John the Baptist is in prison and sends a messenger to Jesus to make sure he is the Messiah. One would hope and think when Jesus finds out that his cus is in Herod’s dungeon that Jesus would pray for a couple angels to rescue the important prophet. But Jesus doesn’t do this, he basically tells the messanger that he is doing miracles and to go back and report it to John. ”Then Jesus answering said unto them, Go your way, and tell John what things ye have seen and heard; how that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, to the poor the gospel is preached.”  Luke 7:22 Shortly after this John gets his head cut off.

I find that this is a very hard thing to try to understand, but if you look deeper into the prophetic meaning of John’s life you will find that this beheading was quite the climax of an Old story.
Ok, I can explain. Jesus said to his disciples that the least in the Kingdom of God is greater then John, but just a moment ago Jesus said John was the greatest prophet there ever was. This is because John was not in the Kingdom of God, John was under the Old Covenant of Mt. Sinai. John was the last prophet of that order. Jesus was the first of the New order. Jesus was the first of the Kingdom of God and that is why anyone after Jesus is better. They are part of an everlasting covenant. Old is fading away, but the New is everlasting substance. Which is greater to be under?

Ok, this make it easier to understand what Jesus meant there, but why did John loose his head and why didn’t Jesus do some miracle to save him. That is because John had to die to seal the deal that Old had past away and it was transfered to the New into Jesus’s hands. John’s last breathe was prophetic in that his head was cut off, the authority of that Old covenant was being wiped away. Kind of harsh right, but I believe John knew exactly who he was and exactly what God was doing and probably was honored greatly to be the last page of a 4000 year old covenant.

Let me show you some more hidden nuggets. John never crossed the Jordan river, he baptized people on the east side and wandered in the desert on that side. His job was to prepare the way of the Lord. Baptizing people into Repentance on the east side was symbolic that it was a half-way point. They got baptized outside of the Promise Land. I believe this has a correlation to the Red Sea crossing or the baptism of the whole world by the flood. It kind of cleans you out but leaves you empty. It wiped out the Egyptians, but left the Israelites were still hungry and lost. The flood wiped out the whole world, but did not bring salvation of souls. The repentance baptism of John made claim that those who did this were cleaned with water under repentance, but they still weren’t filled with substance.

Remember Jesus said you can’t put new in in old wine skins, but new wine must be put into new wine skins. Well the old skin was the Old Covenant. You have to do this and repent and kill this animal and then sprinkle blood here and there and everywhere to be made right with god for about a second. This had to go, not strong enough to hold the new wine Jesus was about to give. That stuff was way to potent, would have killed everyone under that Covenant.  John baptized away the Old wine skin with water and began a fresh slate. Now Jesus could create the new wine skin (being himself) and then he could fill them with the new wine. So when John died again it was saying this Old thing has been removed. On with the new.

Hope my thoughts  were written well enough for you to understand my drift. Till the next, Peace!