Relentlessly Pursue the Truth - Mark 6:17-29

The gruesome story of the beheading of John the Baptist should inspire us to be relentless in our pursuit of the truth and be courageous enough to act on that truth with conviction, no matter the consequences, even when the consequences can be very dire - as was the case in the passion of John the Baptist.
 
We live in a very difficult time right now as we try to discern what indeed is the truth, because what the world deems as truth can be quite varied, quite murky, and frequently, quite different from God's truth.
 
Let me paint it for you this way.  My wife, my son and I went on a little road trip a while back which included attending a baseball game in Cleveland.  At their (Indian's) stadium, like all other big stadiums, they have a large video screen that has multiple uses, including the ability to show instant replays of game action.
 
Well, there was this one play that was beyond description.  It included multiple rundown plays, and at every turn, the team in the field kept blundering, throwing the ball away, kicking it around like you might have seen in the Bad News Bears comedy from a number of years back. 
 
My natural reaction after watching the play, because it was so crazy, was to look up at the video screen for a replay to sort it all out. So, I looked and looked, but they never showed a replay. They show replays of virtually every play in the game, but they didn't show this one.  Why?  Because it was the home team that kicking the ball around. If you really wanted to find out what happened, you weren't going to see it on their scoreboard.  If it was the opposing team that looked bad, I'm quite certain that we would have seen that play multiple times.
 
We're always being manipulated (spun).  In all aspects of our daily life, someone is always trying to hoist a "narrative" on us, instead of allowing transparency, allowing the light of truth to show through.
 
In the political world and in our media, we find this to be the case. Liberal news networks host the Democratic primary debates and conservative networks host the Republican debates.  So our concern might rightly be, what chance do we have as voting citizens to get penetrating questions that will unveil the real truth? 
 
 
What chance do we have of a liberal moderator asking the type of question that Rick Warren asked of pro-abortion candidate Barack Obama in 2008, "When do you believe life begins?"  On the flip side, what conservative moderator will ask a Republican candidate, "How will your tax policies impact the poor?"  The casualty in all of this becomes the truth.  The truth gets buried underneath all of the spin.
 
The temptation for us is to be turned off- to do what millions of Americans do - they turn off the news, they disengage.  They avoid informative programming, and spiritually motivating programs as well.  They escape from the real issues of the day.  They instead choose to watch the many sports stations or the myriad of reality shows, all of which are harmless, non- threatening, and don't seek any deep truths- they are like (as I heard it described) bubblegum for the mind.
 
It’s not easy to relentlessly pursue the truth.  It wasn't easy in the time of John the Baptist either.  As the story goes, the King and the Queen were breaking the Jewish marriage laws against divorce and marrying relatives.  John the Baptist could have easily said, "Hey, it doesn't impact me, why get worked up about it." But he didn't - he had strong enough faith to swim upstream and fight all resistance.
 
So, the message for us today is to not just flow in the current, not to buy into the world's narratives, but to challenge ourselves to dig deeper, and to pray for discernment.  We need to pray as the Psalm today suggests, "Lord, teach us to number our days aright (in other words, help us keep our focus on you), that we may gain wisdom of heart." Jesus tells us that the spirit of truth will teach us all we need to know.
 
So, as we go through our day today, let us dig a little deeper- that our faith might become as strong as John the Baptist's.  As Christian people, we are invited to pursue the truth vigorously, then hold onto that truth, and teach it to those who have been lost in the murkiness of the world's many false truths.  We know that we are not alone in our pursuit. Jesus Christ, and all the angels and saints are with us.  The good news is... the truth, no matter how much it appears to be obscured at times, and covered up, is always attainable, and... no doubt, will always be victorious!