THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW
Matthew the editor: Mt 14,1-13
Hopefully you discovered that Mark has framed or bracketed the story of John's execution (Mk 6,14-29) with the sending out (Mk 6,12-13) and the return (Mk 6,30-31) of the apostle-disciples from their mission. This composition is a typical Mark "sandwich" where the inner story is a commentary on the outer story. Mark has therefore used the story of the fate of John the Baptist to show that the apostles can be prepared for suffering, perhaps even martyrdom, on their mission.
Matthew however has already told of the mission of the disciples as the lead-in to the discourse of chapter 10.
He has therefore removed this framework of Mark. As a result, Matthew's editing has linked the execution of John the Baptist more closely with two incidents about Jesus himself. In the preceeding story (13,54-58), Jesus was rejected by the people of Nazareth so now John is also being rejected. Perhaps the more interesting connection is with the episode that follows (14,13-21). John's fate is sealed at Herod's birthday banquet, it's a banquet of death (14,10). In the following story, we will discover how Jesus instead offers a banquet which is life giving (14,20). We can compare the two banquets in more detail once we have read the two stories.
We can now return to the main page to begin our reading of the chapter.