A FUNNY STORY OF THE HEADLESS

Memorial of The Beheading of John the Baptist
Mk 6:17-29

The Gospel today gives us the account of why and how John the Baptist lost his head. I cannot help but smile when I read this story. Sometimes I can even imagine Mark the Evangelist grinning as he wrote this narrative. It is almost comic!

John the Baptist, who, as the story tells us, lost his head, is the only person in the Gospel today who has a head after all. All the characters in this account are headless. King Herod was headless because he was so stupid to swear that he would give to Herodias’ daughter anything even half his kingdom. How could he be such a moron? Herodias’ daughter was headless because she could not make her own decision about what to ask from the king. She even had to ask her mother about it and make her mother’s decision hers simply because she had none of her own. How could she be such a loser? Herodias was already headless even before this incident because she did not mind living in with her husband’s brother, even as she remains married to her husband. Perhaps, she had beauty; but she had no brains. The guests of King Herod were all headless, too, because not one of them protested against the murder of John the Baptist. No one, at least, tried to advise the king that it was all right and more honorable to take back his bad oath. The headless king cannot keep a company except that which was headless too.

John alone had the head to know whom to trust: God alone. John was the only person in the story who had the head to know and live by what is true, moral and godly. Funny, they were all headless except John. Sad, they had John beheaded too. But the Lord keeps the story of John the Baptist in our heads so that we may follow the heroic faith of John.