Jesus became a threat to their position. For this reason, high priest Caiaphas said, “It is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish”(John 11:50), conspire the Roman authority to see Jesus as a security threat to the Roman Empire. Then, they tried  to make  the Roman Governor, Pontius Pilate, believe that Jesus claim himself as the King of the Jews, to let Jesus be executed by the Roman authority. In addition to fear of Jesus, Matthew 27:18 indicates that the religious authority led Jesus to execution out of their envy (φθόνος/phthonos). The Greek word (noun), “phthonos” also means “grudge” . Thus, there is a similarity to Herodias’ desire to have John the Baptist be killed. Mark 6:19 describes Herodias’ action of “ἐνέχω/enecho” (verb – to hold grudge against) against John.

Both John the Baptist and Jesus were killed as a result of wicked persons’ holding of grudges (ἐνέχω/enecho; φθόνος/phthonos).  The wicked, who killed these righteous and holy men, John the Baptist and Jesus, because of their intra-psychic insecurity, resulting in fear, feeling threatened by John and Jesus, then further progressing into grudges.

The intra-psychic insecurity that the wicked, who tend to hold grudges, against those who make them feel threatened, have a very unstable sense of self. It is a symptom of no faith or a lack of faith. On the other hand, those who have developed secure attachment with God in their faith are not likely to feel threatened and, therefore, do not hold grudges against those who challenge them. A good example of this is King David. Though David also seduced the wife of Uriah and even plotted to have Uriah killed to steal her from him (2 Samuel 11). To this grave sins of David, Nathan confronted. David could have killed Nathan for pointing out his sins, had he been like Herod and Herodias. However, David was able to repent with Nathan’s tactful confrontation of his sin (2 Samuel 12). Given his secure attachment with God, as reflected in his Psalms, David did not hold grudge against Nathan. Rather, David corrected himself by seeking mercy from God, whom he always trusted.

Those who are in the religious authority, who plotted to have Jesus killed, made themselves extremely pious and law-abiding. However, as Jesus pointed, their piety is hypocritical as their primary motive was self-glorification. It was more like that they rather worshipped the law than God, in ways to practice self-justification in the name of God. As their hearts were not really turned to God, they did not develop secure attachment with God. Therefore, they were not able to repent and turned their hearts to God, upon Jesus’ confrontation. Rather, they became angry at him and harbored grudges, as Herodias did against John the Baptist. However, as Herodias herself did not have the authority to kill John, the religious leaders did not have the power to kill Jesus. For this reason, they conspired the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, to order the execution of Jesus.

Considering how John the Baptist and Jesus were killed by the grudges of the wicked but why David did not hold grudge against Nathan, there is a psychological lesson, based on the finding of a research study by Burnette et al. (2007)* that secure attachment with God minimizes the risk of acting with grudges,  like Herod Antipas, Herodias, and the religious leaders of the time of Jesus. Secure attachment with God enables us to let go of grudges, even such emotions can be formed in us. This is truly a saving power of forgiveness, rooted in the secure attachment.

After all, God has said, “You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the sons of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am the Lord”(Leviticus 19:18).

Furthermore, Jesus has taught,  "I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven”(Matthew 16:19).

*Burnette, J. L., Taylor, K.W., Worthington, E. L., & Forsyth, D.R. (2007). Attachment and trait forgivingness: The mediating role of angry rumination, Personality and Individual Differences, 42(8), 1585-1596

Lent-Eastertide Journey Completes with Pentecost: A Pastoral Psychological Perspective

Veni, sancte spiritus!  Veni creator spiritus! Come Holy Spirit!

We awaits the coming of the Holy Spirit. We wait for the Holy Spirit to be poured upon us! We prepare for Pentecost to conclude the 50 days of Eastertide.

Eastertide is the post-resurrection spiritual journey for us to cultivate and renew our object relation to Jesus, through prayer and reflection of his Word. In fact, given the continuity between Lent and Eastertide, in terms of the nature of our spiritual journey, Pentecost is the finale of the Lent-Eastertide spiritual journey from Ash Wednesday, passing the Paschal Triduum into the post-resurrection Eastertide toward Pentecost – so that we can stand on our feet to bear witness of the Lord, whom we are so intimate.

Through this blog article, I want to reflect our spiritual journey toward Pentecost juxtaposing the flow of the Eastertide Gospel readings to a path of object relationship development in psychology.

So, let’s begin the review with this question:

What did Lent prepared us for?     Of course, Easter!

