Guest Post: At the Grave of John the Baptist

Note: Enjoy this guest poem from Roderick McDonald!

Lament for Aaron’s daughter, once esteemed;
Elizabeth, you blessed of women, weep.
Now dead, interred by this salt sea, the son
Of you who felt his leap while yet enwombed!
Like this corrupted sea where no waves stir,
Another held his head, her heart unmoved.
No greater one of women born, and yet
To woman came His bloody head in shame.

“He must increase; I must decrease,” he said
In better times, before confined behind
The prison walls of stone, Machaerus’ depths.
So great was he, decreased and silenced now,
Whose voice once spoke, “Prepare the way, make straight
A highway for the LORD,” then crushed of late,
Yet loud declares his speech; it echoes yet
In conscience both of saint and evil king.

His barrow near. I weep. Behind, the sound
Of mirth which makes my tears more freely flow.
A fruitful tree cut down – unjustly slain.
Was not the fruitless tree to be laid low,
And thrown at length into the burning fire?
For this I hoped, but now my world collapsed,
But now the wicked prosper in their pride,
And I am languishing and stung by grief.

So great was John, the man, the voice, the life.
A man alone, who wandered, fasted, prayed;
A lamp apart for all those endless years.
My joy now ebbs into this bitter sea
My friend, my friend, now bleeds by this dead sea.
Then let me die, for I alone am left.
You have decreased. My John, Behold, that Lamb
For whom you’re slain, will he increase in me?

Machaerus was a Hasmonean hilltop palace and desert fortress 16 miles southeast of the mouth of the Jordan River on the eastern side of the Dead Sea. According to the Jewish-Roman historian Flavius Josephus, it was the location of the imprisonment and execution of John the Baptist. From this setting a disciple of John the Baptist reflects on the death of his teacher.

Roderick McDonald is a member of Christ Fellowship Church in the northland of Kansas City, Missouri.  He has a Bachelor’s Degree in Geology from UCLA, and completed all requirements for a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science from Cal State University at Northridge. He is retired from a career as a software engineer.

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