Yeshua meets John The Baptist

At this point in the season of Advent, the figure of John The Baptist features. The Gospel readings for Advent 2 & 3 both feature him, and although the focus and theme last Sunday should really be on the Prophets, I decided to do something a little different. I again used some material from the work that Debbie had put in towards writing a life of Jesus in the form of a novel "Yeshua"- some written during her illness. As she put it, she wanted to get away from "men in tea-towels" saying "yea, verily" to genuine characters - inspired by how Hilary Mantel had depicted Thomas Cromwell in Wolf Hall. 

Sadly she only got about half-way before she died. I previously read a section out in church back in 2022 and many people valued it. It was strange reading her words out loud again - especially to a room where no-one present ever met her. However, the feedback afterwards suggested that her writing could still bring new insights and inspiration to a familiar gospel story. 

We pick up the action as Yeshua [Jesus] is on his way to meet his cousin, John The Baptist.

Chapter 4 - Baptism

He had never seen the roads so quiet. He knew the road to Jerusalem like the back of his hand, but he had only ever travelled it at festival time, caught up in a crowd of noisy pilgrims. This silent, solitary journey was a new experience.

He was used to time alone, of course, in the workshop; but there was something different about the act of walking; something that focussed the mind and the heart. One step, then another, then another. One landmark reached, then the next. Each day, a day’s journey nearer to whatever it was that was waiting for him.

Once he was in the hill country, he asked anyone he passed if they had news of John, and it wasn’t long before he began to build up a picture. Exactly how long he had been living as a solitary no one was sure, but it was clear he’d been in the wilderness for some time before his first explosive appearance at the palace in Herodium.  Apparently, he’d thrown himself into the path of the royal carriage, and quoted the scriptures at Herod for a full ten minutes, denouncing his adulterous marriage and warning him of the wrath to come. This, while wearing nothing but an animal skin, and shaking his Nazarite locks like a lion tossing his mane. Why Herod had not locked him up on the spot no one knew. The story was that he was terrified.

That was the start of it, and now, it seemed, he was everywhere; intercepting travellers on the desert roads, going from village to village, warning people of the dire state both of the nation and of their own lives. And people were listening. Well, he’d known that anyway, from what Levi had said. But now it was clear that Levi wasn’t exaggerating.  

He seemed to think something momentous was about to happen; something – someone – was coming.

“John? He’s the hope of Israel. Our leaders have sold us down the river to Rome – but John is calling us back. No more collusion! Blessed be the name of the Lord!”

“He’s preparing the way – a new Exodus from the oppressors!”

 “The Lord is on the move!” An old man gripped his wrist, his eyes staring as if he’d seen an angel, or a ghost. “That’s what he said. He has seen him! The time of our occupation will end – and it will end in fire. He has seen it all.” 

“Where will I find him?”

But the old man was muttering to himself, no longer listening.

He was just south of Jericho when, finally, a group knew where he was. Young men – no more than fifteen or sixteen, most of them – running, shouting, reciting psalms. Punching the air.

“Do you know where I’ll find John?” he called out to them.

“The Baptiser? Just keep going. Head towards the river, follow the crowds. Everyone’s out there.”

“He took us through the river – just like Moses.  We’re the new Israel!” Whoops and cheers from the rest of the group.

“No more lies from Herod. The snake!”

“We’re going to bring down the city with fire!” 

“God in heaven,” he thought to himself. “What is he saying to them?”

He was off the main road now, following the well - worn tracks towards the river, through the groves of date palm, out onto the lush green of the flood plain. In less than an hour, the sandy path had turned to mud, churned by the feet of others searching for the preacher everyone was talking about. 

He could hear them before he saw them. A general hubbub at first, echoing around the valley; then one voice, clear and sharp, splitting the air like an axe. 

“Children of Abraham! Do you think your ancestry is going to save you? Clinging to the past saves no one. Look at these stones – do they not have more of a history than any of you? Do you not think God could take them and make a thousand new children for Abraham if he pleased?”

He stopped in his tracks to listen.

“Do you know what we have become, Children of Abraham? We have become stones on the road; debris, litter, blocking the path of the One we say we worship. And do you know what time it is? It’s time to clear the road. It’s time to change. Time to stop talking about who we are, and start living it. Because believe me, there’s a judgement coming. And what I’m doing here is only the start.

You think I’m the one who can save you? Oh no. Think again. There’s one coming after me, and when he comes, you won’t know what’s hit you. All I’m doing is getting you ready for him. I’m washing you with water. When he comes, he’s going to bathe you in fire.

So come on, come into the water now. If you’re ready to confess, to turn yourself around, then come and do it now. Get washed in this water to show that you’re ready. Because the time is now, do you hear me? The time is now.”

