ALIVE: Chapter 128, Baptism beyond John

While walking in silence to the Jordan river from home the thoughts of the disciples were in different stages of awareness of who Jesus was. Peter, Andrew, John and James were the most aware. Yet, after the scene with Seth asking Jesus what he heard from heaven at His baptism, and what Jesus himself told Nicodemus about who He was, clearly the disciples were flabbergasted and had to mentally digest the revelation that Jesus was the Son of God…the Messiah? Would He free the Jews from Roman control? How? They weren’t soldiers. Jesus appeared to be completely normal and human, and yet…

None of the most alert and most curious disciples had the courage to grill Jesus about Himself. Besides, there was rarely an opportunity. Yet, what would he say? “Jesus, how does it feel to be the Son of God? To be God.?” How could they even be able to comprehend a reply? No, each man decided on his own to keep it in his heart and to observe. 

If he ever had a chance, John decided to talk to Jesus’s mother about it,. She would know how that could be. That thought, that flittered into his mind shocked John. She would know! John decided that he would have to keep these thoughts hidden in his heart. They were too astounding. He needed to pray, pray for comprehension and to know what God wanted him to do with this revelation. 

The troupe arrived at the Jordan a little after sunrise having left the house while it was still dark. The riverbank which had hosted great crowds of penitent people was now desolate, except for the shadow of a solitary man sitting on a fallen tree limb gazing out at the river. It was Nicodemus. The old distinguished man from the evening before was sitting and waiting for Jesus to arrive. He hadn’t been able to sleep all night and in the wee hours Nicodemus, arose from his bed, dressed and walked to the Jordan River as if he had been led to do so by the Holy Spirit.  

The disciples were surprised to see the Pharisee there, Jesus expected to see him, which is why He had made His men wake up before sunrise and start walking. Seeing Jesus and His men approach, Nicodemus stood up and walked over to them. He simply said, “I am ready.” 

The men faced the rising sun and Jesus led them all in prayer, worshipping and glorifying God together, and rebuking Satan. Jesus told each man to turn and spit on the ground three times as a outward sign of rejection of the devil and all its deeds. Then the men were told to turn toward the rising sun and accept the Lord God, vowing to love and serve Him every day of their lives. 

After the communal prayer, Jesus walked into the river, up to His waist. Nicodemus and the disciples entered the cold water, pushing against the current and the tide one at a time. Nicodemus asked the disciples if he could go first so he could leave before anyone else arrived and saw him there. They understood. 

In the river, Jesus placed His hands on the old man’s bowed head looked up to heaven and prayed silently, then He gently pushed the man to fully submerge him into the sea instructing him to ask God for mercy and forgiveness while the man holding his breath did so. 

His body begging for air. Nicodemus emerged as a new man, his old spirit having died in the water and its companion, his body, relieved by air when he arose from the sea, literally felt the rebirth. Nicodemus was surprised to fully comprehend by experience his psychosomatic birth. His question of the night before was answered as no words could have done.

Tearfully, Nicodemus thanked Jesus and struggled to get through the running water and away from the river without so much as a nod to the disciples he left behind. Dripping wet and cold, Nicodemus steeped in mental conversation between God and his new self, kept walking until he became fully dry and filled with peace. He looked forward to visiting his friend, Joseph of Arimathea to tell him and only him what had happened. Perhaps Joseph would want to be baptized too.  

One by one the other disciples were similarly baptized. When each man emerged out of the river, he walked to the shore, dried off with a cloth and sat quietly and patiently for the others absorbing in their minds the power of the baptizing experience. 

After all the men had been baptized Jesus too waded out of the river and to His waiting men. He said that they would wait for people to arrive who were looking for baptism. Then, each of the disciples was to lead the baptism sacrament. Each disciple from Peter to Judas felt ready, willing and able to baptize others.

Within a half hour, when the sun was halfway between the horizon and noon, remarkably people arrived looking for John the baptizer. Jesus withdrew to observe from a distance His men in a line, up and down the spot they had so recently been baptized, now baptizing others. 

By noon, the day was very hot and sunny. The water was so refreshing, as if the body literally materialized the refreshment of the soul. 

Two men when seeing that John the Baptizer was not at the Jordan River approached Andrew suspiciously who was baptizing to ask where John was. Andrew replied that John was at Aenon near Salim. They thanked Him and left for Aenon. 

