We are given the story of the ministry of John the Baptist, called the Precursor orForerunner of the Lord, with some variation of detail, in the three synoptic Gospels ofMatthew, Mark, and Luke, as well as in the Book of John.
Luke tells us of the birth ofJohn the Baptist in a town of Judaea, about six months before the birth of the Saviour. The attendant circumstances, which we have already recounted under the headings of *St. Elizabeth* and *St. Zachary*, his parents, suggest the miraculous and wonderful. TheNew Testament tells us nothing of John’s early years, but we know that his pious, virtuousparents must have reared the boy with care, conscious always of the important work towhich he was appointed, and imbuing him with a sense of his destiny. When John began final preparations for his mission, he was probably in his thirty-secondyear.
He withdrew into the harsh, rocky desert beyond the Jordan to fast and pray, as wasthe ancient custom of holy men. We are told that he kept himself alive by eating locustsand wild honey and wore a rough garment of camel’s hair, tied with a leathern girdle. When he came back to start preaching in the villages of Judaea, he was haggard anduncouth, but his eyes burned with zeal and his voice carried deep conviction. The Jewswere accustomed to preachers and prophets who gave no thought to outwardappearances, and they accepted John at once; the times were troubled, and the peopleyearned for reassurance and comfort. So transcendant was the power emanating from theholy man that after hearing him many believed he was indeed the long-awaited Messiah. John quickly put them right, saying he had come only to prepare the way, and that he wasnot worthy to unloose the Master’s sandals.
Although his preaching and baptizingcontinued for some months during the Saviour’s own ministry, John always made plainthat he was merely the Forerunner. His humility remained incorruptible even when hisfame spread to Jerusalem and members of the higher priesthood came to make inquiriesand to hear him. Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand,-this was John’soft-repeated theme. For the evils of the times his remedy was individual purification. Every tree, he said, that is not bringing forth good fruit is to be cut down and throwninto the fire. The reformation of each person’s life must be complete?the wheat must beseparated from the chaff and the chaff burned with unquenchable fire.
The rite of baptism, a symbolic act signifying sincere repentance as well as a desire to bespiritually cleansed in order to receive the Christ, was so strongly emphasized by John thatpeople began to call him the baptizer. The Scriptures tell us of the day when Jesus joinedthe group of those who wished to receive baptism at John’s hands. John knew Jesus forthe Messiah they had so long expected, and at first excused himself as unworthy. Then, inobedience to Jesus, he acquiesced and baptized Him.
Although sinless, Jesus chose to bebaptized in order to identify Himself with the human lot. And when He arose from thewaters of the Jordan, where the rite was performed, the heavens opened and the Spirit asa dove descended. And there came a voice from the heavens, Thou art my beloved Son, inThee I am well pleased (Mark i, 11). John’s life now rushes on towards its tragic end. In the fifteenth year of the reign of theRoman emperor, Tiberias Caesar, Herod Antipas was the provincial governor or tetrarchof a subdivision of Palestine which included Galilee and Peraea, a district lying east of theJordan. In the course of John’s preaching, he had denounced in unmeasured terms theimmorality of Herod’s petty court, and had even boldly upbraided Herod to his face for hisdefiance of old Jewish law, especially in having taken to himself the wife of hishalf-brother, Philip.
This woman, the dissolute Herodias, was also Herod’s niece. Herodfeared and reverenced John, knowing him to be a holy man, and he followed his advice inmany matters; but he could not endure having his private life castigated. Herodiasstimulated his anger by lies and artifices. His resentment at length got the better of hisjudgment and he had John cast into the fortress of Machaerus, near the Dead Sea. WhenJesus heard of this, and knew that some of His disciples had gone to see John, He spokethus of him: What went you to see? A prophet? Yea, I say to you, and more than aprophet.
This is he of whom it is written: Behold I send my angel before thy face, whoshall prepare thy way before thee. For I say to you, amongst those that are born of womenthere is not a greater prophet than John the Baptist (Matthew xi, 10-12). Herodias never ceased plotting against the life of John, who was not silenced even byprison walls. His followers now became even more turbulent.
To Herodias soon came theopportunity she had long sought to put an end to the trouble-maker. On Herod’s birthdayhe gave a feast for the chief men of that region. In Matthew xiv, Mark vi, and Luke ix, weare given parallel accounts of this infamous occasion which was to culminate in John’sdeath. At the feast, Salome, fourteen-year-old daughter of Herodias by her lawfulhusband, pleased Herod and his guests so much by her dancing that Herod promised onoath to give her anything that it was in his power to give, even though it should amount tohalf his kingdom. Salome, acting under the direction and influence of her wicked mother,answered that she wished to have the head of John the Baptist, presented to her on aplatter.
Such a horrible request shocked and unnerved Herod. Still, he had given his wordand was afraid to break it. So, with no legal formalities whatever, he despatched a soldierto the prison with orders to behead the prisoner and return with it immediately. This wasquickly done, and the cruel girl did not hesitate to accept the dish with its dreadful offeringand give it to her mother. John’s brief ministry was thus terminated by a monstrous crime. There was great sadness among the people who had hearkened to him, and when thedisciples of Jesus heard the news of John’s death, they came and took the body and laid itreverently in a tomb.
Jesus, with some of his disciples, retired to a desert place apart, tomourn. The Jewish historian Josephus, giving further testimony of John’s holiness, writes: He wasindeed a man endued with all virtue, who exhorted the Jews to the practice of justicetowards men and piety towards God; and also to baptism, preaching that they wouldbecome acceptable to God if they renounced their sins, and to the cleanness of their bodiesadded purity of soul. Thus Jews and Christians unite in reverence and love for thisprophet-saint whose life is an incomparable example of both humility and courageBibliography1. Mark Ch. 1-112. John ch.
3-53. Corinthians Ch. 13