Something inside him was moving, breaking open. They were children again, he and John, sitting in the Temple courts; he all questions, John all certainties. Everywhere there were walls, barriers. Keeping Israel pure, John said.  He had kicked the walls and hit the barriers till his hands were sore, but they had not moved, and he had been shamed into silence. 

But now, moving inside him was a spring. Bubbling up under the Temple floor, a trickle first, and then a stream, and it was welling up between the walls, pressing through the cracks, dislodging the stones, forcing a way from court to court until it was flooding every colonnade, washing over every altar. And now it was a river, hurling the rocks that had once been walls down the Temple Mount and out into the desert. 

He began to walk, and then to run, and the great, heaving sob welled up from the depths of him and shuddered through his chest. He struggled for breath. The sob ached in his throat.

The time was now. It had always been now. 

They were gathered just past the place where the river divided. The main branch flowed on down towards the sea; John was standing up to his waist in the stream that filled the wadi. Half the men of Israel seemed to be in the water with him. Yeshua watched them wading towards him, one by one. 

As each one approached him, he reached out and grasped them by the shoulders. Sometimes, there was conversation; sometimes, just his eyes searching their faces. Sometimes, he called out a scripture. Then he looked up, and prayed, and plunged them down into the muddy water, and up they came, gasping like new-borns, spluttering for breath. 

Yeshua left his outer garment and his bundle on the bank, and waded into the stream. His tunic dragged, his sandals filled with water like leaky boats. He made for a boulder, sat, pulled off his sandals and threw them back to the bank. Then he waded on, into the midst of the crowd. So many men. Boys scarcely more than children; old men who needed help to stand. Rich, poor; hard to tell with their garments shed on the river bank. Some praying; some talking; some larking around. Some desperate to be there; some just following the crowd. The river levelled them all. He was jostled and trodden on, his wet skin rubbing theirs, squelching the same mud, splashed by the same gritty water. He watched, and he waited.

And then at last John’s hands were on his shoulders. His arms seemed nothing but bone and skin and sinew, as if everything else had been melted away. Yeshua looked up, and let him stare into his face. The piercing eyes widened, then blinked. It took him a moment to register what he was seeing. Then let go of his shoulders, and nodded. “I knew you would come,” he said. 

He turned away, and began to wade upstream to where the rocks divided the river. Yeshua waded after him. They leant against the rocks, as the flow of the water tried to tug them back towards the crowd.

“This is about you. You know that, don’t you?”

“I know”. And he did know, although he scarcely knew what he was saying.

He wanted to say more, but the words bubbled, broke, spilled unformed into the stream. He lost all sense of how long they had been standing there. John’s face seemed to be unmaking itself, like the face of a dying man.

“Tell me what to do.”

“Baptise me” he said.

A frown. John’s eyes, confused, searching his.

“Am I wrong then?” 

“No.”

“Then I can’t baptise you. I need you to baptise me.”

He watched the clear fresh water foaming over the rocks, sparkling in the sunlight, then immersing itself in the flow, down into the mud and grit, the sweat and the spit and the dirt of his people. 

“It has to be this way. Come with me now.”

He turned towards the wadi and waded down, past the place where John had been standing, right into the midst of the crowd.  People were watching, wondering what was going on, what the Baptiser was going to do next.

“Here”, he said.

And now John’s hands again, on his shoulder, his back, and the relief of letting go was all there was, all he could feel, all he could know, and the voices around him were lost in the overwhelming of the water, and his ears were full of it, a mighty rush like the wind, and then, for a heartbeat, the sound of silence.

He let God look at him.

He was every mother’s delight as she holds her baby, every coral red sunrise over every tranquil bay. He was every flower, every tree; he was the song of every bird. He was the first day of creation, pure and flawless and good. He was what it meant to want nothing and need nothing else. And now, he was a shoot uncoiling, pushing  back up through the water to break the surface, new and yet who he had always been. He took a great gulping breath, and shook the water from his hair. Then he threw back his head, and laughed.

John was a boy again, poised on the threshold of himself, gazing into another world. “What do I do now?” he asked.

Yeshua looked at him, and his heart was filled with such tenderness he could hardly bear it. 

“Get some rest. Eat. Know that you are loved beyond all imagining.” He laid his hand on the skinny arm as gently as if John were a child, an injured bird.

“And then?”

“Keep watching. Wait. I don’t know yet.” 

“Will you stay here?”

He gazed across the wadi; so many people, so much need. He shook his head. “I have to go. The next part, I need to do alone. But I will come. I promise, I will come.” 

What did John see, as he watched him wading back to the bank? A shadow? A trick of the light? A projection of his own exhausted dreams? All of these, perhaps. He only knew that it shone, and hovered, and its presence lingered like the scent of lilies even when it was gone. 

(c) 2016 Debbie Peatman