The landscape was desolate, mostly rock and sand. Life existed, but survival was a hard fought battle that took place everyday. Nothing was taken for granted. Nothing was given.
He sat in the meager shade of a rock. It was his only protection from the merciless rays of a sun that seemed to have come too close to the earth. It wasn’t much, he thought, but enough. The stillness around him was profound, offering no distraction or enticement. Life here was as hard as the rock that gave him shelter, with no sympathy for the human condition. This was understood and accepted.
Why am I here? He had asked himself this question countless times, even as he knew the answer. He was waiting, just as he had been waiting all his life. He came from a people that waited, that clung to hope and a promise made long ago.
As far back as he could remember, his parents had spoken of the visitations of angels. In words of awe and wonder they recounted these visions concerning their unborn child, foretelling his role in the unfolding drama of God. Their joy and certainty were without question. He had grown up with these stories and he had grown into these stories. He had come to understand and confirm these things within himself. There was a witness in his soul that said yes, though the details were not yet known.
He would announce the arrival of the long awaited Christ, the Savior of his people. He would make them ready for the Mighty One of God. He was to lift his voice to speak the very words of God, “Prepare...”. His name was John, but he was here to speak of someone else.
Though long in coming, he sensed that the time was at hand. Everything that went before was giving way to the now. It was like a finger poised above water, not yet troubling the surface, yet somehow the water was aware of the coming immersion.
People came out of the towns and cities to hear him. They left their creature comforts to listen to this man, beyond the limits of their normal lives and for reasons that weren’t exactly clear to themselves. They heard in his voice something that drew them. “Repent, turn to God”! It was not a new idea, but somehow it was as it came from the lips of this man. A restlessness was stirred. An unspoken emptiness was touched. They went to see.
What they saw was a man of no pretense. He lived simply. His clothes were rough. His food consisted of what he found to eat around him. At times it could be honey, but more often than not, it was locusts. He did not seem to bothered or concerned about food the way some would. Something else occupied him, quite beyond the day to day. He appeared to be focused on something beyond the ordinary. A man on a mission.
His message was as uncomplicated as it was compelling. “Repent of your ways and return to God!” For some reason this was quite different from the usual fare heard from their religious leaders, with all its requirements, laws, and interpretations. They assumed with confidence that God was with them, that they spoke for God. For some reason, all of that seemed empty in this place of emptiness. There were no walls here to block one’s gaze. The noise of town life receded into a silence broken only by a heartbeat.
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