The feast of the Beheading of St John Baptist is very significant to us here at the Cathedral of the Holy Family here in Mayfair in London. Just a few hundred yards across Oxford Street where it is met by the Marylebone Lane is the site of the original medieval church of this district which was dedicated to him. Here he is on our iconostasis; and here on the tetrapod is the icon of his Beheading.
Now why does St John, unlike most of the other saints apart from the Mother of God, have both a feast of his Nativity, and a second of his martyrdom? Is it because in our Christian perspective the head is particularly significant?
A medieval hymn possibly by St Bernard of Clairvaux, and now deeply loved in the Lutheran and Anglican traditions, with its tune set by Bach, goes:
O Sacred Head sore wounded, defiled and put to scorn
O kingly Head, surrounded with mocking crown of thorn…
See me, for whom Thou diest; hide not so far Thy grace.
Show me, O Love most highest, the brightness of Thy face.
In this hymn the glory of Christ’s face shines from the head of one whose leadership is not of control but of sacrifice and service. Herodias wanted to see John’s head as the guarantee of the death of a dejected enemy, because his truthful words threatened her. Instead, she saw not defeat but beauty, the beauty of living and dying to God. (Romans 14.8)
There is a famous picture of Salome visiting St John the Baptist by Guercino – a copy hangs in the National Gallery of Ireland. It shows Salome seizing the bars of the cell, while St John looks away. His head turned from her shows that he is free in his spirit. She is contained by the bars. She cannot touch or told what he has, and she is really the one in prison. With his head he looks to Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith (Hebrews 12.2), for whom once again he will be the Forerunner.
This freedom in the life of God is because Christ’s headship of the Church is all bound up in the love of God. His head was physically attacked, with the thorns thrust down upon it and His face struck, because it is the visible exposition of God's love for the world (John 3.16; John 15.13; Romans 5.8). As the sole “head of the church,” Christ “loved the Church and gave Himself up for her” (Ephesians 5.23, 25).
So the integrity of word and action pay into service of an entire life, and ultimately the sacrifice that shows what a Head truly is. Did not Christ say, “The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many”? (Matthew 20.28). St John the Baptist’s words and call to repentance were powerful on his lips and did not become futile as death approached. His head became far more eloquent in silence. St John in his beheading becomes an icon of Christ going to sacrifice, “opening not his mouth” (Isaiah 53.7).
The wonderful hymn by Charles Wesley (And can it be) expresses it perfectly:
No condemnation now I dread,
Jesus, and all in Him, is mine!
Alive in Him, my living Head,
And clothed in righteousness divine,
Bold I approach the eternal throne,
And claim the crown, through Christ my own.
So why the costly and central Head? Because it is the head that is crowned, first with thorns but only after their wounds, with the glory. Thus Charles Wesley has it again (Love divine, all loves excelling):
Finish, then, thy new creation; pure and spotless let us be.
Let us see Thy great salvation perfectly restored in Thee.
Changed from glory into glory, till in heav’n we take our place,
till we cast our crowns before Thee, lost in wonder, love and praise.
The ultimate beheading is our own: Christ, who is the head of the body the Church, is to become the head of our lives. So with Him dwelling in us who are already made in His image, His head on us “that once was crowned with thorns is crowned with glory now.” (The head that once was crowned with thorns, Thomas Kelly.)
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