Cost of speaking truth to power: Beheading of John the Baptist
One of the reasons the Bible rings true is that all human life is there: the good, the bad, the ugly and the really horrible. It provides a mirror to humanity at its best, worst and even plain ordinary. It does much more, but that's for other posts. Today is the 'lesser festival' of 'The Beheading of John the Baptist'. It commemorates a truly horrible and sordid story. Caravaggio's painting shown here is one of the less gory depictions of the scene. I wrote about this story from the angle of the women involved over on the Bible Bible Project in 'Women Behaving Badly' and on this blog here . Today I'm thinking about the courage it took for John to fulfill God's call with passion for truth and justice. He was no crowd pleaser among those who held power. John the Baptist's beheading is recorded in the gospels in Matthew 14: 1 - 12 and Mark 6: 1 - 29 . what had John, son of Elizabeth and Zechariah done to deserve such a death and to hav...