A Story of Jesus and the Desert
[First Installment]
After
it was over, he didn't remember 40 days - what came to mind were moments when he heard, or remembered,
or lived out the words of God. He entered the desert because he had been driven
there. When he made his way out of the desert, he had come to understand
that in living out the words of God, he had become God's Word.
Few
go into a desert willingly, and only the foolish go there alone. He had
entered the desert late on that first day as a kind of surrender - he had
surrendered to a bird.
*
* * * * * *
That
day the Sun had been a friend. It warmed the edges of the chilly Jordan,
where once again a crowd had gathered. They came to see the Wild One -
the Baptizer. Those in the crowd had been raised on children's stories
about the Prophets - the ones who were so filled with God's voice that they
would burst forth SHOUTING the pronouncements of the Most High. On
countless evenings they heard tales of Moses, who knew God face to face and who
yet - for a time - lived to tell the tale.
They
had heard the stories of Elijah who, reckless of the power of Kings and Queens,
had called down fire from Heaven - and had even ridden a chariot of that fire
back to the gates of Glory.
For
those in the crowd such stories had the safety of distance. They were
stories of a Time Before. The stories could thrill the imagination
without making them feel the unsettling fear their forefathers had experienced
when encountering the ones who had just seen the Holy up close. They had
grown up with the stories about
the Prophets without for one minute expecting that they would ever see one.
And
then John had appeared. He preached in the wild places, and people came
to know how their ancestors must have felt. In the Times Before people had suspected
that the Prophets were half-crazed by their time in the presence of the
Almighty. When John came preaching and baptizing and living in the wild,
his people watched, and wondered - and after a time they came down to the
Jordan to be baptized.
When
Jesus came to the Jordan he, too, watched and listened. He could hear
John's voice carrying over the water and the rocks from afar. "The axe is laid to the very root of
the tree! Every tree that does not bear fruit befitting repentance will
be slashed down and cast into the fire that never dies!"
He
saw children run and cling to their mothers at John's approach, and he saw
grown men step back when the Baptizer looked their way. But he also
watched John when he would move towards those who were ready to enter the
River. He would meet them by the rocks, and with the gentleness possessed
only by the truly strong he would bend and unlace their sandals, then lead them
out to the deeper places.
There
his powerful hands would grasp them as Baptizer and penitent plunged beneath
the water together - then burst up wet and shaking in the warm air as John's
voice would echo, "Clean!
Clean!"
Into
this roisterous scene Jesus plunged, and when they came face to face even John
was silent for a moment - his face full of surprise and recognition.
Jesus had smiled, and nodded - and then there came the dive into the waters of
baptism.
There
was one quiet moment when the Jordan closed over them - one moment when the noise
of the multitude was replaced with the muffling sound of the river. Dark
coolness replaced the piercing sun. One moment - and then came rush back
up into the air. Flashes of light surrounded them as drops of water,
flung from hair and beard and robes were caught by the sun.
Then
came a more intense light - a rare orb of summer lightning shone brief but
bright as sunlight - and then the thunder roared - and as it echoed Jesus heard
a voice in the midst of the roar saying, "Beloved!"
It was a moment that could fill a man for a lifetime. Questions and
dreams were answered together, and the road ahead seemed to open before
him. Then came the Sign.
Out of the sun's glare the men became aware of wings. A dove came lower,
then settled on Jesus' shoulder. John's eyes grew wide, and his mighty
voice was stilled again. The river rilled past, the water tugging at the
robes of the two men. As they walked towards the river's bank, the bird
remained - fluttering and stepping to maintain a perch as Jesus moved.
The crowd had grown silent and watched as the men stepped onto dry
ground. The only movement was the rush of the smallest children to see
the bird now resting serenely on Jesus' shoulder. They crowded in
reaching and laughing. When the dove burst suddenly into flight tiny
hands stretched higher tracing after - then the bird wheeled back in a flash of
white feathers and a chorus of delighted shrieks arose as the little ones
scattered.
As it turned out, there would be no chance to talk with the Baptizer - or
anyone else. There was much to discuss on such a momentous day, but the
dove kept wheeling and diving at Jesus.
At first he laughed - as did his followers and the crowd - at the sight of a
grown man being harried by this flurry of white wings. There was a single
moment of respite - when he stopped to regain the sandals he had left on a rock
- then the bird flew at him again and again. With a final laugh he lifted
his strong arms in surrender. He walked in the direction that, it seemed,
he was meant to go. The dove was now leading, setting out a path.
Jesus walked away from the River - away from friends and familiar voices - and
into the silence of the desert places.
