Friday of the Fourth Week in Ordinary Time

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/020312.cfm


"on a platter..."

Etty Hillesum

The Jewish historian Josephus tells us the daughter of Herodias was Salome; more recent invention has recreated her as a femme fatale or erotic dancer. But she may have been a charming four year old child... except for her cute little phrase "on a platter." That detail is her own; contributed by neither the drunken king nor her wicked mother. Whatever her age, she was a nasty kid. 


News of the killing of John the Baptist spoke loudly to Jesus. Hearing it he surely knew he would die also. If John had stirred such hatred that even a child would be eager to play her part, there was clearly no safe place in this world for Jesus. 


In her journal, published under the title An Interrupted Life, Etty Hillesum writes of her realization that no help was coming from England or America. The Germans had invaded Belgium and systematically co-opted  the Jewish leaders with promises and threats. They gathered men, women and children into their internment camp, which served in a feeder system of dozens of other camps. Periodically the trains arrived to transport human cargo to Germany or Poland for extermination. The student Etty knew the war was progressing and, with her friends, she had hoped the liberation would come in time. 
But as she listened to rumors and the contraband radio she surrendered to the inevitability of evil. While other Jews, with their spouses and children and parents desperately hoped for a miracle, the young writer turned her attention to God, prayer and to describing every detail of camp life in her letters and journal. If she could not hope to survive, she could hope her writing might, and the world would learn what happened to her and her people. Her last postcard, tossed from a boxcar as the train departed, read, "We have left the camp singing." 


Jesus, learning of the death of John, also surrendered to the inevitable triumph of evil. If even a little girl could make a game of killing, what chance did he stand against Roman and Jewish authorities? 


His surrender is still hard to comprehend. We take up arms against all threats: real, imagined, and manufactured. And still we are frightened. The United States presently spends not only more than any other nation in the  world on defense; we spend more than all other nations combined! 


Jesus saw a farther horizon through a narrower gate. He saw that, through crucifixion, he could give his entire being as a sacrificial offering to God. And, in so doing, he could bring peace to the world. John found that narrow gate in the pitched darkness of Herod's dungeon. Both men invite us to take up our crosses and follow through the narrow gate.