August 29 · Beheading of the Forerunner
The Beheading of the Holy Glorious Prophet, Forerunner, and Baptist John
O Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us.”
There are days the Church sings, and days the Church also weeps. Today is both.
The man we remember is John — the Holy Glorious Prophet, Forerunner, and Baptist of the Lord. He is the last of the old prophets and the first to point with his own hand: There. That is the Lamb of God. He is the voice in the wilderness. He is the one who poured Jordan water over the head of Christ.
The appointed Epistle keeps the word he would not let anyone steal. As he finished his course, John said, “Whom think ye that I am? I am not he. But, behold, there cometh one after me, whose shoes of his feet I am not worthy to loose.”
He would not take the honor that belonged to Another. He would not take a king's lie, either.
The Church places his martyric end in the year 32 after the Birth of Christ. Matthew and Mark both tell it. After the Baptism of the Lord, Herod Antipas — tetrarch of Galilee, a ruler of one fourth of the Holy Land — locked John in prison.
Why?
Because John told the truth out loud.
Herod had left his lawful wife, the daughter of the Arabian king Aretas, and taken Herodias, the wife of his brother Philip. The Gospel is plain. John said to Herod, “It is not lawful for thee to have thy brother's wife.”
That is not a private whisper. That is a prophet standing in front of a throne.
Herodias held it against him. She wanted him dead. She could not have him killed — not yet. Mark says Herod feared John. He knew John was a just man and a holy man. He observed him; when he heard him, he heard him gladly.
Think of that for a moment. A ruler can enjoy a holy word the way a man enjoys a song, and still refuse to change his life. Herod liked to listen. He did not like to repent.
So John waited in the prison, and the truth waited with him.
Then came a convenient day.
It was Herod's birthday. He made a feast for his nobles, his captains, and the chief men of Galilee. The OCA life says dignitaries, elders, and a thousand chief citizens were there. Music, honor, wine, the kind of night when a man wants to look large in front of other men.
Herodias's daughter came in and danced, and she pleased Herod and those who sat with him. The Church's tradition names her Salome. The king said to the girl, “Ask of me whatsoever thou wilt, and I will give it thee.” He swore it: whatever she asked, even to the half of his kingdom.
She went out to her mother.
“What shall I ask?”
And Herodias said, “The head of John the Baptist.”
The girl came back in haste. She asked for John's head to be given her at once, on a platter.
The king was exceeding sorry.
Mark wants us to see that. Herod was not glad. He had heard John gladly. He knew what sort of man he was sending for. But he had sworn in front of his guests, and he would not be shamed in his own hall. Because of the oath, and because of those who sat with him, he would not refuse her.
That is how a careless promise and a hard heart can do together what neither might have done alone.
He sent an executioner. John was killed in the prison.
We will say that plainly, and we will not linger over it. The Church does not pretend the death was gentle. She also does not ask a family to stare at cruelty. What she asks us to see is this: a holy man told the truth, and the world that wanted its own way would not bear it.
When his disciples heard, they came. They took his body and laid it in a tomb. The Church's tradition remembers that place as Sebastia, there where the wicked deed had been done.
The Gospel stops at the tomb. The Church keeps a little more, and she keeps it quietly.
The pious Joanna, wife of Herod's steward Chuza, is named in the Gospel among the women who followed the Lord. The traditional account says she took the holy head of the Forerunner, placed it in an earthen vessel, and buried it on the Mount of Olives, on a parcel of land that belonged to Herod. The Church later keeps the uncovering of that honorable head on February 24. We will not make a second story of it tonight. We only say that God did not let the prophet be thrown away as if his witness were trash.
The hymns appointed for this very day tell us why the Church can sing on a day of grief.
The troparion says the Lord's own testimony is enough for John. Jesus had already said that among those born of women there had not risen a greater than John the Baptist. Kings may swear. Guests may watch. A ruler may be sorry and still give the order. The Lord's word is heavier than all of that.
The kontakion says the glorious beheading of the Forerunner became an act of divine dispensation, for he preached to those in hell — to those who had already died — the coming of the Savior. John had gone ahead of Christ in the wilderness. The Church believes he went ahead once more, into the place of the dead, and told them the same news: the One who takes away the sin of the world is coming.
Herodias is told to lament. She asked for a lawless murder. She loved what is false and temporal, not the law of God, not eternal life.
After John's death, Herod went on ruling for a time. When people began to speak of Jesus, Herod was frightened. He said, “This is John, whom I beheaded; he has been raised from the dead.” Later, Pontius Pilate sent the Lord Jesus to him, and Herod mocked Him. The man who would not keep faith with a prophet did not recognize the King when He stood in the room.
The judgment of God came upon that house even in this life. The OCA life records that king Aretas, in revenge for the disrespect shown his daughter, made war on Herod. The defeated tetrarch suffered the wrath of the Roman emperor and was exiled with Herodias, first to Gaul and then to Spain.
We do not tell that as a grim satisfaction. We tell it because the Church remembers that thrones are not safer than truth. The psalm we read together is John's whole life in one line: “And I spoke of thy testimonies before kings, and was not ashamed.”
The Church established this day as a feast, and she keeps it as a day of strict fasting because of the grief of Christians at the violent death of the saint. Your family should follow the rule of your parish and household, or the blessing of your priest. We will not tell you what you must eat. We will only say that this is not a day for pretending nothing costly happened.
On this same date the Church also makes remembrance of Orthodox soldiers killed on the field of battle, a commemoration established in 1769. Grief has more than one name. The lamp is wide enough for them.
And today, so many hundreds of years later, we say the Forerunner's name once more, out loud, together — Holy Glorious Prophet, Forerunner, and Baptist John — and he is praying for us still.
The voice was not lost in the prison. The voice was not lost in the tomb. The voice still says what it has always said: He is coming. I am not He. Make His paths straight.
but the Lord’s testimony is sufficient for you, O Forerunner.
You were shown in truth to be the most honorable of the prophets,
for you were deemed worthy to baptize in the streams of the Jordan Him whom they foretold.
Therefore, having suffered for the truth with joy,
you proclaimed to those in hell God who appeared in the flesh,
who takes away the sin of the world,
and grants us great mercy.
became an act of divine dispensation,
for he preached to those in hell the coming of the Savior.
Let Herodias lament, for she entreated lawless murder,
loving not the law of God, nor eternal life,
but that which is false and temporal.
- Sit by the lamp. Say together, slowly, “And I spoke of thy testimonies before kings, and was not ashamed.”
- Keep a short silence — long enough to count to twenty. Remember the prison, and the man who would not take his word back.
- Give each person a scrap of paper. Write one true word that needs courage in your house this week: an apology, a kindness you have been avoiding, a lie you will not tell, a person you will not mock. Fold the papers and set them under the lamp. Do not read them aloud unless someone chooses to.
- This is a day the Church keeps with fasting. Ask a parent what your parish and household do today, or ask your priest for a blessing. We will not make a list of foods, and we will not tell you what you must eat.
- End by naming one person who needs courage to tell the truth, and one person the Church remembers among the dead. Say together, “Holy Prophet, Forerunner, and Baptist John, pray to God for us.”
pray to God for us.”
on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one. Amen.