The Gospel According to the Son

10

People said, and it was true when I saw him, that the Baptist wore but one small wrapping of camel's hide to conceal his loins. He was so naked to the sun that he looked darker than any of his visitors, a thin man with a thin beard.

I had also heard how he believed that meat and wine inspire demons to live in one's body; therefore he ate nothing but wild honey and locusts, the poorest food of the poor. Yet it was said that these locusts could devour all the disbelief in the hearts of those who came to John. And the wild honey gave warmth to his voice when he spoke in the words of Isaiah: " 'The crooked shall be made straight and the rough ways made smooth.'"

Yet I had also been told that the locusts he ate kept him harsh in spirit and he would greet penitents by saying: "Generation of vipers, who has warned you to flee from the wrath to come?"

The people would ask: "What shall we do?" And John the Baptist would answer: "Let him who has two coats give one to the man who has none." And he would always speak of the man mightier than himself who was yet to come.

Yet when I first saw his face, I wished to hide my own. For I knew that he would not be long among us. And I knew this as if I heard a beating of wings overhead.

I had joined a group of many people and so I could stare at John before he saw me and was able to watch the pilgrims as they were baptized and departed. I remained. Even in the loneliness of this place in the desert, he still could not see me, for I concealed myself in the shadow of a rock. It was only when the others were gone and the stones were hot from the sun that I came forward. To which he said, "I have waited for you."

His eyes had more light than the sky, yet they were paler than the moon. His thin beard was long. The hair that grew from his ears was matted, and so too was the hair that grew from his cheeks. A wing and a leg of a locust were caught in his beard. I wondered how this man who bathed others and washed himself many times a day could still show such leavings. Yet it was not unfitting. His face was like a ravine and small creatures would live within.

Looking at me, he said, "You are my cousin." Then he said, "I knew that you would come today."

"How can you know?"

He sighed. His breath was as lonely as the wind that passes through empty places. He said, "I have been told to wait for you, and I am tired. It is good that you are here."

I felt so near to him that I soon confessed my sinsùI had never done as much for another. I would have deemed it belittling to whatever pride I had as a man. (For my sins were too small.) I might be a master carpenter and thirty years of age, but I felt young before him, and modest and much too innocent for such a grave man. I searched to find evil in myself and came back with no more than moments I could recall of disrespect toward my mother and contests in the night with lustful thoughts. Perhaps there had been a few acts of unkindness when judging others.

"Well," he said, "you can still repent. Our sin is always more than we know." And John came behind me as I entered the water, and with the strength of a desert lion, he seized me by the nose and, with his other hand pressing upon my forehead, thrust me back into the river. Passing so quickly from air to water, I gasped first at my loss of breath and then from all the water I swallowed. Still, in this moment I saw many things, and my life was changed forever.

Was the Holiest descending toward us in the shape of a dove? And when I came up from the water, the dove was on my shoulder. I felt as if much had come back to me from all that had been lost. I was one again with myselfù a poor man, but good. And then I felt more. I had a vision of glory. The heavens opened for an instant and it was as if I saw a million, nay, a million million of souls.

I heard a voice, and it came from the heavens. It came into my ear and said: "Before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee." Fear and exaltation were in me then, and in greater measure than I had ever known. I raised my face to the heavens and said, "Lord God, I am like a child."

And the Lord spoke as He had to the prophet Jeremiah. I heard: "Say not 'I am a child,' for you shall go to all the places that I shall send thee." And I felt as if His finger blessed my mouth even as the beak of the dove touched my lips. His Word came into me like the burning fire in my bones when I was twelve and sick with fever.

Now John withdrew his hand from my head and we stood in the river. Away went the dove. And John and I spoke to each other a little. I will tell of that, and soon. But when I left, I knew that I would never see him again. He began to sing as I left, but it was to the River Jordan, not to me. And the taste of that brown river was still in my mouth and the dust of the desert in my nostrils as I set out on my long march home to Nazareth.