John the Baptist is a burr in your saddle, the car alarm you can’t turn off, that boorish uncle or ill-natured aunt at your holiday dinner—unpleasant, embarrassing and unwelcome, something you’d just as soon not be part your holiday celebrations. There’s a reason you don’t see ole ‘wild-eyed John’ on Christmas cards or as an inflatable character on peoples’ front lawns. He just doesn’t fit in next to Santa, Frosty and Rudolph. He doesn’t jibe with the Christmas spirit. 

In light of the feast day of John the Baptist’s birth (June 24) and our Gospel lesson of his beheading this Sunday, London’s National Gallery has provided a great way to immerse yourself in his story—through art! The museum has produced a ten-video series called  Saint John the Baptist: From Birth to Beheading , in which Professor Ben Quash, director of the Centre for Arts and the Sacred at King’s College, joins Dr. Jennifer Sliwka, curator of art and religion at the National

“The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God: 2  As it is written in Isaiah the prophet, “Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way, 3  the voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,’”   4  John appeared, baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5 And all the country of Judea and all Jerusalem were going out to him and we