…

When they arrived at Aenon the men spotted one of John’s disciples and told him that they went looking for John at the Jordan and that others were baptizing there. 

That disciple hearing the news waved to John in the water for him to come out. Curious as to what was so important, John walked out of the water to find out. He was told that others were baptizing in the Jordan in his place; it was that man Jesus and his disciples. He reported that the crowd there was growing when he left.

John surprised them with his reply because they expected John to be as outraged as they were. Instead he replied, “A man can receive nothing, except it has been given to him from heaven. You heard me say that I am not the Messiah, but, that I am sent before him. 

He that has the bride is the bridegroom: but the friend of the bridegroom, that stands and hears him, loves the bridegroom. He loves just to hear his voice. I’m not angry that Jesus’ disciples are baptizing in the Jordan. On the contrary I am very happy to hear this. He must increase, and I must decrease. I know this and I want it this way. You should too.”

John’s growing audience listened attentively, surprised at what they were hearing.

After a brief pause to allow the men to grasp what he was saying John continued, “That Man Jesus came to earth from heaven above. This makes Him above all of us. We are of the earth, we speak earthly things. But Jesus, being from heaven is far superior to us. What He knows of heaven, what He has actually seen and heard from heaven He tells us. This is so far above us that we can’t even comprehend it, because we don’t even have a frame of reference for what He says. 

But those of us who listen and believe what Jesus tells us, prove that we believe in God. We believe with all our mind and heart that God is true, and that He sent Jesus to us. This man Jesus speaks as if God is speaking to us.”

John looked upon the faces of his audience who were increasingly aghast. One man looked as if all the blood had drained out of his head, in fear. Unconcerned because he had more that needed to be said, John kept talking while many of them wondered how the baptizer knew all this saying, “God sent Jesus to us to speak plainly to us. God didn’t want to give us only a glimpse, a flash of reality, but through Jesus He tells us all that He wants us to know, and those who come after us. Listen to Him. Listen to Jesus. God is His Father and He truly is God’s Son.”

John knew this about Jesus ever since he heard God speak from heaven for the first time  on that day a year before when he baptized Jesus. Since then in prayer God confirmed it to him gradually until he came to comprehend the magnitude of Jesus’ existence. John remembered that as a child his mother telling him about her cousin Mary, His mother, her visit and when he leaped in her womb.

“God, the Father loves the Son. He loves Jesus whom He sent to earth. God gave everything to Him. How could I, look at me! How could I ever dare to be concerned that Jesus is baptizing, or even that His disciples were baptizing? I should be baptized by Him!”

John paused to let the men comprehend what he was saying, before the hammer came down that would change their lives forever. For John, it was as if he was baptizing these men with words instead of water. The effect was the nearly same. Their old ignorant man was dying inside, and they were becoming forever aware. He said, “Whoever believes in this man Jesus, the Son, will have eternal life. He will live forever.” Eyes wide open grabbed those words from the air. “But you, or anyone of you all who does not take what Jesus says to heart and follows Him and His teaching, will incur the wrath of God. It is that simple men.”

Everyone who heard and overheard John speak this way to his disciple and the men who just showed up were stunned. There was so much more to what he was saying than they could comprehend before they could accept it.

“Oh, okay. I supposed I’m sorry I even asked, or maybe not. Now that I’ve heard. Actually I went to the Jordan to be baptized by you John. And now I am here.”

Many of the other men echoed, “Me too.”

John looked at the men sympathetically and said, “Come, let’s go back in the water again. And after you have been baptized, go to your homes, and then you will be ready to understand what I just said, and why God sent you to the Jordan to be disappointed and suspicious. You were given a gift.”

The two men who had come from the Jordan to lambast Jesus and His disciples both felt as if they were shedding old skin, like a snake, as did John’s disciple, the one who called him out of the water to convey the news.

Meanwhile, those looking on had lost track of the conversation, it became hard to hear and they were distracted by the clamor of the sea and the other people. 

John turned and walked back into the river, not looking behind him at the two men following him.

When he stopped, they stopped. 

John lifted his head looking into the heavens and prayed silently for several moments, and then put voice to his prayers. The men felt chills going through their bodies. They couldn’t tell if it was from the temperature of the water or the Spirit entering their bodies with the power of an inner wind. 

Those first baptized men thanked John profusely and turned to enter into their new lives, leaving their former soul-consciousness, or rather unconsciousness behind forever.