So, we spent 40 days from Ash Wednesday, purifying our hearts, cleansing our sins, letting our sinfulness and defilement die, projecting on Jesus, the Lamb of God, who died on the Cross.  That was Lent. Then, on the third day, Jesus rose from the dead, by the power of the Holy Spirit, sent by the Father.  Our new life with clean heart also sprung upon letting our old sinful life die. That was how the 50 days of Eastertide began, as Lent gave its way to Easter.

Then, what has Eastertide prepared us for?  Ascension and Pentecost!

For the first 40 days of Eastertide, we have gotten much closer to Christ, the risen Lord.

As he did to the disciples walking to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35), Jesus has helped us better understand his teaching through the Gospel readings throughout Eastertide (John 20:1-9 (Easter Sunday); John 20:19-31 (2^nd Sunday of Easter – Divine Mercy Sunday); Luke 24:35-48 (3^rd Sunday of Easter); John 10:11-18 (4^th Sunday of Easter – Good Shepherd Sunday); John 15:1-8 (5^th Sunday of Easter); John 15:9-17 (6^th Sunday of Easter); Mark 16:15-20 (Ascension – Ascension Sunday in place of the 7^th Sunday of Easter); John 17:11b-19 (7^th Sunday of Easter)) .  For the first three Sundays, Jesus assured us that he is risen and comforted us. Then, for the rest of Sundays during Eastertide, until Ascension, Jesus explained his object relations with the Father and with us.  Jesus described his object relation with the Father as a secure attachment. Then, Jesus describes his object relation with us in the same pattern as his with the Father – a secure attachment. For this, he used a metaphor of a shepherd and sheep. He also used another metaphor of the vine and its securely attached branches. For the shepherd-sheep relational metaphor, the Father is the one who commissioned the shepherd and provided sheep. For the vine-branches metaphor, the Father is the vine grower.

Upon describing his object relations with the Father and us, Jesus goes on to explain the essential quality of the relationship that put the Father, him (the Son), and us.  He tells that it is agape – as in his mandatum novum (John 13:34).  During the Last Supper, Jesus first demonstrated what he means by loving each other as he has loved through his washing of the disciples’ feet (John 13).

Jesus reiterated the new commandment to love one another as he has loved to tell us what it means to be the branches attached to him the true vine.  It is what makes our relationship to each other harmonious. And, Jesus further challenges us to take this loving each other command to the level of sacrificing our own lives for each other, as he, the Good Shepherd lays his own life for his sheep.

With this, Jesus feels that we are ready to handle his departure – until his return (parousia)  at the end of time.  He thinks that now our attachment with Jesus is secure enough to let Jesus return to the Father to be seated at the right hand of Him. In an analogy of developmental psychologies of Jean Piaget, now our spiritual growth is mature enough to recognize Jesus’ constant close presence, even though he is no longer physically present.  So, using Piaget’s term,  I call that now we are at the point of spiritual object permanence. Of course, as John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth describe what secure attachment between a mother and her child enables, it is our secure attachment with Jesus enabling us to know that his physical absence in our sight does not mean abandoning.  To put it in Erik Erikson’s term, our secure attachment with Jesus means a firm trust between us. And, the secure attachment, characterized with mutual trust, enables us to attain spiritual object permanence, upon his Ascension.

In fact, for the 4^th Sunday (Good Shepherd Sunday), 5^th Sunday, and 6^th Sunday, the Gospel readings  are aimed for us to ensure that we cultivate healthy object relation with the risen Christ, characterized with our spiritual maturity founded upon secure attachment to Christ and based trust. Because of this foundation,  by the end of the 6^th week of Eastertide, Jesus feels confident about our spiritual maturity to demonstrate our spiritual object permanence to accept his Ascension, without suffering from traumatic grief.

When Jesus died on the Cross, we suffered from traumatic grief, compounded with our guilt and remorse for our sins, which killed him. Our grief was so severe, in part, due to a lack of our spiritual maturity and not developing health object relation with Jesus upon trust-based secure attachment.  However, this time, we have grown in faith and matured in spirit, as we have cultivated healthy object relation with Christ, based on trust-filled secure attachment, upon his resurrection.

So, here we are, we are able to let Jesus depart from us through Ascension, so that he can move on to his eschatological mission as his next call by the Father.  It is reflected in Revelation 19, the Parousia.  This is, in fact, foretold in John 14:1-4, 28.  Jesus makes it clear in these verses of John’s Gospel that his Ascension is to prepare for the end of time and to secure our place in heaven upon the Judgement.

Additionally, Jesus also explains meaning of his Ascension in regard to the Holy Spirit, which completes the object relations of Jesus with us in Trinity.

Basically, Ascension of the risen Christ is an absolutely necessary step for  Parakletos to come to us.

