Splash

Jesus Baptism:  An idea of how it might have been. 

Figure study by Juan Carreño de Miranda, in preparation for his painting Christ Baptized, circa 1682

He stood up to his thighs in the water, scruffy and unkempt but clean and wearing cheap, rough ill fitting clothes. He was at a wide, relatively shallow river crossing close by where people came from the village to collect water, or to cross. He had not been immersed himself but with his bending and the splashing he looked as if he had; water dripping from his long hair which he was constantly flicking out of his eyes.

Every so often there would be another splash as he ducked someone else under the slow, flowing water of the Jordan river. John was Baptising the people who came to him, that were prepared to repent and seek the forgiveness of God for his or her sins.

John had baptised many people that day, perhaps hundreds but nevertheless a small group waiting and watching from the river bank, who all seemed to defer to one of their number, had caught his attention. In particular, a slim youngish looking man in the group, with a look of sinewy strength about him, had intrigued John so he guessed this was their leader. After watching with his friends for a while, the slim man picked his way carefully over some stones by the river’s edge and walked slowly into the water to wade towards John, fully clothed. He did not even remove his outer robe as so many others had.

John turned back to the man in front of himself, waiting to be baptised, and asked him his name and said “Do you promise to sin no more, to obey God’s laws and seek his forgiveness?”. After the man had answered yes, John placed one hand on the man’s back between his shoulder blades and the other on his forehead. Pushing him back into the water, face up, John immediately assisted him to stand upright again, using the hand at the man’s back. As the man shook the water from his head and blinked it out of his eyes, John knew, without looking round, that the man he had seen earlier on the bank was behind him waiting his turn.

Turning to the man whom he already knew stood behind him, although he did not yet know the man’s name, he found himself looking into a pair of intelligent, piercing eyes that seemed much older than the look of the man himself would have suggested. “I’m Jesus, I’ve come from Galilee to be Baptised” the man said. “I can’t” John said, “it’s you who should baptise me”. “You must do this” Jesus said, so placing his hands as he had on so many others already that day, John pushed Jesus quickly back immersing him in the Jordan river and bringing him back to his feet.

As Jesus started to wade back toward the riverbank, the clouds overhead parted letting the sun blaze through like heaven had opened, catching a dove in it’s light and making it look as if the light were shining around it and casting it’s shadow briefly across Jesus, like the Holy Spirit passing over him. Everyone by the river saw this and also heard a voice, as the Spirit passed over Jesus, say “This is my Son, that I love; I am well pleased with him”.

Splash Again

Matthew 3: 13-17, My idea of how it almost certainly was not.

A tongue-in-cheek view of the same
events as the previous post.

Yuck, got a mouthful.

He stood in water that was almost up to his waist, from time-to-time moaning about how long it was going to take for his scruffy clothes to dry out and how cold his feet were. He was in the middle a wide, relatively shallow part of a river where people from the nearby village came to collect water, wash, or to cross. He wished for the umpteenth time that the women washing clothes were doing it downstream of him and wondered why they bothered at all, in such murky water. He also briefly wondered why he hadn’t thought to stand upstream of them. He had been standing in the water so long now that his skin was wrinkling.

He must have ducked a hundred or more people so far that day, who had come to be baptised and with every one he’d had to flick his wet hair out of his eyes as he stood up again. He was getting a bit fed up repeating and hearing the same few phrases every few minutes: “Do you repent”. “Yes I repent” splash, “Next”. He was also looking with mild surprise at the colour of his own skin, where the river had washed away the layers of desert dirt.

He was starting to get a bit uneasy about a group of a dozen or so blokes on the bank, watching him, talking amongst themselves and occasionally pointing at him or gesturing in his direction, sometimes laughing. Once he even shouted at them to shut up or go away. In the end, one of them, who seemed like he might be the leader of the gang, detached himself from the group and came down to the river’s edge. Sitting down he started to take off his sandals but one of the others shouted at him to “keep them on, you don’t know what’s in there”. Another shouted Take off your robe, it’ll take hours to dry. You don’t want to sleep in damp clothes tonight”.

Eventually he waded in fully clothed, too embarrassed to strip down to his undies. By the time he reached the man ducking people under the water, he was already soaking wet from head to toe, having slipped over twice on his way to the middle of the river Jordan.

John turned back to the man in front of himself, for a moment ignoring the new guy, muttered in a perfunctory way the words he’d been using all day and pushed him over in the water. The guy came up spluttering and moaning “that’s not fair, I wasn’t ready. Is that it?”. John waved him away negligently and turned to the bloke that had watched him for so long, with his unruly mates.

Peering closely he said to the new guy “should I know you, you look kind of familiar?. “The guys over there”, he said pointing to his gang still on the bank “call me Jez but I’m Jesus, maybe you’ve heard of me. I’ve come all the way from Galilee, just so you can Baptise me.

“Me, baptise you! I dunno bout that, mate. Seems like it oughta be tother way around”. “Look, John, I’m here now so just do it anyway, or I’ve wasted my time coming here”.  “Ok Jez, can I call you Jez too, Here goes” and he shoved him over just like the others. “Don’t you ever wait till people are ready” Jesus said spluttering as he came up and spitting out a mouthful of the river Jordan. “Yuck that tasted horrible”.

AS Jesus waded back to the bank, falling over and baptising himself twice more on the way, the clouds in the sky overhead parted. Looking up, he muttered to himself “oh no, Dad was watching. I might have guessed he’d have to stick his oar in”. However a moment later the sun shone through the clouds and, as Jez climbed back up the river bank to his gang he said, “see Dad’ll dry my clothes so I don’t catch a cold”.

A moment later, Jesus said, “Oh hang on a mo, Dad’s up to summat” and they watched as an invisible hand pushed and poked and shoved the remaining clouds together, until they looked a bit like a big, grubby dove. Then a booming voice that, caught everyone by surprise and startled all the other birds around into flight, thundered out ” that’s my Boy and he done good.