Ep. 42: The death of John
CLICK HERE for the corresponding devotional in Yeshua Adored
MATTHEW 14:1-12, MARK 6:14-29, LUKE 9:7-9
In these circumstances, we empathise with John’s disciples, as months of this weary captivity pass. In their view, there must have been a terrible contrast between he who lay in the dungeon and he who sat down to eat and drink at a feast of the publicans. Jesus’ reception of publicans and sinners they could understand; their own master had not rejected them. But why eat and drink with them? The Pharisees, in their anxiety to create division, must have told them all this again and again and pointed to the contrast. Drumming away relentlessly to create division between the two camps. At any rate, it was at the instigation of the Pharisees that the disciples of John asked Jesus this question about fasting and prayer.
Rabbinism gave an altogether external aspect to fasting. In their view, it was the readiest means of turning aside any threatening calamity, such as drought, pestilence, or national danger. The second and fifth days of the week were those appointed for public fasts because Moses was supposed to have gone up the mountain for the second tablets of the Law on a Thursday, and to have returned on a Monday.
The self-introspection of the Pharisees led many to fast on these two days all year-round. It may well have been on one of those weekly fasts that the feast of Matthew had taken place and that this explains the expression, ‘And John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting’. This would give credence to their complaint,’ ‘Your disciples fast not.’ It is easy to see why Jesus could not promote the practice among his disciples. To understand it we must consider the transformation from the old to the new spirit. Jesus gave two illustrations to highlight this; that of the piece of undressed cloth (or, according to St. Luke, a piece torn from a new garment) sewed upon an old garment and that of the new wine put into old wine skins.
The old garment will not bear mending with the ‘undressed cloth.’ Jesus’ was not merely a reformation; all things must become new. As the old garment cannot be patched from the new, neither can the new wine of the Kingdom be restricted by the old wine skins. It would burst those wine skins. Not the old with a little of the new to hold it together where it is rent, but the new … and only the new.
Weeks had passed and the disciples of John had come back and shown their master all these things. He still lay in the dungeon, his circumstances unchanged. Herod was in that spiritually most desperate state. He had heard the Baptist and was most perplexed.
What could have been going on in John’s mind? Had there been some terrible mistake on his part? he was now the prisoner of that Herod, to whom he had spoken with authority; in the power of that bold adulteress, Herodias. If he were Elijah, the great Tishbite had never been in the hands of Ahab and Jezebel. And the Messiah, whose Elijah he was, had not come to his aid but, instead, feasted with publicans and sinners! It must have been a terrible hour. At the end of one’s life, and that of such self-denial and suffering and with a conscience so alive to God, which had once driven him burning with holy zeal into the wilderness, to have such a question meeting him as: ‘Are you he, or do we wait for another? Am I right, or in error and leading others into error?’ This must have been truly awful.
This question, ‘Are You the Coming One, or do we wait for another?’ indicated a faith both in the great promise and in him to whom it was addressed. The designation ‘The Coming One’ (habba), though a most truthful expression of Jewish expectancy, was not one ordinarily used of the Messiah. But it was invariably used about the Messianic age, as the Athid labho, or coming future and the Olam habba, the coming world. Jesus responded, through John’s messengers, by demonstrating the Messianic kingdom, through healings and preaching. Without interrupting his work. He just told them to report back to John what they have seen. He to whom John had formerly borne testimony, now bore testimony to him.
The scene once more changes. Weeks have passed since the return of John’s messengers. We cannot doubt that the sunlight of faith has again fallen into the dark dungeon. He must have known that his end was at hand and been ready to be offered up. His work had been done and there was nothing further that he could do and the weary servant of the Lord must have longed for his rest. Let Edersheim pick up the story:
‘’I would that you give me in a charger, the head of John the Baptist!’ Silence must have fallen on the assembly. Even into their hearts such a demand from the lips of little more than a child must have struck horror. They all knew John to be a righteous and holy man. Wicked as they were, in their superstition few would have willingly lent himself to such work. And they all knew, also, why Salome, or rather Herodias, had made this demand …
The guardsman has left the banqueting hall. Out into the cold spring night, up that slope and into the deep dungeon. As its door opens, the noise of the revelry comes with the light of the torch which the man bears. No time for preparation is given, nor needed. A few minutes more and the gory head of the Baptist is brought to the young woman in a charger and she gives the ghastly dish to her mother. It is all over! As the pale morning light streams into the keep, the faithful disciples, who had been told of it, come reverently to bear the headless body to be buried. They go away forever from that accursed place, which is so soon to become a mass of shapeless ruins. They go to tell it to Jesus and, from that time onwards, remain with him.’
This is an extract from the book, Jesus : Life and Times, available for £10 here (Finalist for Academic Book of the year at 2023 CRT awards)