Life of Christ 72
John the Baptist is dead. When exactly this happens
Scripture doesn't make clear
though the story of the event itself is found in Matthew 14.1-12. John, being the unflinching preacher of righteousness that he was, did not hesitate to call Herod
Antipas out on his completely unacceptable behavior, and it ended up costing him
his head.
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| The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist, Caravaggio, 1608 |
At
the death of his father, Herod the Great, 32 years before, Herod Antipas had
been given Galilee and Perea (the area directly east of the Jordan River
bordering Samaria and Judea). Along the way, he married an Arab princess.
Herodias,
the daughter of a Jewish high priest and the granddaughter of Herod the Great,
married Herod the Great's main son, Herod Philip. Herod Philip was expected to
succeed his father on the throne of a united Palestine, but when his mother was
found to be plotting against Herod the Great Herod Philip was exiled. Herodias,
long dreaming of being a queen, now found herself exiled with this no longer a
possibility.
On
an extended visit by Herod Antipas to his half-brother Herod Philip's house in
exile, Herodias seduced Herod Antipas. After all, Herod Philip no longer had
any possibility of being a king while Herod Antipas still did. She divorced
Herod Philip and Herod Antipas, divorcing his Arab princess, which resulted in a war with his father in law, promptly took his brother's wife (and his own
niece) as his wife.
Herodias
was clearly operating without the aid of a moral compass. Not only did she
divorce her husband when it seemed he could no longer offer her what she
wanted, but she also encouraged her daughter, Salome, to dance lasciviously
before Salome's step-father and Herodias' new husband, Herod Antipas. Having
read enough of Roman history I have little trouble imagining that such
activities stopped with dancing.
Ironically,
or justly (depending on your point of view), Herodias' life ended the worse for
her switch from one brother to the other. Desiring to be called a queen in name
as well as in actuality she pressured Herod Antipas to travel to Rome and ask
Caesar for the right to be called king in Galilee as his father, Herod the
Great, had been. This infuriated Caesar, who promptly removed Herod Antipas
from his position ruling over Galilee and Perea and exiled him to a remote part
of Gaul (now France). He and Herodias died in that obscure place, dishonored,
with the wreck of their dreams around them, having fallen far from their past
lives.
When
these actions on the part of Herod Antipas and Herodias came to public
knowledge John the Baptist roundly denounced them both for it. At first, it
only seemed to cost the Baptist his freedom, but Herodias' vengeance would not
be denied, and Salome's lewd behavior became the price of John the Baptist's
head. Jesus said it well in Matthew 11.11 when He
paid tribute to John with these words, 'Among them that are born of women there
hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist'. With his passing went the
first man to be accounted a prophet in Israel in nearly four centuries, the
baptizer of Jesus Christ, and the conscience of a nation.
John,
of course, never called himself great. 'He said, I am the voice of one crying
in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord' (John 1.23). I realize he
was quoting Old Testament prophecy, but what a wonderful turn of phrase to use
to describe the position, work, and boldness of the God called preacher. A man
of God is to be the voice for God, rather than the voice of himself, or the
voice of his culture, generation, and age.
Many
years ago, as a young boy, I heard a presentation from a Bible college singing
group that I have never forgotten. It made my spine tingle then, and it did
again when I found it recently after a lag of 30 years. It perfectly
encapsulates this thought, and I managed to hunt it up. Forgive the poor
quality of the audio, but it is worth the two minutes it will take you to
listen to it.
The
voice of John the Baptist was stilled by the headsman's ax. The voice of the
preacher in the clip you just heard was stilled by a heart attack. My voice,
too, someday, will be stilled in death. May God grant that He may continue to
raise up voices all around this sin-sick world to speak, with boldness and
power, not their own message, or the message that the crowd would like to hear,
but the simple message that God has given them to speak.
The
Israel of Jesus' day needed a voice, and it found one in John the Baptist. The
America of our day, indeed, the entire world, is in desperate need of a voice.
What are you
doing with yours?
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