* * *
For a brief moment, the voices of the
friends and strangers back by the river with John were within reach. He
could have turned back from this strange journey with ease. A glance back
would have shown him John - standing - watching - wondering - as Jesus and his
unlikely Guide continued off into the distance. There had been no moment
when John could tell him that he had watched and waited for the Sign of the
dove. In any event, no words could have described John's state of mind
when his vision of a hoped for Messiah was shaken from Idea into Incarnation -
when the thoughts of someday
crystallized into the awe-filled realization that This is the Day.
Behind John the river stilled flowed
and tumbled. The children turned to new diversions. Their parents
gazed at the retreating figure of Jesus, then back at John. As the
Baptizer stepped again into the cold and familiar waters of the Jordan, his
Prophet-voice began to rise again. "I
have told you that One is coming who is mightier than I." He
plunged a sun-browned hand into the current and threw an arc of water towards
the sky. "I have baptized
you with water," - his arm fell to point at the figure of Jesus
disappearing into the desert places - "He
will baptize you with the Holy Spirit fire!"
In the distance John's voice faded as
Jesus continued to walk. The sun began to fall towards the evening, and
from time to time the dove would flutter back. Soon only the occasional
wing-sounds and the gentle crunch of steady steps on stone and sand and the
flutter of a robe's sleeve could be heard.
Long before this day, Jesus had
learned to see more than just what the world put before him.
When sprouts would shoot up where the
sowers had sowed, he did not see just the beginning of a crop, he saw a
thousand individual miracles. When he looked at the wildflowers covering
the hills around his home, he saw evidence of the Creator's care for
beauty. So when the dove appeared at his baptism and seemed to want to
lead - or drive - him into the desert, he was willing to go. He followed
with expectation that the Spirit of God - as familiar to him as his own breath
- would be waiting for him there.
It was not the first time that he had
gone apart, by himself, to a lonely place. It would not be the last
time. This day was different, though, from mornings when he would go out
before the break of day and greet the rising sun with prayers he had known
since his childhood. This journey would last for days and weeks and go on
through all of their long night-times, too.
He watched the moon begin the night's
journey across the open sky. Before he left the desert he would see the
moon's face wax and wane until he knew that a month had passed - and he would
watch it for more than a week after that.
He would know days of both weariness
and worship. He would feel the pangs of loneliness, as well as the
trepidation of realizing that he was not in the desert alone - there was an
Enemy there, coaxing him between despair and rash action. But, as he had
expected, the Spirit was there, too - still leading him.
He would be gone so long that family
and friends would begin to worry. Many who walked into deserts were never
seen again.
He would be seen again, though, and
heard. Before he walked out of the desert he would come to see clearly who he was, and the path he was going
to take - and the assurance would come to him in a way that a boy growing up in
Nazareth could never have imagined.
[Finale]
It takes time for the desert to do its work. Even one who looked into the world as deeply as Jesus did could come to see more - if the small, slow lessons of the desert were given time to soak in. Somewhere in the midst of all the days came a Moment when Jesus knew the grandeur and humiliation of his name - and the road that would lead him to where he could redeem this beloved - broken - Creation. This moment came to him - as most do - surrounded by ordinary sights and sounds.
Ordinary until they began to reveal the deep truth of Creation.
* * *
Jesus had always drawn strength from the times when he was alone. He could meditate for long hours on the fascinating face of the everyday world, but the human body is as insistent as a child - so, from time to time his muscles would cry out their need for movement. He would rise from his contemplations and in his walking would find a different kind of rest.
Without food for his body, he fed his spirit on the sights before him. He watched as, indeed, the Heavens declared the glory of God in the pageantry of the night sky. Light and light and light shone out from almost unimaginable distances, but always the light - however far away - would by its nature overcome the darkness. It was a reminder he needed when the Enemy found him in the desert.
On a day when his journey brought him to a place where there was a pile of small, rounded stones, a memory brought a smile to his face. The size and shape - even the color! - of many of the stones reminded him of the small loaves that Mary would press into his hand when he would go out into the day. He had by now been fasting long enough that he did not think continually of hunger, but the stone-loaves made him think - with a rueful smile - that it had been many days since he had filled his body and not just his soul.
He became aware again of the ceaseless sounds of the sand skimming over the desert rocks. In time the hiss of the sands began to resemble a faint voice (it is the sort of thing that can happen in the desert). In time, though, it began to sound not only like a voice, but like a question.
"If you are really the Son of God, why don't you simply command the stones to become the bread of which you are dreaming?"
When he recognized the doubt pulling at him from the question, he realized that the voice was real. He was not alone in this deserted place - the Enemy was there, too. With the weariness that comes when temptations are repeated, Jesus turned to face the conflict. He knew that this was not a battle about bread or miracles - it was a struggle about whether or not it could be true that he was to usher in the very Kingdom of God. Could it be true that something as grand as God's reign would enter into a world so filled with the Ordinary?
