Saturday in the Seventeenth Week of Ordinary Time, August 5, 2023

Matthew 14, 1-12

Herod the tetrarch heard of the reputation of Jesus and said to his servants, “This man is John the Baptist. He has been raised from the dead; that is why mighty powers are at work in him.” Now Herod had arrested John, bound him, and put him in prison on account of Herodias, the wife of his brother Philip, for John had said to him, “It is not lawful for you to have her.” Although he wanted to kill him, he feared the people, for they regarded him as a prophet. But at a birthday celebration for Herod, the daughter of Herodias performed a dance before the guests and delighted Herod so much that he swore to give her whatever she might ask for. Prompted by her mother, she said, “Give me here on a platter the head of John the Baptist.” The king was distressed, but because of his oaths and the guests who were present, he ordered that it be given, and he had John beheaded in the prison. His head was brought in on a platter and given to the girl, who took it to her mother. His disciples came and took away the corpse and buried him; and they went and told Jesus. 

The deep influence of St. John the Baptist required the Gospel writers to record more about him than any other figure apart from Jesus.  They provide us with greater information about John the Baptist than even about the Lord’s own Mother and foster-father.  And while St. Luke gives us many words from the mouth of Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, we never hear St. Joseph, the Lord’s foster-father, speak at all.  The Baptist, even in death, seemed to overshadow the Lord Jesus, for some people believed the Jesus was John the Baptist or perhaps had received a “portion” of his spirit, much as the prophet Elisha received from the prophet Elijah before the fiery chariot carried him up to heaven (cf. 2 Kings 2, 9).  Indeed, John’s harsh manner of life and his fierce, relentless preaching marked him out as the prophet the Jews had anxiously awaited since the death of their last prophet, Malachi, over four hundred years before.

 In much a similar manner to Elijah, John the Baptist got into trouble with a ruler over his wife (although here Herod Antipas is called a “king” his title was only that of “tetrarch”).  Herod’s wife Herodias was both the divorced wife of his brother Philip and also his niece, and thus the marriage went contrary to the law of Moses on two counts, though in the Gospels John the Baptist is shown as harping on the first.  John’s hold on the Judean people and Herod’s shaky position as tetrarch resulted in Herod and Herodias feeling seriously threatened by him, and so John was arrested.  We are not given any details of the arrest.  It would have been interesting to compare the details of his arrest with those of Jesus’s, three years later.  At the same time, Herod hesitated in killing John because of his popularity.  St. Mark gives us an insight into Herod’s state of mind regarding John at this time: “When he heard him speak he was very much perplexed, yet he liked to listen to him”  (Mark 6, 20).  From this, it seems that Herod either had John brought to him on occasion or that he went into the prison in his for tree in order to listen to him.  Either way, John’s forceful personality and the authority of his words exercised some hold even on an essentially non practicing Jew like Herod.  Later, this same “perplexity” caused Herod to want to see Jesus, who only stood silently before him when Pontius Pilate sent Jesus to him (cf. Luke 23, 8-9).

Herod would likely have kept John alive in his prison indefinitely had it not been for Herod’s lust.  Seeing the daughter of his niece/wife Herodias dance at his own birthday party, he promised the girl anything she wanted, even up to a part of territory which he ruled.  The girl, who would not have been married at the time and so would be in her early teens, went to her mother, who had more reason to feel threatened by John the Baptist than her husband.  Herod, after all, could have appeased John and his large following by divorcing his problematic wife.  Seizing her opportunity, she told her to ask for the head of the prophet.  Politically, this made sense for the girl as well as for the mother since John’s death could mean that his following would disappear and Herodias’s (and her daughter’s) position at court would be assured, st least in the short run.  

However, John had completed his sacred mission of preparing the way for the Son of God, and many of his disciples, during his life and after his death, joined with Jesus — he himself encouraging them to do so.  During his time in prison John’s followers kept him informed of the miraculous deeds and words of the Lord Jesus, of his growing following, so that he could know that he had, as St. Paul would later say, “I am even now ready to be sacrificed: and the time of my dissolution is at hand. I have fought a good fight: I have finished my course: I have kept the faith. As to the rest, there is laid up for me a crown of justice which the Lord the just judge will render to me” (2 Timothy, 4, 6-8).