Editing Fast Fridays: 30 Minutes for God (section)

== Friday, Oct 11: "none greater than John the Baptist" ==
<blockquote>"Amen, I say to you, among those born of women there has been none greater than John the Baptist; yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he." ([https://bible.usccb.org/bible/matthew/11:11 Mt 11:11])<ref>"among those born of women" implicitly affirms of Jesus' divinity, as well as the existence of angels.</ref></blockquote>Not sure why, but over the past two weeks I’ve been thinking over the John the Baptist and why we spend so little time thinking about him in our worship. After all, Jesus said there were “none greater than John the Baptist”, so might we pay a little more attention to him? 

This week's Fast Friday happens to coincide with Thursday's third anniversary of my baptism, so I thought it'd be a great moment to discuss John the Baptist. 

I had posted here extensive notes on scriptural sources and ideas about the Baptizer, but to keep these entries short, I have turned those notes into a work-in-progress blog post: [[Blog: "none greater than John the Baptist"]]
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[[File:Samodreža,_Church_of_Saint_Lazar.jpg|thumb|Church of St. John the Baptist in Samodreža, also known as the "Church of Saint Lazar"]]
We reviewed those notes and tried to flush out popular Christian and our own perceptions of John the Baptist.  Dali pointed out that his homeland of Serbia, where Saint John the Baptist is simply called '''Sveti Jovan''' -- already showing a great reverence for him -- there are multiple churches named for the Baptizer, including the [[wikipedia:Church_of_St_John_the_Baptist,_Samodreža|"Church of St John the Baptist" in Samodreža]] (in today's Kosovo) and the [[wikipedia:Church_of_the_Nativity_of_Saint_John_the_Baptist,_Ostrovo|"Church of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist" in Ostrovo]] (in modern Croatia). Whereas the "Baptists" are so-named for baptism and not for John the Baptist, these Serbian Orthodox churches represent a strong affiliation with John the Baptist.  Dali says that his mother had a strong connection to St. John. 

The Samodreža church is dedicated to the beheading of St. John the Baptist, and, as Dali points out, it is the location where Prince Lazar, recognized as Saint Lazar in the Orthodox Church, gathered his forces in 1389 in order to challenge the Ottoman invasion. Prince Lazar was killed at the Battle of Kosovo, as was the the Ottoman sultan (the only time an Ottoman sultan was ever killed in battle).