Commentary on the Gospel of
John grew up in the desert and assimilated a spirituality of desert. It made him a man of depth, integrity and courage. His very life gave testimony to his prophetic call as a man of profound prayer, an ascetic and one convinced of his mission. It was possible to imprison only his physical body because he enjoyed endless of freedom the spirit and truth. No wonder he preferred death to falsehood. Jesus, in fact acclaimed him as the greatest man who ever lived. It was a sad irony that such a man should meet his death because of the whim of a drunken tyrant, Herod. “Power gradually extirpates from the mind every humane and gentle virtue,” wrote Edmund Burke. The irony is that Herod had power but he was afraid, he had the authority but no choices. John, on the other hand, was in prison but he was free, he was in chain but he had choices. Here are we today – thousands of years later and thousands of miles away – remembering the greatness of John the Baptist!
Each one of us in this World has a mission to fulfil. Some of us recognize it early and act accordingly and some of us would not recognize and fail to achieve it. It took much courage to do something new and different, take forward and accomplish as John and Jesus did! Some of us compromise our values or moral standard because of fear of either confrontation or abandonment. A person can “weigh” between distancing oneself from temptations or staying close for comfort. Taking God and one’s faith seriously and choosing holiness far outweighs any good or pleasure is the way John the Baptist courageously walked and at the same time the challenge he throws to the people of our time.
