The Prophet Who Let Them Take His Head

Pastor Ross Yamamoto calls this his favorite passage in the Gospels, and he spends nearly half the message setting up the man at its center. He names two people in the Bible he wants to be like: Mary of Bethany, always at Jesus’ feet, and John the Baptist. They look like opposites, but Ross says they are the same person in different roles.

The key is John 3:29. When John’s disciples complain that the crowds are going to Jesus instead, John answers with a wedding picture. He is the friend of the bridegroom, and his joy is complete when he hears the bridegroom’s voice. “John lived this way because he was in love.” His fasting, his preaching and finally his death came from that love, and by the time Herod killed him, John had already died to himself. Ross pushes back on the idea that John was extreme or unbalanced: “I don’t see any scripture on balance when it comes to loving Jesus.” Jesus said John was no reed swayed by the wind and called him more than a prophet.

Ross connects John to Malachi’s promised Elijah, who broke 400 years of prophetic silence to prepare the way for Jesus. He believes believers in the days ahead will need John’s resolve, and he reads Jesus’ words in Matthew 10 about bringing a sword, not peace. He gives recent examples of people losing jobs or being removed for speaking about their faith, and says the church standing on God’s word is not the church becoming political.

Then he reads Matthew 14:1-12. Herod Antipas, a son of Herod the Great, hears about Jesus and thinks John has risen from the dead. “This is what a guilty conscience will do to you.” Ross pauses to call anyone carrying unconfessed sin to confess and repent, quoting James 5:16 and Acts 3:19. John was jailed for telling Herod it was not lawful to have Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife. Because the Herods claimed to be Jews, John was holding Herod to the law, not to his own opinion. Ross quotes Martin Luther King Jr.’s letter on just and unjust laws.

He closes with church history, from Isaiah to Peter, and Luke 14:33 on counting the cost. In a story about a Marine recruiter at a 1960s college fair, the longest line formed for the hardest calling, because people want a mission worth living and dying for. “If you are a true Christ follower, you have nothing left to lose.”