PASSION OF JOHN THE BAPTIST

Jeremiah 1:17-19; PS 71 I will sing your salvation; Mark 6:17-29

"Gird your loins; stand up and tell them all that I command you. Be not crushed on their account, as though I would leave you crushed before them.  For it is I this day who made you a fortified city,  a pillar of Iron, a wall of brass, against a whole land."

These are the words of God to Jeremiah, perhaps to motivate him, to encourage him, to instill him a burst against the rising fear and sense of doom as he stares down his mission.

There are times when we are asked to do things that seem overwhelming.  We feel anything but like a pillar of iron or wall of brass.  In fact, we feel weak and fragile as we embrace the reality before us, especially when it comes to speaking the truth in love.

So what do we do when it seems the odds are against us and the words don't seem to want to formulate in  mouth and our spine feels like rubbery jelly.  How do we manage to speak the truth in love when everything in us wants to just tolerate the evil for the sake of false peace?

This is the dilemma we face often in our life.

The answer is clearly shown to us by Jon the Baptist.  Sometimes you just have to let your head roll.  The truth has to be expressed for only then does love ring true as they say.

We must be willing to put our head on the platter because if we compromise truth often enough we begin to lose part of our soul.  We forsake our own life when we turn aside from what is truth and good.

Where truth is denied love is mocked.  John the Baptist understood this very well.

So his head was separated from his body but truth can never be separated from love otherwise wants a head and body for if not to stand at defense of that which makes the world go round: truth and love.

Sometimes we have to stand fast and let our head roll.
This is true passion that transforms the world.