Baptiser - Read: Mark 1:1-8
Contemplation
The wilderness is a harsh place – not desert exactly, but scrublands with no shelter and not much evidence of human life … but there is beauty – acacias and the occasional palm tree, wildflowers, gazelles, even the odd leopard. Can I feel the sand under my feet and in my face, the wind? What about the smells of plants and the passing of animals? What sounds – if any – do I hear in the apparent barrenness?
Yet…there are signs of life. A river, the Jordan so much a part of Israel’s story, snakes through the landscape … and, wait! Who is this strange man? While he preaches baptism and is heading down to the river, he doesn’t seem to wash much, and his dress is strange and wild – almost as if he IS a native here in this bleak place. Despite the rough clothes, he has – a presence about him. He comes closer and I can notice more. Now, suddenly, as if from nowhere, a big crowd of people is coming behind me from the towns and villages, drawn to this lonely place. They come from all walks of life – soldiers from the occupying forces and the hated taxmen who hang around them, the poor, the lonely, the confused, men, women, children, people from the centre and from the edges – have also been drawn by this stranger and I can feel the hum in the crowd. There is a babble of voices in three or four languages, curiosity, yearning, hunger, pain. Smells of wealth and poverty, perfume and dirt, sweat and sadness. Everyone is pressing towards the wild man on the river bank, who welcomes them and washes away … what exactly?
What can I hear and see, taste, touch or smell?
Who is with me?
What do they say, feel?
What is the man saying?
What happens to me as we move towards the water’s edge...?