Up to this point, the Holy Spirit was pneuma, which is a neutral term in Greek in the New Testament. Preceding the New Testament time, the Holy Spirit was ruah, which is a feminine Hebrew word, ever present since before God began His creation (Genesis 1:2). Ruah also gave life to Adam, as it came in the form of Creator God’s breath, as ruah is the divine breath of life (Genesis 2:7). At that moment, the prototype of flesh (clay) became the living flesh as the Holy Spirit, ruah, was infused in, animating it. This scene in Genesis is evoked again, on the evening of Jesus’ resurrection, as the risen Lord put his breath (pneuma) upon the disciples, calling his breath as the Holy Spirit (John 20:21-22), as in the Gospel reading for Pentecost Sunday.

In this regard, as what ruah Elohim the (the breath/life/ Spirit of God) did to clay to become animated flesh of Adam in Genesis 2:7 is renewed as the risen Jesus breathes upon his disciples in John 20:22, as a precursor to Pentecost.  With these scriptural connection, now we can see  ruah Elohim, pneuma, and parakletos are essentially the same.  Also, considering these to be on the same spectrum running from the Genesis on to the point of Pentecost, we now understand  how ruah Elohim (the breath of God in the Old Testament) evolves into parakletos (the Holy Spirit, as Advocate, Comforter, and Counselor, as promised by Jesus through Ascension for Pentecost) , though these are the same pneuma tou theo/theopneustos (the breath of God, the God-breathed condition).  Focusing on this consistency of the Holy Spirit, stemming from the very beginning in Genesis is so critically important for us to attain spiritual object permanence upon Ascension and for parakletos to come upon us on Pentecost.

Understanding the consistency of the Holy Spirit is the very essence of our object relation with Jesus, the Son, and the Father. Thus, this is the bottom line of our object relation to the Triune God.  In this, we understand that manifestation of God may transmorphs or even transmogrify but God Godself in His essence as in the ruah-pneuma-parakletos consistency is immutable, as Thomas Aquinas’ argument in Summa Theologica Question 9.

Just before Jesus Ascends, he assures, too, that we are never be left like orphans (John 14:18). Upon his departure from us in flesh, he also promises that we will remain with us in spirit, given the consistence in Jesus’ messages in John 14:16,20, 15:4, and Matthew 28:20. For this, he teaches us that Pentecost, the infusion of the powerful Holy Spirit, ruah-pneuma-parakletos, upon us is a proof of his pre-Ascension promise, which we have come to better understand through the Eastertide Gospel readings.

So, Jesus instructs to be still and wait for the Holy Spirit to come and to be poured upon us. Namely, this is the baptism of the Holy Spirit that fortifies the effects of the Sacrament of Baptism.

Jesus had to Ascend for Pentecost to happen on us as said in these words: “Unless I go away, the Parakletos (Advocate, Counselor, Comforter) will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you” (John 16:7).

Now, what does Pentecost equip us  for with the Holy Spirit as the power, as said in Acts 1:8?

Mission!  It’s our mission to build the Kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven!

The Gospel reading for Ascension (Mark 16:15-20), which is also comparable to Matthew 28:16-20, sums up what Ascension prepared us for, which is Pentecost, does.

As Jesus’s physical presence on earth goes away from the world through Ascension,  Pentecost becomes possible to take place  in the world so that we, the believers, receives the power and whatever else necessary to carry on the mission of the Lord – until his eschatological return (parousia) in Revelation 19. The mission is to build the Kingdom of God, the web of agape-filled object relations with one another, reflecting the Father-Son secure attachment (i.e. John 10:30, 38; John 14:10; John 17:21). Its ultimate essence is agape that is strong enough to give our own lives for our love objects, as exemplified by Jesus (John 10:11, 15:13). What makes our agape strong enough to be able to lay our own lives down for each other, our love objects in our object relations in faith, is the Holy Spirit as the power (Acts 1:8) and shepherding of Parakletos (John 14:26).

As the He breathed into the clay to bring life to Adam (Genesis 2:7), and impregnated Mary with God incarnate, Jesus, the Son (Matthew 1:18), as risen Jesus breathed upon the disciples (John 20:22), the Father is about to pour his mighty ruah-pneuma upon us on Pentecost, as our Parakletos to give new birth to the Church, whose fabric is our agape-based object relations. 

So, upon receiving the powerful Holy Spirit poured upon us, we become so energized and loaded with manifold gift of the Holy Spirit. Our response to Pentecost, therefore, is charismatization!

Through charismatization by the Holy Spirit, we have become more mature being in faith, fuller in our agape-based object relation in our Triune God – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.