I. If you consider the manner of John the Baptist's death, as Scripture brings it before us, I cannot help thinking that at first sight it will seem to you rather disappointing. The death of John the Baptist is as nearly as possible what we should have expected it not to be; he becomes a martyr, but without any of the glories which light up a martyr's death; he is shut up by Herod in a castle; there he lingers on month by month, until at length a wicked woman asks for his head, and Herod sends an executioner to murder him in prison.
II. At the time of John's death he had finished his work.His work was not to preach the Gospel, but to point to, and prepare the way for, Him who did preach it; and if Christ was now come, what more need of John? You may say, perhaps, that it was but a poor reward for John the Baptist, that after he had laboured earnestly as the messenger of Christ, he should be shut up in prison, and allowed to drag on a weary existence there, and at last lose his life to please Herodias. This is perfectly true, if you look at the matter from a merely human point of view. But the question is, not whether a man thinks it time to leave this world, but whether he has done God's work in it. The lesson He would teach us is, that we should give to Him the prime of our faculties, and consecrate to His service our health and strength, and then leave it to Him, without a murmur or a sigh, to determine, as seems best to Him, how we shall leave this world when our work is done.
III. St. John was the forerunner of Christ; so far, we cannot be exactly like him. But in what spirit did he go before Christ? This is really the question of questions. The spirit in which he went before Christ was that of simple obedience and bold determination to do God's will. He has taught us that we are to do our duty simply, boldly, and sincerely, as in the fear of God. We are to act as believing that God's eye is upon us; that He knows our acts, our words, our thoughts; that we are His and not our own; that we have a great work to do for Him, and a short day in which to do it, and a long night before us in which no work can be done.
Bishop Harvey Goodwin, Parish Sermons,5th series, p. 248.
Reference: Matthew 14:10. Preacher's Monthly,vol. vii., p. 45.