It was a night of drunkenness and revelry in the king's palace. But within the dingy cell all was quiet. A thick pall of darkness fell heavily over the dungeon. The prisoner sat lost in a reverie. The entire panorama of his life passed before his mind's eye. The strange events he'd heard his parents recount again and again-all associated with his conception and birth-how he was a special gift of God bestowed on his aged parents; how he'd leaped with joy while still in his mother's womb when her cousin had visited her; how his father's dumbness was cured when he was named John and the great paean of praise his father sang to the Lord, prophesying the role the little boy would have to play in life.

John was certain that at the moment Mary's greeting reached his mother's ears, he was anointed with the Spirit. The angel Gabriel had foretold it. Besides, what else could that leap in the embryonic stage mean? Did it not set the tempo of his whole life-the tremendous drive, the insatiable desire, the vehement urge to prepare the way for the Saviour's coming?

John began reminiscing about his growing years. When he'd become strong in spirit, he'd plunged into the heart of the wilderness-there to savour its bitter-sweet solitude, and to lose himself in contemplation and yearning for the Messiah. The Messiah! For whom the bygone ages had sighed and waited with eager longing. Ah! Those blessed years in the wilds! The exigencies of human existence had no hold on him. Locusts and wild honey sufficed to appease his appetite; the skin of camels served as his garment. Soaked in the Spirit, he spent his days longing to realise the single, consuming passion that ruled his life-to announce the coming of the Saviour.

In the fulness of time, driven by the inner impulse of the Spirit, he'd emerged from the wilderness-like a mighty, phenomenal force, endowed with the spirit and power of Elijah, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, "Prepare you the way of the Lord, make his paths straight"(Is 40:3).

John's memories raced back to that most blessed moment. For days he'd been scanning the faces of the multitudes that flocked to him,watching and waiting for the revelation of the Saviour. And then one day it happened. He saw him coming towards him, like the breaking of dawn in a world engulfed in darkness. It was a long moment while their eyes met. In perfect love, in perfect understanding. The request followed -Jesus wanted to be baptized. John remonstrated: it was he who had to be baptized by the Messiah, he who was not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. But the rejoinder, "Let it be so now," settled the matter. Oh! Can he ever forget the event! How the heavens burst open, and the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus in the form of a dove and the booming voice from heaven declared, "This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased!" For John, this was the centre, source and summit of his Christ-experience.

He'd continued to preach and baptize, cleaving through a sin-drenched world to cut a passage for Jesus. Incessantly he'd pointed to him as "the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world". No muted tones. No compromise with the powers that be or with the agents of darkness. Like a raging tempest he'd swept over Jerusalem and Judea and the regions along the Jordan. As straight and direct and dynamic as the natural, elements whose fierce strength and vitality he seemed to have imbibed. With a mouth like a sharpened sword, a polished arrow, he had exhorted that every hill and mountain be laid low, the crooked be straightened, the rough ways made smooth with no thought of the consequences to self.

And this indeed was the inevitable consequence. Imprisonment and possible death.

But to John it was a matter for rejoicing- that he was counted worthy to suffer for Christ. Besides, could anything separate him from his love of Christ ? Could tribulation or distress, imprisonment or humiliation, make him swerve from the fulfilment of his mission? Could peril or sword pose a threat to his undaunted spirit?

He was ready for still greater trials. Had he not plumbed the depths of his own nothingness? He himself was not the light. He was a man sent by God to testify to the light, the true light which enlightens every man. His constant effort had been to empty himself, efface himself completely, reduce himself to a non-entity, to a mere sound, the "voice of one crying in the wilderness"(Is 40:3).

Yes, he had been only that. An echo of the cry of the Spirit in the wilderness of a sin-laden world-unheeded, derided, denied. Such would eventually be the destiny of Christ himself. The precursor had first to walk in this path of rejection and suffering.

What was that sound breaking in on his musings? The tread of heavy footsteps? At this late hour? Yes, the clanking of the iron chains on the prison doors! The glare of a fiery torch piercing the pitch darkness, as if a hellish fire had broken out in the confines of that narrow cell....

And the flash of silver! Oh yes! Herod's bodyguard ! The drawn sword in one hand and a silver platter in the other.... Herod thirsting for his blood? Egged on by Herodias, perhaps....

A sense of jubilation overwhelmed John. "Now does my soul rejoice", cried he to himself. "The friend of the bridegroom who stands and hears the bridegroom, rejoices. For this reason my joy has been fulfilled. He must increase, but I must decrease." This had been his constant refrain, his motto, his war-cry. He, John, must decrease till he is nothing; he must die, be annihilated, utterly, totally. Then would Jesus grow in the hearts of men and his kingdom extend.

In death as in life John would be his precursor. He would gladly be led like a lamb to the slaughter, be dumb before his shearers. He would not wrangle or cry out loud. The friend of the bridegroom entering the wedding banquet!

It was all over in a trice. The guard left with the severed head in his hand and cruel jibes on his lips. From a distance wafted the exultant sounds of music and feasting as if the furies of hell were gleefully dancing their dance of death. Within the prison cell the blood gushing out of the headless body shone with a strange brightness even in the darkness. Soft strains of heavenly songs seemed to fill the air. Were angels keeping watch over the body till the disciples came to fetch it?

The call of a night bird rent the silence. The only signal announcing to an unworthy world the death of the greatest man born of woman, as Jesus himself had called him; the last of the prophets; the only one chosen anointed and sanctified before his birth, the prototype of all true evangelisers to come.

The oblation was total. With no rapine in the holocaust. The burnt offering of a victim without spot or blemish. An odour pleasing to God!