Memorial of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, priest

Lectionary: 406

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.”

 

The death of John the Baptist could be regarded as a tragedy, an unnecessary death which occurred because of forces beyond his control, and concerns that were not his. Although imprisoned by a ruler he had criticized, the same ruler intended to keep him alive. He was not a threat and there was no need to kill him.

But other forces – they might be called political, but politics is life and the word explains nothing – moved on Herod and John, and forced the craven king to act against his better judgement. The king’s wife Herodias resented the prophet for saying what everyone was saying. The death of her husband was unexpected; her marriage to her brother-in-law, suspicious. Everyone knew the king could do whatever he wants; the Roman authorities certainly didn’t care who he married. They didn’t worry about who he murdered.

But the mad prophet in the Jordan River made an issue of it. It was against their religion, he said. And he wouldn’t shut up. So Herod’s wife took matters in her own hands, much as Queen Jezebel had many centuries before. Those things happen in our complicated world. The innocent suffer, the guilty prosper, the sun goes up, the sun goes down.

But the Church remembers John not as tragic; he triumphed over evil. He is a martyr, prophet, and saint. He died for speaking the truth to a power that would not hear it, and a society that didn’t care.

Sometime later Herod feared that John was undead. Like the mantle of prophecy that Elisha received from Elias, the Spirit had passed from John to Jesus. Despite the murder, the Spirit said to Herod and his people, “I am still here!” And mighty powers were at work in him.

The Church continues to do these mighty works, especially by the Sacraments. The Sacraments of Initiation – Baptism, Eucharist, and Confirmation – sound the name, Emmanuel. God with us. Reconciliation and Anointing the Sick describe the wonder of God’s compassion. Marriage and Orders reveal the consecration of adult men and women to the LORD.  

As we promote family life and denounce abortion and euthanasia, as we stand with the poor, the alien, the disenfranchised and despised we point to the Lord with John’s very words, “Behold the Lamb of God.”  He is not dead. He has been raised.