My sermons are a bit long at the moment. I'm full of it. Hope that's not too bad a thing. Stephen - the gaze of the protomartyr, today's offering to the longsuffering listeners of Bridestowe and Lydford. From a section on the beheading of John the Baptist:
It was John who some time previously had stood together with Jesus in the River Jordan, at Jesus' baptism, when the heavens opened over their heads, and the voice of the Father from heaven said, 'This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.' [Matthew 1.17]. But rather than keeping his gaze fixed on that glorious vision as a guide and direction for his future life John instead got caught up in a deadly rivalry with a king whose desires became John's own. John gazed on Herod and embraced the king's desire for power and influence by any means: John's vision of a Messiah was of one who would come to judge and rule with violence: 'the winnowing fork [..] in his hand to clear the threshing floor and gather the wheat into his granary, ready to burn the chaff with unquenchable fire' [Luke 3.16-17].
But the Messiah he had baptised was not the violent judge John anticipated. Hearing about John's imprisonment in Herod's court Jesus said, 'From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force'. [Matthew 11.12] Applied to the situation of Herod and John, Jesus' words carry two meanings - of a king fixated on vengeance over the one who criticised him for his moral failings, and of a prophet also fixated on vengeance that he thought the kingdom of heaven would enforce: a vengeance of unquenchable fire. Sadly John's fixation on the desires of King Herod meant that the prophet went to his death without recognising the coming of Jesus' loving nonviolent kingdom of grace.
We can imagine Hollywood taking hold of the beheading of John and making a hero of him. Following the usual movie format John would probably have got his vengeance, somehow. Picture this: the court of Herod gasping as the prison executioner brings the head of John the Baptist into their dining hall for all to see; but the camera cuts away to the empty prison cell beneath which, unknown to the king's guests, is burning violently - John set the flames the moment before they took him away to be killed, and now these flames are licking the floorboards beneath Herod's feet.
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