Advent and female evil

Advent is not all about Christmas but it is about various "comings". It starts with the Second Coming in the first week, then the Prophets who foretold future comings and today, the third Sunday, it focuses on John the Baptist, the last Prophet of the coming of Christ. Three candles are now lit. There is one Sunday to go before the last Sunday of Advent, Christmas Day. 

 Today, one has to meditate on the state of mind of John the Baptist, sitting in chains in Herod's prison. John had preached that judgment was nigh and that the axe was at the root of every bad tree. Now he sends a message to Jesus asking if He is the one who will conquer evil and free the captives sitting in darkness - or whether he should hope for someone else. Jesus replies telling him to look at the signs of HIs ministry which are fulfilling Messianic prophecies. Sadly He does not promise him release from the evil circling him ever closer. 

 The background was a royal marriage. Herodias, a daughter of Herod the Great, had divorced Herod Antipas's half brother to marry him and Herod had got rid of his first wife to marry her, which caused a war which irritated Rome in later years. Herodias spelled trouble that resulted in their eventual expulsion from Galilee. Somewhere in France (Gaul), both Herod and Herodias died, kingdomless. 

Herodias was doing wrong without a conscience because of resentment eating her up inside against the popular preacher who had condemned her marriage to Herod as 'unlawful'. So when Salome, her dancing daughter, is offered an open promise by a probably drunken Herod Antipas, she is persuaded to fulfil her mother's dearest wish and ask for the head of John the Baptist. He was a blockage in Herodias's imagined path to prestige and power, a mere annoyance which would be 'eliminated'.

Little did she care that the people said John was 'Elijah' and that John was the greatest human being to have lived on the earth before Christ. She respected no one. 

 There are rare and 'attractive' female psychopaths who care nothing for the norms of society in their cold pursuit of power, prestige and money. They respect absolutely no one, especially not those who are great. But eventually their behaviour leads to their expulsion from society and to their total exile. As someone has said "Before you indulge revenge, dig two graves - one for yourself".