17th Week in Ord. Time, Saturday – 30th July 2022 — Gospel: Mt 14,1-12
Being a Victim of a Violent World
In chap.2 Herod the Great tried to murder the infant Jesus; now his son, Herod Antipas, Tetrarch of Galilee and Peraea, kills John the Baptist. Just in the previous passage Jesus has spoken of himself as a prophet, rejected by his own people (13,57). In this passage we see the fate of the Prophet John. Thus, this situation prefigures the violent death of the final prophet, Jesus. The story of the murder of John the Baptist is the story of adultery and vainglory. It has interesting parallels in the story of Ahab, Jezebel and Elijah (1 Kings 18). In both, the prophets are murdered with vengeance. In this situation, Herod’s guilty conscience makes him an easy prey to popular superstition. He holds back his murderous intentions, as he fears the crowds, who consider John, as prophet. Herod stands out in stark contrast to the man of whom Jesus has said: “Truly I tell you, among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist” (Mt 11,11). Prophet John, and later on Jesus too, became a victim for preaching the good news boldly in a violent and unscrupulous world.