He found that he had picked up one of the stones. As he looked at the stone and remembered the loaves from his mother, he could also hear the voice of Joseph and his teachers who would tell the story of the Manna which fed God's people in the wilderness - It was a story about remembering God's presence.
He answered the temptation with words from the story - "It is written, 'Man shall not live on bread alone. Life comes from every word spoken by the voice of the Most High.'"
In the words of the story Jesus found not just a memory - or even an answer - but something deeper. He found he was inhaling the power of the Word.
He would need it.
The Enemy dropped the answered temptation like a stone and moved on. Jesus' vision raised until he was looking to the most distant edges of the desert. He saw the far away hills, and as he thought of all that was located beyond them, it seemed that he could see not just the cities, but entire kingdoms. There was a moment of time when he could see all the variety and promise of each of the lives of myriad peoples - and then the whisper of temptation came again.
"All of this creation has been delivered into my hand, and I can give it to whomever I will." From the direction of the voice Jesus began to recognize a figure. It was sculpted from darkness, with no light of its own, but it bore the reflected glory of all the Kingdoms and tribes of this separated world. "All - all - all - the hopes, the possibilities, the lives - I can place in your hands now." Then, along with the whisper came the cost. "Kneel before me, and I will wrap you in all of this glory this very day."
The the Word - the truth behind all the words of all the stories came to Jesus, and he stood facing the distant figure and spoke, "You know well that it is written - 'You shall worship the Lord Most High, and the Lord only shall you serve.'"
After that the figure of the Enemy came as near to Jesus as could be dared, and the vision changed. Now the view was that from the very pinnacle of the Temple - of the people massed in the Holy City. It was the place where - above every other place - the minds of the people turned to thoughts of the Almighty.
From the Darkness close at hand the voice came again - no longer a whisper, but now as a challenge. "Are you the Son of God?
If you are, then show the celebrated power of the Most High in an unmistakable way, and throw yourself down from here, for" - there was a pause as true words were bent through the mouth of the Enemy - "IT IS WRITTEN, 'He will give his angels charge over you.' IT IS WRITTEN, 'They will bear you up on their hands so that you will not so much as dash your foot against a stone!'"
At that Jesus faced the figure of the Enemy, and answered, "What the Word says is this: 'You shall not test the Lord Most High.'" Under his gaze the Enemy, and the whispers, and the visions all withdrew.
Jesus recognized that this was only a retreat - until a more opportune moment should arise for further temptations. The great Battle was still to be fought. For now, though, he stood surrounded once more by the sights and sounds of the desert.
And then, he realized, by something More.
Around him were the same stones and sand. The fullness of the desert sun was driving shadows away. As he looked around he once more began to see beyond what the light illuminated - he began to see Light itself, carrying all the colors in existence - filling the air around him. The light was not showing him beautiful things, the light was Beauty, and he watched it and breathed it in.
As he did, he became aware of what he could hear. This was not just the sound of the wind over the sand and stones, and it was a world away from the hissing whispers of doubt with which the Enemy had tried to pull him away.
This sound was what had awakened in human souls the very idea of Music.
He stood alone - still far away from family, friends, or followers - and in spite of his lonely state he began to hear Praise.
He looked around at the ordinary world in which he stood and realized that Creation was offering up a song of praise. The words came to him that described the time - could it be a memory? - when "the morning stars sang together at the foundation of creation."
Songs of exultation bound up in the stones themselves began to break forth and fill the air.
He watched the dance of light.
He closed his eyes and drank in the music.
He laughed and raised his hands in thanks.
Then - from the middle of the colors - the Dove came again. It was a final benediction on his days in the desert. The white feathers flashed in a circle through the stone-songs of praise, and then began to show a new path - this time leading out of the desert and onto the road of redemption that was for Jesus alone.
* * *
There would come a day - and it would not be so very far off - when Jesus would draw near to the Holy City as some of his followers shouted his praises and called him the King who comes in the Name of the Lord. In the midst of that raucous display, some of the religious leaders of the day would call out to Jesus, telling him to rebuke his disciples. They wanted Jesus to command his followers to keep silence.
When that happened, Jesus would give an extraordinary response. "I tell you, if these people keep silent, the very stones themselves will begin to cry out!"
How did he know?
What could inspire such an image?
He had been present when it happened the first time.
[The End]*
*[Editor's Note: Anyone interested in a digital copy of the story in its entirety can reach me by clicking on the View Profile link at the top/right of the blog page, where you will find an Email link. I will gladly send you a copy of the story with its original formatting. As I have said before, a blog is a brutal place to read anything longer than a paragraph or two, so if you have made it this far, I'm impressed - Steve]
